What to Do After a Relapse
40-60% of people in recovery relapse. Relapse is a person in recovery’s greatest threat to achieving sobriety. Unfortunately, many may not know what to do if they relapse, which can inevitably put them in a downward spiral. In this article, we’ll explore what to do after a relapse, so you can know what to do if you or someone you know relapses. At The Differents, we are a luxury drug and alcohol rehab in Reno committed to helping clients lead healthier, happier lives. We help clients overcome addiction and rediscover their passions so that they can reach their fullest potential. Gone are the days of suffering alone with your addiction. Contact us today to learn more about how our compassionate team can help you break free from addiction. 5 Things to Do After a Relapse You should never be afraid to seek help and support after relapsing. Keep reading to learn more about what to do after a relapse. After relapsing, it is important to stop and remove yourself from the situation or place to prevent further relapsing. For example, if you found yourself hanging around old friends who triggered cravings and caused you to relapse, it is important to cut ties with those friends, remove yourself from the situation, and seek help from trusted friends, family members, and mentors. As stated above, if you relapse, you must seek out help from your support system. The last thing you want to do is keep your relapse to yourself because this puts you in a dangerous situation to relapse again in the future. Be sure you reach out to a trusted family member or friend, or consider reaching out to a local treatment facility for support. While relapsing hurts your sobriety, it doesn’t mean you should judge or shame yourself for how far you’ve come in your recovery journey. Relapsing doesn’t mean you can’t keep overcoming addiction. Therefore, resist the urge for negative self-talk to hurt your overall recovery journey. Then, create a recovery plan to help you get back on track with your recovery journey. This may vary depending on the individual. Some individuals may benefit from seeking inpatient care again, while others may benefit from seeking outpatient care options. Finally, it is important to learn from your mistakes. Your relapse does not define your journey and how far you’ve come on your road to recovery. However, it can point to certain blind spots, such as specific triggers or cravings that you may not have been fully aware of that ultimately caused you to relapse. Help Is Available Now you know more about what to do after a relapse. While relapsing hurts your recovery journey, it does not define your progress and how far you’ve come. You must remove yourself from the situation and seek help from your support system so you can create a plan to get you back on track toward maintaining long-term sobriety. At The Differents, we are a luxury drug and alcohol rehab in Reno committed to helping clients regain control over their health and quality of life. No more suffering in silence with your addiction– we are here to help you every step of the way. Contact us today to learn more about how our compassionate team can help you break free from addiction. Frequently Asked Questions
Signs of Self Sabotage in Recovery
Addiction recovery can be filled with many ups and downs. Unfortunately, sometimes seeking treatment isn’t enough to effectively break free from addiction. Self-sabotage in recovery is a potential risk many must look out for in their road to recovery. In this article, we’ll explore the many signs of self-sabotage in recovery so you can successfully overcome your addiction for good. At The Differents, we are a luxury drug and alcohol rehab in Reno committed to helping patients break free from addiction. We help patients overcome addiction and rediscover their passions so that they can reach their fullest potential. No more suffering in silence, our compassionate team of addiction specialists and mental health professionals is here to help. Ready to begin your recovery journey? Contact us today to learn more! 7 Signs of Self-Sabotage in Recovery Recovery is difficult, and unfortunately, many recovering addicts can fall victim to self-sabotaging their recovery journey; oftentimes, without even realizing it. Keep reading to learn the signs of self-sabotage in recovery to look out for so you can effectively progress along your recovery journey. First, downplaying your drug problem or ignoring the severity of it is a common sign of self-sabotage in recovery. This can look like not having the motivation to seek professional support or losing motivation in treatment, thinking that your drug problem wasn’t that bad to begin with. Unfortunately, this mindset increases your risk of relapse and keeps you from progressing in your recovery. Another common sign of self-sabotage in recovery is isolating yourself from others. This can look like no longer spending time with close family or friends who support your recovery, or distancing yourself from those trying to support your recovery journey, such as your mentors or therapists. Another classic sign of self-sabotage in recovery is skipping out on treatments. Whether it is because you think you no longer need treatment/ think your condition is not that bad, or simply don’t want to go to your treatment, this can result in increasing your risk of relapse. When you