The decision to get help with substance abuse can lead to a hard reset in your life. Making this work can take a lot of work, especially if your closest connections support your addictive behaviors. Changing your exposure can mean making a lot of other changes.
1. Support Your Physical Health with Exercise
Part of your recovery may well include physical activity. You will need to be able to reduce the stress of detox, and some physical activity can get you back in touch with your body. This can include yoga, walking or hiking, and swimming to start.
2. Dietary Changes
In-patient rehab therapies may well include dietary changes. While this is an ideal way to support your body as you detox, dietary monitoring can make you uncomfortable. Your water and food intake may need to be monitored by staff members and you may need blood drawn if you have underlying physical health concerns. This small loss of privacy will be worth it.
3. Talk Therapy
During your detox process, you may not be in a good emotional place for effective talk therapy. However, as your body readjusts, your spirit may be ready for some guidance. The best rehab processes support you far beyond the detox process.
Talk therapy can help you
- address past trauma
- understand underlying mental health challenges
- locate your triggers and help you learn to manage them
Talk therapy can also include group therapy, which is another skill that can help you learn to seek out community.
4. Helping You Learn to Build Community
Community is easy when we’re young. We go from our family to school. Even if you don’t like everyone in your class, you have a built-in community. Leaving school, we go to work and find another community.
If your community connections are not supportive of your rehab desires, it can be extremely difficult to walk away. Humans are wired to stay connected and tribes can feel safe. The wrong community makes you unsafe. Learning to discern who’s health and who isn’t can be hard for some folks.
5. Group Connection
Learning to function well in a group setting can mean learning to be vulnerable. Many who develop addictions struggle to open up and look at some of their most painful experiences. Drug use may be masking old damage that we can’t bear to look at.
However, tapping into the courage that it took to survive these events can be just what you need to be able to share your experiences. With these shared experiences, not only can you heal yourself, but you can provide others an umbrella shield they need to find their courage.
6. Include Your Family
Addiction is not a solo illness. With the right connection to your family, there are rehabs in southern california that can help you rebuild connections with supportive family members and aid in your recovery process.
Some of these lessons can be quite harsh. You may find that some family ties need to stay broken. You may find that some family members are so broken that you cannot safely reconnect with them. In the right rehab setting, you will have the necessary support to make these assessments.
7. Animal Therapy
Your time in rehab maybe even more effective by participating in animal therapy. This can include equine therapy, canine therapy, and even some animal care. If you have never spent time caring for kittens or puppies, this experience can do a lot to help you break away from troubling thoughts that get in the way of healing.
8. Learn Proactive Behaviors
Some of us struggle with holidays; others find that we feel lonely or bereft on the weekends. Part of caring for yourself is learning to either say “no” to holiday gatherings with family members that trigger you. You may also choose to do something special for yourself on Friday or Saturday evening to avoid feeling alone.
Addiction is a complicated disease that alters how your brain works. Getting a handle on what pushes your buttons and encourages you toward unhealthy activities can go a long way toward protecting your body and brain. Therapy can help a great deal.
