How to Stop a Relapse After Making a Mistake

If you have just used drugs or alcohol after completing a stay inside an addiction treatment centre, you have two options:
1. To stop using drugs and alcohol, learn from your mistake and become even more driven to achieve long term sobriety
2. To give up on your recovery efforts and start using drugs and alcohol once again
What’s it going to be? Are you ready to return back to your addictive ways and to throw your life away or are you going to pick yourself up and become an even stronger person?
In this article, we are going to tell you how to stop a relapse after making a mistake and also how you can get back on the recovery path.
The Difference Between a Mistake and a Relapse
Some people believe that a mistake and a relapse is the same thing, but many addiction professionals think otherwise.
When an addict drinks alcohol or use drugs for a day or two, but they realise that they have made an error and quickly tries to get back to their recovery efforts – that’s a mistake.
A relapse occurs when an addict allows a mistake to get the better of them and they will abandon all of their recovery efforts to start using drugs or drinking alcohol again.
While it may be easy to use a mistake as an excuse to keep drinking and to use drugs, it’s important that you stop as soon as possible. Why? Well since addiction is a brain disease, your brain needs time to heal.
Even though a single use of drugs or alcohol won’t threaten your brain’s recovery process, using these narcotic substances for a week or two will bring you right back to the first day of your recovery.
What You Should Do After a Mistake or a Relapse
It’s important to understand that a mistake or a relapse isn’t the end of the world but it’s vital that you regroup and get back on the right path again. Here are some things that you can do to make sure that your error doesn’t get out of hand.
• Mistakes are common in the early stages after addiction treatment, but the good news is that they don’t have to grow into a relapse. The sooner you get back on your recovery path, the better.
• Making a mistake or suffering a relapse doesn’t make you a failure. It simply means that you need more preparation in order to achieve your recovery goal. You can use it as a learning experience so that you don’t make the same error in future.
• Take yourself out of places that can cause you to experience cravings to use drugs or alcohol again and stay away from people that drink or use narcotic substances as well.
• Try to get back in contact with your addiction counsellor, your sponsor or someone that plays a part in your recovery.
If you have suffered a relapse, the best way to help yourself is to get back into rehab. We can provide you with immediate admission into the best private addiction treatment centres in South Africa, the United Kingdom and Thailand. Call us now and let one of our counsellors provide you with free, expert and confidential advice.