spend time around negative people, places, or situations that can trigger cravings to abuse drugs or alcohol, these are more ways in which you can self-sabotage your recovery journey. This is because when you surround yourself with other people or places where abusing drugs or alcohol is normal, this can quickly result in you falling back into old habits and unhealthy behaviors of abusing drugs, thus jeopardizing your recovery journey. Other factors, like leading an unhealthy lifestyle, can result in self-sabotaging your recovery. This can look like not getting enough sleep each night, eating poorly, or living a sedentary lifestyle. Because recovery is all about leading a healthier lifestyle, when you are not doing other behaviors that align with that healthy lifestyle, this can increase your risk of relapse. While you don’t need to lead a “perfect” healthy lifestyle, daily healthy habits can quickly shape who you are, such as helping support your recovery journey. Another sign of self-sabotage in recovery is testing your boundaries. If you are a recovering alcoholic and set a boundary that you will not go to bars where drinking is prevalent, breaking this boundary can quickly put you in a risky situation of jeopardizing your recovery journey. While each recovering addict’s boundaries will differ, it is critical to set clear boundaries for yourself and keep them so you can maintain sobriety. Last but not least, a common but often overlooked sign of self-sabotage in recovery can be resisting help from others. This can look like resisting help from others when you are first starting your recovery, or it can look like not accepting help when you are further along in recovery/ have been sober for months/years. You never have to fight your addiction alone. Our compassionate team at The Differents is here to help you every step of the way! Help Is Available Now you know more about the many signs of self-sabotage in recovery. From isolating yourself from others to downplaying the severity of your drug problem, these are all signs to look out for if you suspect you or someone you know may be struggling with addiction and is on their road to recovery. At The Differents, we are a luxury drug and alcohol rehab in Reno committed to helping patients achieve lasting sobriety. We help patients overcome addiction so that they can achieve long-term sobriety. Gone are the days of suffering alone with your addiction. Contact us today to discover how we can help you lead a healthier, happier life. Frequently Asked Questions
How Effective is EMDR for Anxiety Treatment?
Sarah’s therapist suggested something that sounded, frankly, bizarre: “Follow my fingers with your eyes while thinking about your panic attacks.” After three years of medication and talk therapy, the idea that eye movements could touch her fear seemed almost comical. Six months later, Sarah’s story changed. “I can’t fully explain how it worked. But that first panic attack, the one that kept replaying every time my heart rate increased, doesn’t have the same power anymore. My brain finally filed it away as something that happened, not something that’s still happening.” If you’re researching EMDR for anxiety, you’ve probably encountered vastly different claims from miracle cure to pseudoscience. Here’s the confusing part: both perspectives contain truth. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing can meaningfully reduce anxiety for some people, particularly when anxiety stems from distressing memories that haven’t been fully processed. But it’s not universal, and for many anxiety presentations, other approaches remain stronger starting points. You deserve to understand what we actually know, what remains uncertain, and how to think through whether EMDR might help your situation. What EMDR Actually Does In the late 1980s, psychologist Francine Shapiro noticed something odd during a park walk: her distressing thoughts seemed to lose intensity when her eyes moved back and forth. What began as personal discovery evolved into a structured therapy targeting memories that stay “stuck” in the nervous system, continuing to trigger anxiety years after the original event. Think of it this way: when something overwhelming happens like a car accident, a humiliating moment, a frightening medical emergency, your brain sometimes stores that memory in a way that keeps it emotionally alive. The original threat has passed, but your nervous system hasn’t gotten the memo. EMDR therapy uses bilateral stimulation (usually guided eye movements, though sometimes tapping or sounds) to help your brain reprocess these memories, filing them away as “past” rather than “present danger.” The therapy follows eight structured phases, including history-taking, preparation, identifying target memories, desensitization work with bilateral stimulation, and follow-up. Sessions typically run 60 to 90 minutes. The number you’ll need depends entirely on what you’re working Single-incident fears sometimes shift within several sessions, while longstanding patterns take considerably longer. What the Research Shows The scientific picture is more nuanced than either enthusiastic advocates or dismissive skeptics suggest. Researchers compiled 17 randomized trials across various anxiety disorders in participants and found moderate-to-large reductions in anxiety, panic, and phobia symptoms. The effect sizes were