Description

Relapse Prevention Plan

The materials found at Journey to Recovery are designed as a tool kit for to help in your relapse prevention plan as well as treatment of mental health and substance abuse issues.

It is our philosophy that recovery must tackle chemical and emotional issues at the same time.

Treatment for co-occurring disorders is designed for two primary reasons:

1) Reduce symptoms

2) Prevent relapse.

You will encounter several key principles of change as you work through this material.

Relapse Prevention Plan Worksheet

Consider the following foundational elements from our philosophy of care in your relapse prevention plan:

1 Treatment and Relapse Prevention are choices. 

Mental health concerns and substance use issues may have addictive behavioral patterns and biochemical determining factors. Neurochemical, social, economic, and environmental factors blend together to cause mental health and substance use symptoms.

Regardless of the origins, treatment for the problem is a choice.

Even if you have a court order for treatment, you will get more out of treatment and this material if you engage your own will.

Choose, decide, and want to be an active and willing participant in your relapse prevention plan.

2 Your treatment and relapse prevention must be individualized.

Co-occurring disorders are extraordinarily complex.

Adding to the complexity is the variety of curriculum, workbooks, and treatment programs; some have more structure and some have less.

Your treatment, however, must be individualized.

It must speak to your issues and personal patterns.

In order to reduce symptoms and prevent relapse, treatment must specifically target and treat both substance use and mental health disorders at the same time.

Journey to Recovery materials are designed to sharpen your existing skills and develop the strengths you already have.

It will address your unique mental health and substance use issues to help give you a personalized recovery and relapse prevention plan.

3 Specialized interventions are necessary.

Chronic drug and alcohol use and abuse can cause physiological and neurological damage.

It can compromise intellectual functioning and reduce judgment, insight, reasoning, and processing ability.

Memory may be impaired and mental processing speed is lowered.

The ability to focus, concentrate, and sustain attention may be diminished.

Withdrawal effects, sleep-deprivation, chemical imbalance, ADHD, anxiety, depression, thought disorders, nutritional deficiencies, detoxification complications, and increased stress levels all further compromise the ability to reason.

Abstract reasoning is much more difficult.

Concrete and practical materials may be the most helpful.

This is not meant as a harsh judgment, but rather a compassionate understanding of intervention requirements.

Our secret to working with the complexities of co-occurring disorders was not to make the interventions more complex, but instead, to make them simpler and more effective.

They are easy to understand and process, and present practical solutions that work.

Our material has many lists and checkboxes to stimulate the therapy process.

The goal is not to direct your thinking but to help you process issues that may be
difficult to think through.

This also helps your therapist make an accurate assessment and help with your individual needs.

4 Changing the way you think and what you believe will change the way you feel and behave.

Journey to Recovery materials are Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in theory and practice, requiring you to recognize past cognitive errors and create challenges for each thought distortion.

Lessons will help you carefully examine common automatic negative thoughts, replacing inaccurate,
exaggerated, and irrelevant thoughts with accurate, reality-based and positive views and beliefs.

Identifying and changing the deceptions and lies you tell yourself allows you to change your thoughts, feelings, and actions as you move forward.

Recovery is changing the way you drink by changing the way you think.