The journey of recovery is ongoing and your personal progress will continue to evolve as you continue in treatment. As you make progress in your treatment journey and step down in levels of care, you will start to resume your normal day to day routines that may be centered around work or school. It goes without saying that this progress is a huge milestone, but the transition back into normalcy is no easy feat. The transition means that you may be exposed to people and environments that trigger urges, cravings, or addictive behaviors within you.
As scary as this reality is, these challenges can be overcome when you are equipped with the essential tools for success. Here at Encore Outpatient Services, we work tirelessly in providing our patients with ample options to support them in staying on the path to recovery. We offer many programs that can help patients with fine tuning their life skills such as our general outpatient programs in Virginia, that serve patients in Virginia, DC, and Maryland. The general outpatient program provides services and therapies that will promote resilience towards the trials and tribulations that come with addiction, mental health, and recovery.
Exercising Self-Care
One way to demonstrate your proficiency while being in our general outpatient program in Virginia, is by exercising self-care. This is the first of many steps towards the road of a healthy recovery. Self-care is centered around conducting activities that will make you happier and ease many of your stressful thoughts and manifestations. Healthy outlets are needed to positively reinforce happy thoughts.
Forming Healthy Routines
It is also important to form healthy habits and routines during early stages of recovery. Whether it’s through exercise or meditation, routines help you to stay on track as well as assist you in channeling your energy into positive outlets.
Time Management Skills
While acquiring life skills from our general outpatient programs in Virginia, one of the most powerful tools that you can focus on is effective time management skills. Time management goes hand in hand with your day to day routines. Before you sought treatment for your addictions, it’s likely that most of your time was consumed by your addictions or was lost to challenges that you experienced with mental health. Once your life is back in order, as you continue with your recovery process, your daily tasks can start to be properly structured and prioritized so that you can elevate and better manage the things that matter.
Social Skills
Prior to entering treatment, your social interactions may have been with others who enabled your substance abuse or complicated your mental health challenges. This will change drastically when you have committed yourself to recovery. It’s important to surround yourself with family and friends who will support you and hold you accountable if any setbacks occur. Encore Outpatient Services will provide you education on how to identify and develop healthy relationships with family and friends, and will support you in learning and practicing social skills. In doing so, you can accrue more self-confidence and have an easier time connecting with new people, and identifying people and situations that will support your long-term recovery.
Keeping Your Emotions In Check
Negative emotions and increased stress levels are common triggers for challenges in mental health reoccurring or triggering cravings that fuel substance abuse relapse,. One could argue that the lack of mental and emotional stability is what led you down this path in the first place. People may use drugs, alcohol, or other addictive behaviors to soothe themselves when they have emotions that they experience as uncomfortable or painful. Stress and emotion management are key skills to focus on during your recovery process. You will work on self-control as well as learning how to properly cope with stressful situations when they arise.
Setting Goals
Starting the recovery process is a huge milestone for turning your life around. Being in recovery allows you to focus on new goals. Are you chasing a college degree? Coveting a higher-paying job? Are you working on mending broken relationships? Regardless of the type of goals, something that is purpose driven will motivate you to better yourself and the relationships you have with others.
Focusing On What’s Important
Recovery is a lifelong journey. Addiction and mental health challenges are powerful diseases and it’s important to align yourself with a program that will equip you with the appropriate tools to navigate through these challenging times. Here at Encore, we are committed to helping our patients in reinforcing their life skills, so that their journey is less likely to be disrupted, mitigating the chances of relapse. For more information on our life skills program or our general outpatient program in Virginia, you can contact our team.
Call now (703) 436-8158