Relapse Prevention in Pearland, TX

At our center for relapse prevention in Pearland, TX, we help our patients coming out of medical detox in Pearland understand why relapses occur, and we help them focus very closely on engaging in strategies to sidestep them, avoid them and overcome them. Addiction relapse prevention, in reality, is the hardest and most important part of any rehab program.

Once you're no longer actively using after detox, you may congratulate yourself for successfully overcoming your addiction. In reality, it may be a bit too soon to take your victory lap.

It could even be too soon if you celebrated your success a decade later. Addiction is a mental disorder, and it's a lifelong affliction. You get to be sober as long as you work on your sobriety. When you get careless, a relapse usually sucks you back in.

Why Do Relapses Occur?

The most important thing that anyone addicted can do to escape their condition is to learn the science of how and why addictions happen. It can be an eye-opener to understand how drugs get into the brain, and change the way things operate in very specific areas -- particularly, areas to do with learning, memory, instinct and motivation. The more you learn, the greater control that you gain over your addiction.

In the simplest possible terms, drugs have the effect of burning new, learned memories into the brain. With repeated use of drugs, the brain learns to be single-mindedly motivated to seek out drugs again, and to attach great value to the activity. Called cravings, these motivations can be extremely powerful, and the belief in the goodness of this activity can be unshakable.

Addicts experience relapses over and over again because these psychological changes to the mind cannot be removed. There is a lot of creative psychological work that can be done to overcome this challenge, however. Such work is done under our drug and alcohol rehab in Pearland which offer holistic treatment programs..

Learning to Avoid Triggers

One of the effects of drugs on the brain is to help it form deep, associative memories. With such memories, the brain is able to form connections between drug use and any number of unrelated environmental influences. In a person who tends to use drugs in response to stress, the brain will usually form an associative relationship between the two.

In another who tends to use drugs together with certain friends at certain clubs, the memories formed will include these influences. Associative memories are powerful and permanent; these people, forever afterwards, will experience deep cravings when stressed or see friends at clubs. The situation isn't unlike the classical Pavlov's Dogs experiment. The brain is simply able to learn very deep conditioning responses.

When these triggers are set off, the power of the cravings that follow can be impossible for nearly any addict to resist.

The hack to learn, then, is to avoid those triggers. In therapy, addicts put in hard work to recognize what their triggers are, and to develop strategies to avoid them. This, alone, can be a very effective way to prevent the possibility of relapse.

Overcoming Emotional and Psychological Deficits

People who come to be addicted to drugs tend to suffer from various serious emotional and psychological difficulties that make it extremely challenging for them merely to get through life, and to face everyday problems.

They may respond to minor difficulties with extreme disappointment or anger, lose heart at the smallest challenge, find everyday social situations impossible to handle, or find focus hard to achieve. These difficulties can make life so difficult they may turn to drugs for relief from the deep frustrations that they experience.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a significant part of drug relapse prevention. Offered in both outpatient and inpatient settings, it is a system that helps people work together with their therapists to analyze their thoughts and emotions, and develop new emotional, cognitive responses.

Other Strategies for Relapse Prevention in Pearland

There are highly effective therapeutic approaches against the many different challenges that addicts face. Motivational interviewing helps those who suffer from a motivational deficit to get better. Moral reconation therapy works for those who lack a deep moral and ethical value system.

The greater the variety of therapy that a center offers, the more effective the process is likely be with specific disorders or hurdles to improvement. Talk to us here at our center for relapse prevention in Pearland, TX. There's a great deal you can learn about this highly effective approach to freedom from drugs. Call us now for more information (877) 804-1531.