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3 Reasons You May Relapse After Methamphetamine Addiction Treatment

Relapse makes people question their entire recovery. You have completed methamphetamine addiction treatment and you regained control of your life and have maintained your abstinence from meth. But, you may feel that you are a failure. Was your meth addiction treatment pointless?

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Is Relapse Actually a Failure?

What you need to ask yourself is whether or not a recurrence of cancer is a failure. Is an asthma attack a failure? No. According to data published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 40-60 percent of recovering addicts relapse one or more times in recovery, and those percentages are less than the relapse rates for hypertension and asthma. It is a setback, but it is not a failure. It is a sign that meth addiction treatment needs to be reinstated.

To prevent repeated relapse, you should avoid the following triggers.

Stress

This is one of the leading causes of relapse. It’s important to keep in mind that stress isn’t exclusive to negative situations. Plenty of positive situations are accompanied by stress. Both getting a new pet and starting anew relationship are wonderful experiences, but they are also stressful ones. In these moments, you may be tempted to turn to meth to either ease the stress or to escape it.

Overconfidence

Self-confidence will help you in methamphetamine addiction treatment, but overconfidence can lead you to make poor choices because you think you know better than others. You might incorrectly believe that your time treating meth addiction means that you have things together enough to use a small amount of meth and be fine. Overconfidence is often accompanied by irrational thoughts.

Dishonesty

Active meth addiction depends upon lies to continue, and breaking the habit of lying to get what you want can be a hard. When you remain in denial, you stop taking responsibility and don’t own up to wrongdoings. This will keep you in the cycle of addiction.

Do You Need Methamphetamine Addiction Treatment Because of Your Perfectionism? The Hidden Factor That Makes People Go to Meth Addiction Treatment

It seems counterintuitive, right? Perfectionists strive to be the best, they don’t get hooked on meth and need methamphetamine addiction treatment. That’s not quite right. Many people who become active meth addicts suffer from perfectionism.

Because they hold themselves to impossibly high standards, any failure to meet them can lead to some seriously negative emotional responses. It can be both at the roots of great achievement and success and at the root of impossible struggle. In meth addiction treatment, people learn to confront unrealistic expectations and to come to terms with the inherent joy of imperfection.

How Perfectionism Connects to Addiction

People with an active meth addiction may believe that they are only worthy of love when they are perfect. Any past mistakes stick with them. As perfection is not achievable, they can become distraught and turn to meth to ease their crippling sense of failure.

Perfectionists are even able to find flaws when things appear to be going well. Any tiny mistake causes them to unravel and feel a hatred for themselves. This isn’t that far from meth addiction, where one tiny setback leads people to throw aside their recovery and fall into a complete relapse. They think in all or nothing terms and sabotage their own success.

Perfectionism Keeps Addiction Going

There are plenty of perfectionists who will never grapple with an addiction. And not every meth addict is a perfectionist. But both states of being support the other. Perfectionism feeds into shame, discouragement, and frustration and this leads people to cope with meth. Perfectionism can also lead to a distorted reality that interferes with recovery.

Recovering from Addiction and Perfectionism

You can manage perfectionism in meth addiction treatment.

What Scares You About Methamphetamine Addiction Treatment? Facing Major Fears About Meth Addiction Treatment

Many of the people in meth addiction treatment were terrified about letting go of their active meth addiction and getting help. This can be hard for people without a meth addiction to understand. Sure, your entire life improves after methamphetamine addiction treatment, but it takes hard work, uncovers emotions that have been buried under meth use, and requires you to keep working even after you leave. Those are scary requirements and they contribute to the following fears held by people considering meth addiction treatment.

meth addiction treatment

Withdrawal Is Going to Be Crippling

Methamphetamine addiction treatment means no drugs or alcohol and that comes with withdrawal symptoms for the active addict. Although withdrawing from meth is uncomfortable, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the symptoms simply disappear after several days of abstinence (although heavy users may experience them in some form for up to a month).

I Have No Idea What Happens in Meth Addiction Treatment

Meth use is dangerous in many ways, but for the addict it is familiar and change can be really scary. But, if the idea of entering a new environment without any idea of what happens there is nerve wracking, the solution is simple: talk to the rehab facility. Do research and communicate as much as you can with the treatment center.

I Will Have to Talk About All of the Things I Am Ashamed Of

During meth addiction, most users do things that they are deeply ashamed of. Sometimes attempting to outrun the feelings this causes contributes to additional drug use. Every addict faces some form of this fear, but the staff at a treatment center doesn’t force anyone to talk about the things that they don’t want to. Also, if sharing in a group setting is uncomfortable, you can always share in individual therapy.

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