Relapse is frustrating and humiliating and it can leave you wanting to just throw in the towel and give up on your recovery. Take heart: You can find comfort in the fact that relapse is common. In fact, it impacts a whopping 40 to 60 percent of people in addiction treatment programs, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Some people even relapse more than once prior to achieving lifelong sobriety. Still, what do you do after you relapse? How do you regain the strength to keeping moving forward in recovery? These tips can help you help yourself after relapse.

• Let your emotions motivate you. After relapse, it’s pretty common to feel guilt, shame and humiliation and just want to hide away in disgrace. But this isn’t the answer. Instead, learn from your mistake and use these emotions to motivate you to get your sobriety back on track.
• Seek support. Again, hiding away will not help you. Don’t isolate yourself. Instead, reach out to your addiction counselor or sponsor or trusted family member or friend. It will likely be difficult to admit to someone that you slipped up, but don’t let that stop you. Reaching out is crucial for regaining your recovery.
• Consider returning to treatment. Depending on the severity of your relapse, you may need to receive more or different addiction treatment. Your addiction counselor or sponsor can help guide this decision.
• Be kind to yourself. Recovery is a lifelong process and relapse is not a moral failure nor does it signify the end of recovery. Rather than beating up yourself for having a relapse, think about how far you’ve come, what signs you may have missed and how you can learn from this slip-up. Create a plan that includes actionable steps you can take to prevent a relapse from happening again and/or derailing your road to recovery.

Relapse Recovery & Prevention  At Makana Path, we believe that relapse is a sign that a person’s spiritual health is lacking. Our clinical and complementary therapies enable our clients to have a spiritual awakening and bounce back after a relapse. To learn more about our chronic relapse program, call us today: 866-922-0776.