notable (anxiety reduction around g = -0.71), meaning real, measurable improvements. The caveat? Most studies were relatively short-term, and longer-term data remains limited. For generalized anxiety disorder, a 2025 study found that both face-to-face and web-based EMDR produced substantial improvements compared to waitlist controls. Encouraging news for telehealth access. The limitation? No head-to-head comparison with other active treatments. In panic disorder, researchers tested EMDR against CBT in 2017 and found the approaches roughly equivalent three months post-treatment. EMDR didn’t outperform CBT, but it didn’t fall behind either, positioning it as a reasonable alternative. The pattern: For anxiety EMDR shows promise, especially when anxiety ties back to identifiable distressing events. The evidence thins in head-to-head comparisons with gold-standard CBT and in understanding which specific anxiety presentations benefit most. When EMDR Makes Sense Marcus describes his anxiety as having a specific origin: a presentation five years ago where he forgot his words and watched colleagues exchange uncomfortable glances. “Since then, every meeting invitation triggers dread. My brain plays that memory on loop. I know logically it’s in the past, but my body doesn’t.” If your anxiety traces back to specific events like Marcus’s that left you hypervigilant, a panic attack that keeps replaying, early experiences that shaped how unsafe the world feelsEMDR’s memory-processing approach aligns with what needs to happen. You’re not trying to talk yourself out of fear. You’re targeting the original material that encoded the fear response. EMDR may fit if your anxiety connects to identifiable distressing memories, you feel “stuck” despite understanding your fears aren’t logical, your fear response feels disproportionate to present circumstances, or previous talk therapy helped somewhat but didn’t fully resolve things. The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends CBT as first-line for generalized anxiety and panic disorder. But for PTSD from non-combat trauma, NICE recommends EMDR as frontline treatment alongside trauma-focused CBT. Given how often trauma and anxiety co-occur, this matters more than it might initially seem. What to Expect EMDR sessions look different from traditional talk therapy. After initial sessions establishing history and goals, your therapist identifies target memories, usually starting with an image, the negative belief it encodes, associated emotions, and where you feel those physically. Then comes the bilateral stimulation: following the therapist’s fingers while holding the memory in mind, allowing whatever associations arise to surface. You might move from the original memory to related memories, to body sensations, to sudden insights about patterns you’ve never connected before. It can feel strange. Some describe it as dreamlike. Others say it’s exhausting in a productive way like emotional strength training. Cleveland Clinic notes that the risk profile is low when delivered by trained clinicians, and temporary increases in emotional activation are common, manageable parts of the process. Finding Support If you’re exploring trauma-informed approaches to anxiety in Nevada, our clinicians integrate EMDR within flexible outpatient programming. We recognize that healing rarely follows a single path, which is why we also offer traditional anxiety treatment options and can help you think through what combination of approaches might serve you best. Your anxiety has a story. We’d like to help you change how that story lives in your body and mind. Moving Forward Deciding to address your anxiety is itself an act of courage. You’re reading this because some part of you believes change is possible. EMDR isn’t magic, and it’s not right for everyone. But for many people whose anxiety has roots in experiences that never fully got processed, it offers a path to resolution that feels different than what they’ve tried before. Less about
How to Regulate Emotions in Recovery
Early sobriety can feel like someone turned up the volume on everything. Anger that used to simmer now boils over. Sadness that you could drink away sits heavy in your chest. You might wonder if you’re doing recovery wrong, but here’s the thing: emotions in recovery often spike before they settle. Your brain spent months or years adapting to substances that hijacked its reward and stress systems. Now that you’ve stopped, those circuits are recalibrating. Ordinary stress feels enormous because, well, it kind of is right now. Your brain is relearning how to handle stress without chemical help. This isn’t a character flaw—it’s neuroscience. So what helps? Start with what psychologists mean when they talk about emotion regulation: it’s not about shutting feelings down. It’s the set of processes we use to influence which emotions show up, when they arrive, and how we experience and express them. Think of it less as control and more as navigation. Why Early Recovery Amplifies Everything After you stop using alcohol or drugs, your nervous system gradually shifts away from the extremes it adapted to. Sleep gets weird. Appetite swings. Energy crashes or spikes without warning. Triggers you once managed by using now arrive unfiltered, and your brain hasn’t yet rebuilt the circuitry to process them smoothly. The goal isn’t to stop having