Before going to residential drug rehab, I lived in Santa Monica, I had made several half-hearted attempts at getting clean. I tried going to AA and NA meetings and working with a therapist. I’d even been enrolled in a juvenile outpatient program. After each potentially successful attempt, I would inevitably return to using, to everyone’s dismay and frustration. I felt that I was destined to be an addict and alcoholic. Every time I went back to school, the drugs were still there, and I didn’t have enough of a foundation in recovery to face it without using. As a last-ditch effort, my parents sent me to an adolescent rehab, where I was removed from my entire life at home in order to focus fully on my recovery. As my time in the treatment center went on, I began to doubt my ability to stay clean after leaving the safety of inpatient treatment. My counselors and I began to focus on relapse prevention. I had put in so much hard work in treatment that I couldn’t bear to see my sobriety slip away.
I continued to build my support group. With the treatment center’s encouragement, I got a sponsor that I check in with daily. Frequent meeting attendance led me to start seeing familiar faces in the rooms. I identified some of my triggers- the things that make me want to use, and began to do work to take some of the power out of them. I began to recognize my own power of choice. Nothing could make me use; I made the decision whether or not I used. As one counselor put it, “You can choose to go there in your head, or you can choose not to.” Even today, when my head starts spinning over a particular issue, I remind myself that I choose whether or not I run with the thought or not. I can make a deliberate shift in what I’m thinking about. For example, if I am spinning over an issue, I’ll stop and think about what it’s like to ride a horse, or what my favorite birthday present was. It works for me. I also imagine that I am playing air hockey- just knocking the disturbing thoughts right out of my brain. I have begun the long process of replacing the old negative information in my brain with new useful information. As I have stayed clean, I have held onto the basic tools I learned in residential treatment. I am so glad that I was given the chance to learn some good tools that help me to make the right choices today.
Ask about adolescent rehab in Santa Monica or elsewhere
Originally posted on May 4, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
