Rehabilitation and recovery from addiction is a process, oftentimes a long one. There are four distinct stages of the process and understanding these stages will help you stay on track and manage your expectations. It will also help those closest to you manage their expectations of your recovery, as well. Here’s a closer look at the stages:
Stage 1: Treatment Initiation
While making the decision to get sober is often cited as the first step in recovery, it is actually initiating treatment. A person may determine they want to make positive changes in their life, but they aren’t actually on track to doing that until they follow through and get started. You can consider day one in treatment, which begins with detox, to be your first day in recovery. The length of this stage varies by individual, severity of use, and substance being used, but typically ranges from three to ten days.
Stage 2: Early Abstinence
Immediately following detox, you will begin working with a counselor to learn new skills to help you cope with the triggers and impulses to return to use. The first ninety days are crucial as your mind and body begin to heal. This “rewiring” process sets the course for the rest of your recovery but only works if you remain abstinent and compliment the abstinence with other healthy behaviors.
Stage 3: Maintenance of Abstinence
Following your first ninety days of abstinence (congratulations!), you move into the third stage of recovery: continued abstinence or maintenance of abstinence. This stage is delineated from the very similar sounding previous stage because you will have graduated from residential treatment and have started outpatient treatment. Outside the walls of the treatment facility, there may be additional stressors that you will have to battle by drawing on the skills you learned earlier.
Stage 4: Advanced Recovery
After roughly five years of sobriety, your risk of relapse has dropped to below fifteen percent. You can now focus on putting everything together to live a happy, healthy, sober life. You have put in an immense amount of work and the reward is that you can be fulfilled.
We won’t say that any of these stages are without their challenges, but we can guarantee that they all have triumphs and they are all equally important. At Asana Recovery, our team of dedicated staff members will be with you each step of the way through every stage, including the ones that take a little extra work and the ones that deserve to be celebrated.
At Asana Recovery, you can receive all of your care in one place. Initiate your treatment with us in a supervised detox environment using proven methods to fight withdrawal symptoms. Continue on in our residential treatment program to receive daily specialized care in a structured setting. Keep coming back for aftercare through our outpatient programs, which can be tailored to meet your new schedule while still providing key tools and tips to keep you successful. Call us today at (949) 438-4504 to learn more.