emotions—that’s neither possible nor healthy. The goal is to make space for them and choose responses that align with the life you’re building, not the one substances stole. A Simple Framework: Name It, Normalize It, Navigate It When a big feeling lands, try this: Name it. Anxiety. Shame. Loneliness. Rage. Labeling what you feel lowers its intensity and clarifies your options. Normalize it. Remind yourself this is common, even expected. Thousands of people in recovery have felt exactly this way. It will pass. Navigate it. Pick a skill that matches the intensity of what you’re feeling and what you need to do next. Crisis Tools: When You’re Near the Edge When you’re overwhelmed and close to relapse, reach for body-based skills first. They work faster than trying to think your way out. In Dialectical Behavior Therapy, therapists teach three fast techniques called TIP skills:temperature, intense exercise, and paced breathing. They’re designed to quickly change your body chemistry and pull you out of emotional overwhelm. Here’s how they work: Temperature. Hold your face under cold water or press an ice pack to your forehead for ten to thirty seconds. The cold triggers a dive reflex that slows your pulse and shifts you out of panic mode. (If you have a heart condition or take beta-blockers, check with a clinician first: this handout notes the technique can affect heart rate.) Intense exercise. Do jumping jacks, sprint in place, or run up and down stairs for sixty seconds. Burn off the adrenaline fueling the surge. Paced breathing. Breathe slowly, making your exhales longer than your inhales. Count to four on the inhale, six on the exhale. Do this for two minutes. Two other quick tools: Five-four-three-two-one grounding. Quietly name five things you see, four you can touch, three you hear, two you smell, one you taste. This pulls you out of the spiral and back into the present. Urge surfing. When a craving or anger wave rises, picture it as an actual wave; cresting, peaking, then falling. Don’t fight it or act on it. Just ride it out. The technique comes from Alan Marlatt’s work on relapse prevention, and it helps you tolerate urges without either white-knuckling through them or giving in. Building Long-Term Steadiness Crisis tools get you through the spikes. But if you want your baseline to shift, fewer spikes, faster recovery when they do hi, you need daily practices and structured therapy. Mindfulness. Consistent mindfulness practice lowers reactivity, reduces craving, and improves outcomes. Research on mindfulness in addiction treatment shows benefits across multiple studies, particularly for negative mood and urge reactivity. And no, mindfulness isn’t just sitting still on a cushion. You can practice while walking, washing dishes, or spending time outside. The core idea is paying attention on purpose, without judging what you notice. Reframing the story, not suppressing the feeling. Cognitive strategies like reappraisal—changing what a situation means to you—tend to work better than pushing feelings down. Research comparing different emotion regulation strategies found that reappraisal leads to better mood and functioning than suppression. For example, instead of thinking “I can’t handle this, I’m going to relapse,” you might reframe it as “This is hard, and I’m still here. That’s evidence I can handle it.” Therapies that teach skills. If emotions in recovery are tangled up with trauma, anxiety, or beliefs like “I’m broken,” structured therapy helps. CBT at The Differents focuses on noticing thoughts, testing whether they’re true, and choosing new behaviors based on what you learn. If old trauma lights the emotional fuse, EMDR therapy may reduce the charge tied to past memories, which often softens present-day reactivity. Lifestyle anchors. Regular sleep, meals, hydration, and movement aren’t optional. They stabilize the biology that emotions ride on. If nature helps you exhale, consider our outdoor therapy program in Reno and Tahoe. Even short daily doses;ten minutes outside, noticing what you see and hear;can reset your nervous system. When to Add More Support If you’re frequently overwhelmed, isolating, flirting with relapse, or if emotions block your ability to work, parent, or stay safe, it’s time to add structure. Our Intensive Outpatient Program provides multiple therapy sessions per week while you sleep at home or in sober living. Many clients also benefit from experiential work; movement, creativity, time outside, which we weave into treatment through outdoor therapy. If you’re in immediate crisis or considering harming yourself, call your local emergency number or a crisis line right now. Recovery at The Differents is designed to feel human and creative, not institutional. If you’re ready for structured help or have questions about fit, reach out, and we’ll talk through options. Quick Skills to Try Today Weekly Anchors to Build FAQs: Emotions
Strategies for Maintaining Accountability in Addiction Recovery
