How To Create A Relapse Prevention Plan

Even after you’ve completed treatment and achieved sobriety, trying not to fall back into harmful old patterns can be challenging. For example:

• Denying the physical sensations of cravings can feel like an uphill battle.
• Trying to use new coping skills to deal with everyday day challenges can be irritating and overwhelming.
• Intentionally avoiding people, places, and situations that trigger cravings can make you feel isolated.

Unfortunately, there’s no off switch to make the weight of all these changes go away. But having a relapse prevention plan can help you get through some of the more challenging parts of recovery without losing all the progress you’ve made. Here’s what you need to know about relapse prevention planning.

What Is A Relapse Prevention Plan?

A relapse prevention plan is a written list of strategies that can help you avoid relapse. The goal of the plan is to help you recognize the signs of relapse, avoid triggers, and keep you from reengaging in any form of substance abuse. Generally, your recovery specialist or sponsor will work with you to create a relapse prevention plan after you complete an addiction treatment program. The plan can be as detailed or open-ended as you like as long as you include a wide range of strategies and tools that’ll help you maintain your sobriety. For example, you may want to include self-care ideas, stress-relieving strategies, techniques to deal with cravings, and a list of people to reach out to when you need a helping hand.

Before creating this kind of plan, it’s important to understand what relapse is and how it works.

What Qualifies As Relapse?

Relapse is a return to substance abuse after experiencing a period of sobriety. Even though most people think of relapse as tangibly and physically using drugs or alcohol, relapse doesn’t typically happen spontaneously. Generally relapse happens in 3 distinct stages.

Experts believe that before individuals fall back into substance abuse, they go through an internal process that leads them back to using drugs or alcohol again. Remember, addiction is a brain disease. This means that your emotions and mind can contribute to relapse. In fact, relapse typically begins emotionally, then mentally, and finally, physically.

Emotional Relapse

In this stage of relapse, your emotions and behaviors pave the way for relapse. This can take the form of hiding emotions, not wanting to go to recovery meetings, avoiding family members and friends, and refusing to take care of yourself. You may not even be thinking about using drugs or alcohol, but the way you’re handling stressful and distressing emotions can make you more likely to relapse. Frustration, irritability, anger, isolation, defensiveness, and moodiness are common signs of emotional relapse.

Oftentimes, emotional relapse begins with stress. But instead of dealing with the stress in a healthy way or asking for help, individuals dealing with emotional relapse become overly anxious or depressed. When you feel this way, contact a sponsor or express your feelings in a peer support group. Not dealing with these feelings can start to encourage unhelpful or harmful thoughts which can lead to mental relapse, the next phase.

Mental Relapse

At this point, you may feel like there’s a war going on in your mind. Part of you may want to use addictive substances again while another part of you wants to maintain your sobriety. You might find yourself fantasizing about drugs or alcohol or glorifying your old life of substance abuse. As your cravings increase, you may:

• Glamorize your past
• Lie when questioned or confronted about cravings
• Think about the people you used to hang out with, places you used to go, and activities you used to do

Experiencing these signs doesn’t mean you’re going to relapse, but they do indicate that you need to check in with a sponsor or supportive network, let them know what’s going on, and ask for help.

Physical Relapse

By the time you’ve reached the stage of physical relapse, you’ve used drugs or consumed alcohol again — even if it’s just once. Even though this stage is the easiest to identify, it can be the most devastating to experience. You may feel lost, confused, and ashamed. You might even feel like a failure. You may even question yourself, wondering how you went from treatment to sobriety to abusing substances again. But this isn’t the time to beat yourself up, isolate yourself from others, or totally surrender to the relapse. Instead, this is the time to remember that you can’t get complacent about your recovery. This is also a good time to contact someone you trust who can help you get back on track.

Physical relapse is a common, normal part of addiction recovery. Here’s what to do if you relapse:

• Stop using.
• Contact your supportive network.
• Be honest about what happened.
• Get the help you need.
• Recommit to your sobriety.

Approximately 40 to 60% of people in recovery relapse within the first year after treatment. Although shocking, this number is similar to the relapse rates of other chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes. The good news is that recognizing the signs of emotional and mental relapse and getting help at those stages can help minimize your risk of physical relapse. Creating a relapse prevention plan can also help.

Steps To Create A Relapse Prevention Plan

While you can create a relapse prevention plan on your own, developing a plan with the help of a sponsor, treatment specialist, or substance abuse counselor can be really helpful. They can help you identify triggers, self-care practices, and supportive people to include in your plan. They can also help you talk through important aspects of recovery relapse prevention, such as:

• How you can consistently practice self-care to prevent emotional relapse
• How to deal with urges and cravings when they arise
• The people or person you feel comfortable talking to if you use drugs or alcohol

Whether you choose to create your relapse prevention plan on your own or with their help, there are a series of steps you can take to create an effective relapse prevention plan. Here’s how:

1. Take Some Time To Reflect On Your History with Drugs and Alcohol

As you think about ways to prevent relapse, it’s important to think about the nature of your addiction. Ask yourself if:

• There was a certain time of the year, week, or day when you were more prone to substance use. If so, be sure to include specific coping mechanisms to help you get through those times without substances like drugs and alcohol. Also think about self-care practices you can incorporate into your life during those times to help stabilize your mood and ward off depression or anxiety.

