Crystal Meth Relapse Prevention
by Simon Mott
Crystal Meth, Ice and methamphetamine addiction can upset the brain chemistry and the chemical balance in your body. Although it only takes a week for the drug to leave the system, the chemical imbalance can take months to return to normal.
PAWS – Crystal Meth Relapse Prevention
We call this post-acute withdrawals, or PAWS for short. Basically an addict needs between 6 months and a year to level out their brain chemistry, emotional responses and behaviours. Until this point the recovering person will continue to experience physical, mental, and emotional problems.
Relapse Prevention for crystal meth addicts will provide the tool’s and suggested action-plan to prevent relapse and maintain recovery. It is all important to identify and mange your high risk situations that can cause relapse. This includes managing irrational thoughts, difficult feelings, cravings and urges.
Crystal meth relapse prevention is a critical component of treatment and recovery planning. At Hope Rehab all our clients make a detailed visual recovery plan before leaving treatment.
Clients learn what they can we do about cravings?
- Recognise the feeling.
- Don’t be afraid of cravings.
- Understand Control.
- Ask for help.
- Learn about your craving triggers.
- Use 5 minute rule.
- Get professional help.
- Get physical.
Identifying Risky Situations for Crystal Meth (aka Ice or Methamphetamine)
High risk situations planning is part of Crystal Meth Relapse Prevention, including Ice and methamphetamine addicts. High risk situations are those situations or events that make people want to use drugs even after having made a commitment not to. It is important to accept that we do not get into situations accidently, but either complacent or often set ourselves up. Once in the situation we can lose the power to get out of it – we become powerless. We make excuses as to why or how we ended up in the situation, planning ahead is an essential part of preparing for life after treatment and to prevent relapse.
“If we fail to plan, we are planning to fail”
Defenceless against relapse we quickly succumb to our old ways. So identifying high risk situations is the first planning activity. However identifying high risk situations can be difficult. Not all high-risk situations put all of us at risk. High risk situations are personal to each of us and not all high risk situations will elicit the same response.
We need to be prepared for those situations that pose a threat to our recovery. We may not appreciate the effect certain situations will have on our recovery and just how vulnerable we are. Through preparation we recognize potential high risk situations and are proactive in preparing our defense with various intervention options. High risk situation management is a proactive approach to relapse prevention that helps identify high risk situations and the critical junctures where intervention can occur before a relapse episode, or quickly stop a relapse should one occur.
Mapping High-Risk Situations for aftercare
The more detail in our recovery plan, the greater the preparation we will have for the inevitable difficult situations when the arise. Look at all the various key areas of your life objectively and assess the true risks and identified intervention options. A high risk situation management plan can shed light on our vulnerabilities, old behaviour and what we need to let go of or change.
We begin by learning what a high risk situation is, such as emotional triggers…
- Anxiety.
- Intolerance.
- Anger.
- Negative reactions to stressful events.
- Insomnia or other sleeping difficulties.
- Poor judgment.
- Problems with work, social or family relationships.
In order to manage these situations we first we identify our personal triggers then we map the situation out and plan what action is necessary. This is a description of exactly what we do and how we will do it if the problem should occur.
Recovery Planning and Aftercare planning is designed for clients in early recovery who will benefit from reinforcement of their original motivations for entering treatment.
Personal Recovery Planning and sharing the results with your counsellor and the group helps refine your plan. In treatment and early recovery, our thoughts, time, and energy tend to be focused on staying clean and rebuilding our lives. As we accumulate more clean and sober time, our attention turns to maintaining the changes and personal gains we have achieved, then we also pursue other personal goals.
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