On a Tuesday morning, you’re sitting in your car outside group. The dashboard clock reads 6:58. Your phone buzzes—just one line from a friend in recovery: Checking in. What’s your plan for tonight? You stare at the message longer than necessary, not because you don’t have a plan, but because being asked makes it real. You text back. The night shifts a degree toward safety. Accountability, without the shame Here’s the tension: accountability in addiction recovery can feel like a spotlight you never asked for. It can sound like Do better when what you need is Let’s make “better” doable. True accountability isn’t about catching you; it’s about catching you before you fall—like scaffolding while you rebuild. Think of it this way: you built habits that once helped you survive. They protected you then, but now they’re heavy to carry. Accountability isn’t a verdict on your character—it’s the handrail as you cross to a sturdier path. Why Accountability Works When we talk about accountability, we’re really talking about three ingredients: Accountability works because it keeps recovery from becoming an isolated project. Continuing care matters because continuity of care improves outcomes across the recovery journey—not just during the first intense weeks. How The Differents Can Help Accountability doesn’t have to be loud to be strong. Here are ways to put quiet guardrails in place—each designed to protect your autonomy and lower the odds that a rough day turns into a runaway week: The Protective Logic You Might Be Missing If you’ve dodged check-ins before, it may not be laziness—it’s privacy doing its job. Secrecy once kept you safe: from judgment, from chaos, from grief you didn’t have tools for. The twist is that what once protected you can now isolate you. The goal isn’t to rip the door off; it’s to install a lock you control. Accountability becomes a front door: open, close, or latch—your choice. Myths about Accountability in Recovery When Accountability Slips Slips don’t erase progress—they refine it. Ask: What was I trying to solve for in that moment—pain, pressure, loneliness? Then patch the plan where it’s thin. Maybe your aftercare cadence needs to increase. Maybe you add a group or a nightly text ritual. Accountability that grows with you is accountability that lasts. Bringing It Back It’s 6:59 now. You’ve named your plan out loud, and the knot in your chest loosens half a notch. You walk in—not because someone will scold you if you don’t, but because you’ve chosen a few people and practices to stand with you when the day leans hard. That’s accountability. Not a spotlight—just enough light to see the next step.
How to Have Fun in Recovery
In early recovery, quitting substances often leaves life feeling flat due to dopamine crashes and rewired brain reward systems, causing a temporary inability to feel pleasure. This phase, which can last around 90 days, is challenging but necessary for healing. To rediscover joy and protect against relapse, incorporating safe, research-backed activities is key: spending time in nature, exercising, engaging in creative hobbies, building sober friendships, and practicing quiet mindfulness or sound therapy. These activities boost natural dopamine, reduce stress, and create new positive brain pathways, making fun a vital part of recovery—not just a luxury but a form of protection. Embracing joy through creativity, movement, and connection helps rebuild a fulfilling, substance-free life. How to Have Fun in Recovery “Will I ever laugh this hard again?” When you first quit drugs or alcohol, that doubt can echo like an empty room. For years those substances were your ticket to concerts, bonfires, and backyard barbecues. Without them, life can look gray. That gloom won’t last—your brain is healing. Once you understand the science and get curious, you’ll see that fun in recovery is not just possible; it can be deeper, wilder, and more real than anything you felt while using. Why Early Sobriety Can Feel Flat Addiction rewires the brain’s reward center, flooding it with dopamine and teaching you that joy comes from chemicals, not real life. When you quit, dopamine levels crash. That crash can cause anhedonia, a short spell when nothing feels good. Most people begin to feel pleasure again after about 90 days of abstinence. Brain scans even show that former meth users’ dopamine systems are close to normal by 14 months. During this reset, boredom can sting—and many people list it as a top trigger for relapse. The fix isn’t to tough it out; it’s to add safe thrills so your reward system wakes up the healthy way. Five Research‑Backed Ways to Have Fun 1. Find Awe Outside Just 20 minutes in nature can lower stress hormones, reports Harvard Health. Stretch that into a sunrise hike, a kayak trip, or a mountain‑bike ride and you’ll pump out endorphins and dopamine. At The Differents’ Outdoor Therapy, clients climb, paddle, and snowshoe in the Sierra Nevada—the rush feels better when you remember every second. 2. Move Your Body Exercise is mood medicine you make yourself. A brisk 30‑minute walk can lift spirits, according to another Harvard Health article. Try yoga, pickup hoops, or a sober salsa night. The Differents blends movement into care—guided hikes, yoga‑pilates classes, and ski days—because sweaty smiles fight relapse. 3. Use Your Creativity Playing guitar, throwing paint, or writing goofy poems sparks small hits of dopamine. Organizational psychologist Dr. Mike Rucker calls fun “rocket fuel” for mood and friendships. In our studio, clients try pottery wheels, sound‑bath meditation, and more. Talent isn’t required—only a willing mind. 4. Grow a Sober Friend Group The right people—not the right drink—make parties great. Check out sober Meetup hikes, board‑game cafés, or volunteer gigs. Laughing itself lowers pain and boosts immunity. At The Differents, you’ll join campfire stories, alumni game days, and outings that trade hangovers for real memories. 