Just as substance abuse develops over time, recovery is not a one-time event. Addiction treatment can be relatively short-term, but you are not expected to heal and then face cravings and triggers on your own. Nor does the emotional pain, which helped create your substance abuse, just go away overnight. There has to be some way to survive and maintain your recovery after treatment. Why is aftercare important in your recovery?
Recovery Is a Process, Not an Event
As much as it would be nice to have a magic wand to heal addiction, life is not a fantasy, and healing from substance abuse is not magic. The reality is that recovery is a lifelong process, not a singular event or even a relatively short-term residential treatment. Healing takes time, both mentally and physically, and takes a daily commitment and plenty of work to keep growing and progressing.
To that end, aftercare can be an essential part of your recovery process. You can continue to learn about yourself, work through past issues, and receive the support that you need to continue the process of healing.
Support for You One Day at a Time
One of the most critical, popular fundamental beliefs surrounding addiction recovery is to manage your addiction one day at a time. You will have good days, and hopefully plenty of them. There will also be days when you realize that recovery is not something you can do on your own, nor are you expected to. You will need as much support as you can find to stay strong.
Aftercare in the form of continued therapy, peer group support, and more can help you through every day, strengthening you on the good days and being your lifeline on the days that you don’t feel like you can walk your recovery path alone.
Why Continued Therapy Is Crucial to Long-Term Recovery
Therapy is a critical component in treatment for substance abuse. Within therapy, you learn about yourself, and you understand the reasons why your substance use began. The healing process starts by looking at the causes and allowing yourself to feel and process pain from past abuse or trauma. Therapeutic care also involves learning coping skills and tools to help maintain your recovery.
Therapy has many forms. Talk therapy is the most commonly known, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most effective and widely used modalities, or types of treatment, in addiction recovery. However, there are many different types of therapy, including experiential therapies like sandplay or art therapy.
Leaving treatment does not mean that you are completely healed. Aftercare in the form of therapy helps you to address the issues in your new life of sobriety and continue to heal from your past. Continued therapy can also be crucial for any co-occurring mood disorders such as depression or anxiety. A good analogy would be using crutches after breaking your leg. Most everyone needs crutches for a while, and some longer than others. This is also true of therapeutic aftercare in recovery.
The Value of Peer Support
Peer support groups are another form of aftercare that can help strengthen your recovery. Particularly for women, having trauma-informed 12-Step groups or even non-12-Step gender-specific groups like She Recovers can help to provide a safe, inclusive, and collaborative environment to help women empower and support one another.
The benefits of peer support include the ability to forge new friendships and to give each other hope in healing. There is power in experiencing treatment and recovery together, opportunities to create powerful bonds in shared healing. This power offers strength to the individuals and creates a safe, loving community of support for all women involved.
Continued Care For Healing and Growth
Another benefit of aftercare is that it promotes your continued healing and growth. You will not be the same person at the end of treatment as when you walked in the door. Nor will you be the same person a month later, six months later, a year later, and so on. As you continue to heal and grow, there will be new issues to address and new challenges to overcome.
Continuing your care after treatment can help you address your changing needs and reinforce what you learned in therapy. Aftercare also allows you to implement what you have learned and find what works best for you in your life after treatment. Continued care can help you catch potential relapses before they happen and allow you to acknowledge how far you have come.
Why is aftercare important in my recovery? Your recovery is a process, not an event, making aftercare crucial to long-term success. Finding the proper support to continue your healing and growth after treatment can help you maintain your recovery. At The Ho Tai Way – Recovery For Women, each woman who successfully completes the program receives eight free therapy sessions in aftercare. Your treatment is individually tailored for you and your needs. We will support you beyond detox, and residential treatment with therapeutic care and trauma-informed peer support groups like She Recovers. Our Costa Mesa, California facility offers a safe, calm, and peaceful environment for you to find your way again. Contact us today at (714) 881-8931 to learn more about our treatment and aftercare programs. The Ho Tai Way – Recovery For Women believes you already have the tools inside you to achieve sobriety. We help you use them.
