Common Fears and Concerns for Someone Leaving an Addiction Recovery House and How to Overcome them
What are some common fears and concerns for someone leaving an addiction recovery house? How can they best overcome those fears and deal with them, so as not to sabotage themselves and relapse?
Anyone who is living in a halfway house, a recovery home, a transitional recovery house, and so on has a huge advantage over people who just go through short term residential treatment. The advantage that they have is that they get to enjoy a ton of extra support in their recovery while still have quite a bit of freedom to get back out there in the real world. You don’t get this luxury when you stay in a short term residential facility.
But many people who are living in long term rehab have fears. These might be things such as:
* How will I keep myself motivated to go to meetings, attend groups, go to therapy, do stepwork, contact my sponsor, etc. after I leave the recovery house?
* What if I get depressed after I leave the recovery home because I don’t make new friends in recovery outside of here?
* What if I just plain relapse?
Most of these fears all come back to the same basic fear of relapse, but some of them are just framed a bit differently in the mind. For example, someone who fears losing motivation to stay sober is basically afraid of relapse. It is just a more specific fear because we all learn to see the warning signs in other people.
So if you are living in long term recovery then you should be honest with yourself and address these fears head on. Here are the things I would suggest that you do, as I did all of them myself in some form or another (and have since left long term rehab over 8 years ago with no sign of relapse):
* If you have a sponsor, talk with them about your fear of relapse. This could open all sorts of new avenues for you to explore, and all sorts of suggestions and actions that you might take. Be honest.
* Address it with your recovery home you are living in. Say to the group you are in: “If this place folded tomorrow, and we all had to leave, how would each of you stay clean and sober?” If you do not have a good answer for that question, then you should start prioritizing. You need housing. You need money. You need support. You need food. And you need a way to deal with your problems and frustrations in life. If you do not have answers for most (or all) of these sorts of questions, then that would indicate that you are not quite ready to make the leap to independent living.
* There is only one way to overcome these types of fears: you have to get organized, take action, and become stronger as a person. Simply making wishes about the future or praying or meditating about it is not going to actually produce radical change. No, you need to get to work and create your own future, with action and purpose. When you start doing this, and put in massive effort in order to make things happen, then you will realize that your fears are alleviated, and that you are taking charge of your life.
The way to overcome fears of relapse is to work such a dynamite program of recovery that the idea of relapse becomes distant and non-threatening. Yes, you can get to this point in your recovery without becoming cocky and sabotaging yourself. Stay humble, but put in the work to become stronger and more independent. This will alleviate fears of relapse and give you the life you always wanted.
Recommended Reading
Call Today
866-211-5538
24 Hour Treatment