5. Try Quiet Fun Mindfulness, breathwork, and sound‑baths can feel like a calm high. Many clients shed their first tears of relief during a 30‑minute sound‑bath. That’s why our holistic program offers meditation pods, crystal‑bowl concerts, and energy work. Peace counts as fun, too. Fun Is Not Frivolous—It’s Protection Stress and boredom speed up relapse; joy slows it down. Every sober smile lays a new brain path that says life feels good again. As days become weeks, those paths turn into highways. One morning you’ll catch yourself laughing in the coffee line or geeking out over a new hobby—and notice you haven’t thought about using at all. Recovery isn’t just removing a substance; it’s adding wonder. Whether you’re carving fresh snow, belting karaoke off‑key, or meditating to a ringing gong, you’re telling every cell you are alive, present, and free. Ready to put fun back on the menu? Let The Differents show you how Rehab Re‑imagined means creativity, adventure, and joy—required. FAQ How long before fun feels normal again? Most people feel pleasure start to return within 2–3 months as dopamine rebounds. Staying active—even on low‑energy days—helps speed this up. What if my friends still drink? Plan alcohol‑free outings (escape rooms, comedy shows, lake days). Bring your own mocktail and an exit plan. At the same time, build new sober friendships through groups and Meetups. Do I need to become an athlete or artist? No. Fun is personal. Try gardening, coding, stand‑up, dog training—anything that sparks curiosity. Start small and follow the smile.Can fun really stop relapse? Yes. Joy releases endorphins, lowers stress hormones, and strengthens healthy brain paths, making cravings easier to resist.
Signs of Cocaine Addiction
Cocaine hijacks the brain’s reward system by flooding it with dopamine, making everyday pleasures seem dull and leading to stimulant use disorder—a brain condition, not a moral failing. Early warning signs include bursts of energy followed by crashes, disappearing money, changing social circles, unexplained nose issues, and long bathroom breaks. Mood and behavior swings are common, with highs marked by confidence and chatter, crashing into irritability, sadness, and secrecy as dopamine drops and stress hormones rise. Physical signs include wide pupils, jaw clenching, weight loss, rapid heartbeat, and persistent “sinus infections,” while harder-to-spot symptoms include paranoia, nightmares, and a crawling-skin sensation. The risk is worsened by street cocaine often being laced with fentanyl, contributing to rising overdose deaths. Trusting your gut and noticing these signs early can be lifesaving. Signs of Cocaine Addiction From One “Bump” to 4 A.M. Amanda, a young guitarist, used to crash the moment her gigs ended. One night a friend handed her a tiny, clear packet. “Just a bump,” he said. The hit kept her buzzing—she could load the amps and still laugh on the ride home. It felt harmless, so she did it again. A year later, Amanda’s “nightcap” lasted until sunrise. Her heart raced, she stopped eating, and she watched $2,000 drain from her bank account. When did one line turn into the whole night? If any part of Amanda’s story rings true for you—or for someone you love—read on. We’ll show you the warning signs of cocaine addiction and how the team at The Differents helps people find steady ground again. What Cocaine Does in the Brain Cocaine floods the brain’s reward pathway, dumping dopamine—the “feel‑good” messenger—into overdrive. Ordinary joys like sunsets, jokes, or a child’s smile can’t compete. Doctors call this change stimulant use disorder. It’s a brain shift, not a moral failure. Five Early Warning Signs Trust your gut; that uneasy feeling often shows up first. Mood and Behavior Swings During the high, people may feel unstoppable—chatty, witty, full of plans. When the drug wears off, the crash can bring anger, gloom, or panic. Watch for: These swings happen because dopamine drops while stress hormones surge. Body Clues and Mental Strain Easy to spot Harder to see Street cocaine is often mixed with fentanyl. Overdose deaths from stimulants hit record levels in 2024. The Hidden Damage How Recovery Works Why The Differents Stands Out Set beside the Sierra Nevada, The Differents offers quiet rooms washed in mountain light. A 1‑to‑3 staff‑to‑client ratio means your therapist really gets to know you. Extra supports include: FAQ What’s the first giveaway? Long, secretive bathroom breaks plus sudden energy bursts often show up before nosebleeds. Can I quit on my own? Some succeed with strong outpatient help and close support. Inpatient care lowers relapse risk, especially in the fragile first month. How long is detox? The crash peaks in 3–7 days. Low mood can linger, but good sleep, food, and therapy speed recovery. Is there a pill that blocks cocaine? No approved blocker yet. Success comes from therapy, healthy living, and treating any mental‑health issues. What if my loved one denies the problem? Use “I feel worried” statements, set clear boundaries, and call a professional if safety is at risk.Ready to swap 4 a.m. panic for calm mornings? Call (844) 407‑0461 or start your journey at The Differents. Your next chapter can be brighter than any high.
