The skills to learn in drug and alcohol rehab are many. The most important is structure. One really needs to find ways to build interesting, challenging and fulfilling PLANNED activities in their life. Work is structure. Courses are structure. Exercise groups that meet regularily are structure. Structure is planned in advance and has a consequence if you don’t show up. (Even if it is just a phone call from someone saying, “Where were you?”.)

Sadly a high percentage of people who go to drug and alcohol rehab relapse very quickly. Most often it is within the first week. Structuring those first weeks out of a treatment program are absolutely key to success. One must be very busy with activities filled with safe groups of non-using people. The times for the first two weeks should be planned down to the hour. It needs to be written out. Time to rise and time to go to bed needs to be planned. The busier and tighter the schedule the better. In the first days after rehab, structure is everything.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 8:37 am and is filed under Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.