• Specific people were around when you used drugs or alcohol. If so, be sure to list those people as potential triggers in your plan. Also, come up with a few ideas about what you can do to avoid substance abuse if they’re around you or you run into them.

• Certain thought patterns made you more likely to use addictive substances. Thoughts like “I’m such a failure,” “My situation is hopeless,” or “There’s no point” can cause you to abuse drugs and alcohol. Identify these thoughts and come up with a healthy list of coping strategies you enjoy that can help you combat these thoughts and reframe them into positive, affirming self-belief statements.

• Certain circumstances, feelings, thoughts, or people caused you to relapse before. If so, be sure to list these challenges out alongside lifestyle practices and coping strategies that’ll help safeguard you should those circumstances occur again.

2. Think About The Recovery Goals You Want To Set

As you create your relapse prevention plan, keep your recovery goals in mind. You might even want to create a section in your plan that lists your recovery goals. When you’re dealing with cravings or unhelpful thoughts, you can read over these recovery goals as motivation. Your recovery goals should include all aspects of your life, including your:

• Career
• Health
• Finances
• Family
• Relationships
• Personal growth
• Physical fitness
• Extracurricular activities and hobbies

3. Talk Through and List Out Warning Signs of Relapse

Write out a list of scenarios and warning signs that could cause you to relapse. These could be feelings, thoughts, or behaviors that typically indicate emotional, mental, or physical relapse. Being familiar with these signs and recognizing them in yourself can help you avoid relapse.

Some of the most common signs of relapse include:

• Cravings
• Mood changes
• Secretive behavior
• Increased irritability
• Making impulsive decisions
• Distressed, depressed, or anxious thoughts
• Isolation and avoiding family members and friends
• Engaging in old activities, habits, routines, and social groups

4. Establish and Write Up Your Plan Of Action

Now that you’ve listed out the days, times, thoughts, people, and circumstances that have contributed to your substance abuse as well as other common warning signs of relapse, it’s time to establish and write out your plan of action. Write out what you intend to do when faced with these obstacles instead of turning to drugs or alcohol. If attending restaurants during happy hour entices you to drink, write out other activities you can do during that time of the day. You could exercise, meditate, spend time with friends, listen to music, journal, or watch television at that specific time instead.

Whatever you decide to do is up to you. Just make sure your plan of action is healthy and efficient enough to keep you away from the triggering situation, person, or place. The more specific your plan of action is, the better.

5. Keep A Positive Mindset

Thinking through your history of addiction, talking about relapse, and listing out potential triggers can be daunting. The entire process can unintentionally evoke fear and self-doubt. But you need to keep a positive mindset. Instead of worrying about all the things that can cause relapse, focus on the fact that you’re preparing and empowering yourself. Shift your perspective. Instead of thinking of the relapse prevention plan as a doomsday plan, think of it as a way of protecting everything you’ve accomplished so far. Don’t forget to celebrate yourself, either. The mere fact that you’re creating a relapse prevention plan means that you’ve changed your life, completed treatment, and obtained and lived out a certain level of sobriety. Keep a positive mindset.

Now that you know how to create a relapse prevention plan, here’s a little insight into what you should include in your plan.

Key Components of A Relapse Prevention Plan

Every relapse prevention plan is different. However, all plans, should include:

• Triggers. Anything that could cause you to use drugs or abuse alcohol again can be considered a relapse trigger. List the people, places, and things that could cause you to return to your old habits in your plan. You don’t have to list every potential trigger there is, but include people, places, things, and situations that are unique to you. Some helpful questions to consider include:
  • What people remind me of addictive substances?
  • What places did I visit to abuse substances?
  • What can I do when I can’t avoid triggers?

• Ways to manage cravings. A treatment specialist or sponsor can help you think through ways to manage cravings, but start by making a list of people you can call when you experience cravings. Be sure to include some of your favorite healthy coping skills in your plan. Exercising, journaling, staying busy, and participating in hobbies are few coping strategies that can help distract you from cravings.

• Resources and prevention tools. Think back on the tools and resources that helped you most during your treatment program. Aftercare support programs, support meetings, gratitude lists, and online therapy can help you avoid relapse. Supportive people can also be resources you rely on to help prevent relapse.

• A plan in case you relapse. Even though the ultimate goal of a relapse prevention plan is to prevent relapse from occurring, preparing for relapse can help you get back on track in case relapse does happen. Know who you’d call first. Write down what you’d say to them. Decide what you’d do to get the help you need. That might look like attending a support meeting or re-enrolling in a treatment program. The more detailed the plan is, the more likely you’ll be able to bounce back from relapse quickly and continue your recovery journey.

Helping You Avoid Relapse And Remain Sober

At Aftermath, we know that relapse is a common part of the recovery process. At the same time, we understand that relapse can be incredibly dangerous. Getting sober decreases the amount of drugs and alcohol your body can handle. Using drugs or alcohol after being sober for a period of time can increase your risk of overdose or death. The good news? Relapse doesn’t mean the end of recovery.

Our treatment programs and dedicated team can help you avoid relapse. We can also help you recover from relapse and help you get back on the path to sobriety. Your aftermath can be better than your past. Let us help you get there. Contact us today at (855) 712-9679 to learn more about how we can help you live the sober life you deserve.