How to Build Healthy Relationships in Recovery
Building healthy relationships during recovery is crucial for long-term sobriety and emotional well-being. Strong, supportive relationships help you navigate the challenges of recovery while providing a sense of community and accountability. Here are some key strategies to help you cultivate meaningful and healthy connections: Prioritize Communication Open and honest communication is the foundation of any healthy relationship. In recovery, it’s important to express your feelings, concerns, and needs clearly. Avoid keeping secrets or bottling up emotions, as this can lead to misunderstandings and resentment. Practicing active listening and empathy allows you to better understand and support others. Surround Yourself with Supportive People It’s essential to connect with individuals who understand your journey and encourage your growth. Seek out people who support your recovery goals, whether they’re fellow individuals in recovery, friends, or family members who are committed to being positive influences. Surrounding yourself with these individuals will help you stay motivated and grounded in your recovery. Set Healthy Boundaries In recovery, it’s vital to set clear boundaries to protect your well-being and maintain healthy relationships. Learning to say no when necessary and establishing limits helps prevent toxic dynamics and ensures that you prioritize your recovery. Respect others’ boundaries as well, and be mindful of how your actions affect those around you. Let Go of Toxic Relationships Some relationships may not be conducive to your recovery. If certain people trigger negative behaviors or hold you back, it’s okay to distance yourself from them. Letting go of toxic relationships can be difficult, but it’s necessary for maintaining your mental and emotional health. Surround yourself with people who uplift and inspire you. Be Honest About Your Recovery Journey Being transparent about your recovery journey fosters deeper, more authentic connections with others. Share your struggles and successes with trusted individuals. This honesty encourages mutual support and strengthens bonds with others who may be on a similar path. It also helps people understand your needs and limitations better. Practice Patience and Understanding Recovery is a long-term process, and so is building meaningful relationships. Be patient with yourself and others as you navigate this journey. Everyone is at different stages of their recovery, and it’s important to allow room for growth. By being patient and understanding, you contribute to the healing of both yourself and those around you. Engage in Healthy Activities Together Participating in positive activities with others can help build stronger relationships. Whether it’s attending support group meetings, exercising together, or engaging in hobbies, these shared experiences foster a sense of community and mutual support. Enjoying life’s simple pleasures together reinforces healthy interactions and provides opportunities for connection. Seek Professional Help When Needed Sometimes, professional support is necessary for navigating relationships, especially if they involve complex dynamics or past trauma. A therapist can provide valuable insights and coping strategies for maintaining healthy connections. Therapy or couples counseling can also help resolve issues and strengthen communication within relationships. Practice Gratitude and Appreciation In recovery, practicing gratitude can shift your focus toward the positive aspects of your relationships. Expressing appreciation for the support you receive helps strengthen bonds and reinforces positive behavior. Regularly acknowledging and celebrating the contributions of others fosters an atmosphere of love, trust, and mutual respect. Embrace Vulnerability Building healthy relationships in recovery requires embracing vulnerability. Being open about your struggles, fears, and emotions allows others to connect with you on a deeper level. Vulnerability is an essential part of forming authentic, supportive relationships that are built on trust and understanding. The Differents Can Help By practicing these strategies, you can build healthy, supportive relationships that contribute to your overall recovery journey. Surround yourself with people who care for you and your well-being, set healthy boundaries, and be patient as you grow both individually and together in recovery.
