This is a relapse prevention strategy. Use it if you want to avoid using drugs and alcohol while creating an awesome new life for yourself, one that has real value and is worth living.
This is also an holistic recovery strategy. That means that you treat the “whole” person, rather than just one part of their disease.
There are really 2 goals for you in using this relapse prevention plan: not using drugs and alcohol, and healthier living. Why healthier living? Because the push towards better health is inextricably tied to recovery. If you are abstaining from drugs and alcohol, but lose your health in other ways, then this can be just as bad (or worse) than relapse.
These are the 2 things that should become your top priority in life, now and forever:
1) Don’t use drugs or alcohol no matter what.
2) Live healthier.
Much of what follows is about how to live healthier in a way that supports abstinence from drugs and alcohol. But, rule number one is always the most important thing: don’t use drugs or alcohol no matter what.
Here are the sections of our relapse prevention plan: * Relapse prevention: the old way versus the new way * Assess your health from an holistic standpoint * The push for holistic health and why it is important for recovery * Experiencing cumulative growth: action items for each area of your life * Action items for holistic growth:
Physical health Spirituality Nutrition and healthy eating Quitting smoking Emotional balance Finances, money, managing debt Career and pursuing meaningful life work Continuous learning Very early recovery
Relapse prevention: the old way versus the new way
Traditionally, relapse prevention has been all about avoidance techniques. What many recovery programs do is to have you write out a list of all your triggers, or things that make you want to use your drug of choice. Then you are supposed to formulate strategies for avoiding those things or replacing certain high-risk activities. In other words, relapse prevention has always been about avoiding situations, people, and places that might cause you to relapse.
The new way is not about elimination, but rather it is about creation. The idea is to create positive things in your life to replace the old stuff that got you into trouble. The goal is to create healthy habits and a healthier lifestyle, such that you will not be as quick to pollute your own body. And ultimately, the big idea here is to create an awesome new life for yourself in recovery, one that is so valuable to you that you will not easily sacrifice it to a relapse.
So the new relapse prevention strategy is to add value to your life. If your life has very little value, then choosing to relapse is an inviting option. Why not use drugs or alcohol, how can it get any worse, right? So the new way in recovery is to build a life of value. The foundation of this value is health. Physical health, spiritual health, emotional health, financial health, and so on. The idea is to increase our well being, in all areas of our life.
The real kicker is that once we have established this foundation of good health in recovery, our next step is to extend our hand to others and make an impact on the world. If we can make part of our life’s work to help others in some way, then our insurance against relapse grows tremendously. We know that if we relapse on drugs and alcohol, then we can no longer help others or be of service. That might not sound like much incentive to you right now, but once you have created this awesome new life in recovery and start using your unique gifts and talents to help others in the world, the risk of relapse will greatly diminish because your life will have so much more value while you are clean and sober.
In other words, the new relapse prevention strategy is to get to an awesome place in your life, such that you are no longer willing to “throw it all away on a relapse.”
We know this to be a strong strategy because everyone who has achieved long term sobriety agrees that it is true. Ask anyone with several years sober and they will agree:“Yes, my life is so much better today that I am not willing to throw it away on a relapse.”It matters not how they got clean and sober or what program of recovery they use. Once they have created this awesome new life in recovery for themselves, they continue to add value to their life and this protects them from the threat of relapse.
“But,” you may protest, “How can I go about creating this great new life in recovery? How can I go about it?”
The rest of this workbook seeks to answer that question, and guide you through the process of creating an awesome new life in recovery. Because the paths to this are many, some sections will be a bit vague, but specific examples will almost always be given to help illustrate the ideas.