Relapse Prevention in Trenton, NJ

At this center for relapse prevention in Trenton, we help educate patients and their families on how exactly true freedom from addiction is really achieved. We help them see that it is what comes after detox that they should truly focus on.

When you think of rehab, it is probably the process of detox that comes to your mind. You head into the process when you are helplessly addicted, but come out clean days later, with none of the cravings of withdrawal. It can seem as much treatment as one might need. This description of what detox does is a misleading one, however. The detox process is only a small part of the rehabilitation process. Addicts who accept only the detox portion of rehab might as well not.

This is because unless they sign up for the detailed therapeutic process that follows it, the gains made in detox are quickly lost. We could help you and your family gain a better understanding of how to achieve freedom from addiction, too. All you need to do is to call us.

What is Relapse?

When addictive substances enter the brain, they create dependence of two kinds — physical and psychological. Physical dependence comes about when addictive substances take over key brain functions such as those to do with the creation of feelings of well-being. With constant exposure to addictive substances, the brain's own control of such functions is overridden.

When substance abuse stops, the brain needs to fill the void left behind. Unfortunately, the comeback process involves a period of unpredictable and haphazard brain activity. The symptoms experienced are called withdrawal symptoms.

For most drugs, the withdrawal process lasts no longer than a few days. Detoxifying helps suppress withdrawal symptoms to make the process safe. Once out of detox, the addict no longer experiences cravings or withdrawal symptoms when staying away from substance abuse. Intuitively, many recovering addicts will assume at this stage that they are cured.

Psychological addiction, however, remains. In addiction the brain's reward center learns a positive attachment to these addictive substances. Addicts, even when they have full evidence of the ways in which their drug habit ruins their lives, often still have a very hard time comprehending the fact.

This sort of ambivalence tends to remain even after detox to some degree. Addicts will often unexpectedly begin to experience a deep need to return to substance abuse. Such a return is called relapse, and it is very common. Addicts who receive drug detox in Trenton and no further treatment, almost always return to substance abuse within months.

Detox does not help with this type of addiction. It takes an entirely different kind of approach. It takes relapse prevention therapy.

What Does Relapse Prevention Entail?

When not actively prevented, addictions always return, making permanent escape from drugs much harder than it needs to be.

There is no actual treatment in existence to directly ensure that relapses do not occur. What recovering addicts do in therapy is to learn about how relapses occur, and of psychological strategies to work around them.

At our clinic for relapse prevention in Trenton, we work with our patients to create personalized relapse prevention strategies, one at a time. It's important to understand how important personalization is to the process. No one method works for any two patients. Cognitive-behavioral therapy programs in Trenton are a good example of the kind of personalized work that goes into helping patients gain such awareness.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy: In CBT, a therapist interviews the patient over several sessions to learn about the vulnerabilities, motivations and cognitive distortions in existence in the thought process, as they may be relevant to the patient's drug abuse. Once there is enough information gathered, the therapist designs a therapeutic plan to help the patient overcome the specific challenges that he faces.

Learning about specific triggers that set off the need for substance abuse, and avoiding them altogether, is one goal usually taken up in CBT. As an example, information from the patient may uncover a powerful impulse to seek refuge in drugs when confronted with financial problems. With such evidence, the therapist may try therapeutic methods to help create a greater financial responsibility.

Motivational interviewing: The therapist uses the patient to gain a sense of his internal motivations. The patient, for instance, might be powerfully motivated by thoughts of helping his children do better. Once these motivations are uncovered, the therapist takes up friendly conversational sessions to help powerfully connect concern for the children to a need to do better with relapse prevention for addiction.

As rare as it is, personalized therapy is the only approach that works.

Our Programs for Relapse Prevention in Trenton Work

Avoiding stress is one of the primary aims of relapse prevention treatment. Stress can be a huge factor contributing to the occurrence of relapses, especially among recovering addicts fresh out of detox. Having depended on drugs for emotional support, they tend to be poorly equipped to face life's challenges on their own. Aftercare is a system of living aids that our inpatient rehab in Trenton offer patients. The purpose of aftercare is to give patients a gentle way back into real life.

In aftercare, recovering addicts are sheltered from the responsibilities of life, in a halfway house. These living arrangements help recovering addicts by giving them a home, but also by offering supervision, therapy and a few manageable responsibilities at a time.

The best drug relapse prevention work is done in an inpatient setting, with hours of intensive therapy every single day. It takes self-discovery and practice of a very high order to successfully learn the living of life away from drugs.

Our programs for relapse prevention in Trenton offer a wide variety of treatment plans for every kind of patient need, however. Call us at (877) 804-1531, and we'll help you see how you can put the best scientific principles in relapse prevention to work in your own life.