Leaving rehab early is rarely the right decision. For the majority of young adults, leaving rehab before completing the full course of addiction treatment will result in relapse – within hours or days of exiting the rehab. And since your tolerance to drugs and/or alcohol will be diminished, using can easily result in overdose.

Recovery is a process; people need time to heal their minds and bodies from the destruction of addiction. If you leave too early in the process, you won’t have the self-confidence or life skills needed to avoid triggers, resist cravings, manage stress, establish healthy relationships, make smart and healthy decisions and heal mentally and spiritually. What’s more, once you leave, there’s no guarantee that you’ll build up the courage and strength it took to take that first step into rehab. In essence, you’ll be starting over.

Here’s a look at a few more risks of leaving rehab early:

• Fleeing treatment can cause emotional turmoil. You may feel depressed or angry or guilty – and these negative feelings can cloud your ability to think rationally.
• By leaving treatment early, you may be letting a loved one down (and possibly for the last time). This can increase feelings of loneliness and isolation and damage any relationships you may have just begun to rebuild. Plus, you’ll be leaving behind a network of peers who were willing to give you support.
• If you relapse after leaving rehab early, you will have a much harder time if you do decide to try to get sober again.
• Your decision to give up on recovery will damage your self-esteem and self-efficacy.
• Quitting the road to recovery may discourage someone else from beginning his or her journey toward sobriety.

Reclaim Your Potential If you or someone you love has left rehab in the past, it’s not too late to begin recovery again. Over the course of our 90-day recovery program, we help young adults take action to achieve the goals they have set forth through a combination of traditional and alternative modalities. To learn more about our approach, call today: 888-483-0528.