If you are a beginner alcohol drink are you might be excited for now, but as you continue to drink over some time, you will come to realise that there is no such thing as a healthy amount of alcohol to drink. Not every human being has the ability to keep their habits under control.
For some people, alcohol brings out the most terrible aspects of their personality, and they cannot do much to keep that hidden because they find it difficult to stop consuming alcohol.
After returning from rehab or alcoholics anonymous, the priority of people becomes staying clean and preventing a relapse.
However, whatever it was that made the individual begin to consume alcohol in the first place might not have been eliminated and for this reason, alcohol relapse might have to become a lifelong battle.
What this means is that there has to be a consistent system put in place to help keep such a person grounded and prevent relapse for years to come.
In this article, we will be sharing with you some of the proven techniques that will help to keep people who have returned from rehab on a straight and narrow path, and away from their favourite bottle of alcohol.
1. Stay in connection with addiction services
Once you return from rehab, there is no doubt that it will be tempting to cut ties with all addiction services because you feel like you’re better.
In reality, maintaining a connection with addiction services can keep you reminded of how far you have come on your journey to recovery and give you reasons to continue pushing forward.
Do the best you can to remain in close contact with alcoholics anonymous meetings or any other provider of rehab services for alcoholics. This will help you work step by step to get a better life for yourself void of alcohol.
Formal systems like this have rigid roles and structures that would go a long way for people who are worried about falling back into addiction and destructive habits.
2. Avoid this triggers
Normally, the reason why people seek out alcohol is to help them deal with some specific stressful life situations.
If you want to embark on a journey to recovery one way to make your journey seamless is to recognise what your triggers are and avoid them as much as possible by occupying yourself with other productive activities.
Doing this will drastically reduce any chances of experiencing a relapse in future. One major component of problem drinking is the ritual associated with consuming alcohol.
If you put in enough effort and you managed to avoid your triggers, then you would notice you will not be reminded of the rituals, and that will pay off on the long run.
3. Understand that it is never always easy, but you have to be willing to try
A lot of people make it seem like recovered alcoholics are 100% in control of their thoughts all the time, but that is usually not the case.
If we were honest with ourselves, we would see that recovered alcoholics sometimes have negative thoughts because they are still human and that intense craving to reach for their favourite bottle of alcohol will still come.
The chances that this intense craving for alcohol will completely disappear is very slim. But as long as a recovering addict condition themselves to understand that the thoughts will never completely go away, but they have the strength to avoid giving in to the temptation, then they can prevent themselves from having a relapse.
4. Do your best to manage stress
Stress is a major contributor to problem drinking. Whenever you find yourself in a stressful situation, and you begin to get the urge to consume alcohol, you must immediately begin to search for something else to occupy your mind look for a gainful activity like exercising, reading a good book or even meditation.
The target you are looking to achieve here is to replace the negativity by trying to occupy your mind with coping strategies that are more positive and that will help to keep stress at bay.
If it is possible for you even to get a gainful activity you can do from home that will fetch you money instead of drinking alcohol, that might be a better option.
Because people are motivated by a sense of reward and if money is that sense of reward for you, then, by all means, search for online jobs that will fetch you money from the comfort of your home.
5. Get a hobby
I would like to believe that every single person on this planet has something that they enjoy doing. The question now is, how positive is this hobby of yours?
If going to the bar to sit with your friends is what you do for fun on a regular day then you need to look for other positive hobbies like reading cooking or even painting. Life is all about learning, to relearn, and unlearning.
So you can search online and search around you for other wonderful things you can do for fun and watch how they replace all the negativity around you.
The conclusion
Something you should always have at the back of your mind is that there may never be a point in the life of an addict where they can say they are truly recovered and can comfortably not worry about drinking whenever they are faced with stressful situations or painful issues.
You must understand that recovery is a lifelong process and it involves minimising relapse as much as you can, as well as reducing the overall effect of the substance you are addicted to on your life as a person.
You would face a lot of obstacles along the way, and the bumps would be much at some point that you will feel like giving up. But it is always very possible for you to draw strength from inside and also from your loved ones.
So surround yourself with people who care about you and continue to strive to be the best version of yourself.
We hope that you find this piece of writing very helpful. If you have any extra tips you would like to share with us, please do not hesitate to use the comment section below