3 Hidden Effects of Trauma in Relationships
If you are struggling with untreated trauma, you might not realize the hidden effects of trauma in relationships. Untreated or unprocessed trauma can make its way into your personal relationships and even impact professional relationships. The Hidden Effects of Trauma in Relationships So, what are the three hidden effects of trauma in relationships? #1: Trust Issues Perhaps the biggest and most obvious are trust issues. Previous traumatic experiences can make it very difficult for an individual to fully trust their partner, even when their partner shows genuine love and concern. This can have a creeping effect on relationships, making one partner constantly suspicious in their relationship. For example: John was happily married to his high school sweetheart for ten years when he learned that she had been cheating on him for half that time and that all of her ‘business trips’ were actually trips to meet up with his best friend, who was also the best man at their wedding. So now, when John’s new girlfriend says she has to travel for business, he becomes suspicious immediately. This causes him to become irritable and lash out at her before she leaves, and when she comes back, he calls and texts repeatedly and demands that she keep in constant contact while she is away. #2: Overreactions Trauma can lead to the development of triggers. Triggers refer to any situation, person, or location that cause emotional distress. This distress can be severe enough that it results in emotional outbursts or overreactions that are disproportionate to the event or circumstance. For example: Mary was the victim of sexual assault when she was younger, so now, one of her triggers is men physically trapping her. When at a church function, Mary opened her car door to grab something but when she turned around, there were two other men, a father and his teenage son, standing about two feet away from her, the father with his hand on her open car door as they had approached her to talk about joining the choir. Mary, triggered, immediately screamed for them to move out of her way and ran off. To the father and son, this seemed like an overreaction to them approaching her in a crowded church parking lot full of other church members. #3: Intimacy Issues Unprocessed trauma can also lead to intimacy issues. It is not uncommon for someone with trauma in their past to want intimacy but to subconsciously sabotage any attempts at intimacy by either physically or emotionally withdrawing because they don’t want to get hurt again. For example: Tina wants nothing more than to be close to her partner. Whenever her partner starts to open up emotionally, though, Tina makes fun of them, calls them names, or makes other belittling comments to stay in control. Tina doesn’t realize why she’s doing this, but she knows that she doesn’t want to get hurt again, and if she can get the other person to say something sweet or do something intimate, but she doesn’t reciprocate, she ‘wins’ and is therefore slightly more protected than the partner. EMDR Treatment for Trauma One of the most popular forms of treatment today for trauma and PTSD is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprogramming, or EMDR. Used by the WHO and Department of Veterans Affairs, EMDR has the highest success rate of all trauma treatment. It works by reprocessing the way in which traumatic memories are stored and, in so doing, overcomes many of the triggers and subsequent symptoms of PTSD. For many, the appeal is not just the success rate but the fact that, unlike traditional trauma therapy, EMDR does not require you to sit and talk about the traumatic event in great detail with a therapist but rather to just recall it in your mind as you follow specific eye movements. This is best when it is part of a comprehensive treatment plan, including other modalities that encourage emotional resilience and coping skill development like CBT, ACT, mindfulness and meditation, art therapy, and music therapy. Getting Trauma-Treatment with The Differents At The Differents, we give clients a chance to heal from trauma in a remote, beautiful setting with a range of on-and-off-site activities. At our luxury addiction treatment center, we provide a high-level of ancillary services for our clients too including legal case management, financial support, and family support. When you work with us, we ensure you participate in individual and group therapy each week, with additional activities like: With our EMDR therapy, you can treat unresolved trauma and move beyond the hidden effects of trauma in relationships.
Key Benefits of Exercise in Addiction Recovery
Exercise is not just something you should do regularly to stay fit; it is something that has many benefits for those who are recovering from addiction. Physical activity has been shown as a potential treatment that offers great success for those who are not only in a treatment program but who have finished a treatment program and need to sustain their sobriety. What are the Key Benefits of Exercise in Addiction Recovery? Many scientific studies have examined the use of exercise as a way to help people in recovery. Dopaminergic Transmission When an individual becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol, their dopamine responses are compromised by those substances. This means it’s harder to get a positive dopamine response from other activities. However, some research has found that when exercise is used immediately after detox, it can help facilitate what is called a dopaminergic transmission, meaning exercise can help restore your dopamine signals and reverse the changes in your neural reward pathway that drugs and alcohol brought about. Reduced Risk of Relapse On a related note, many people risk a relapse after treatment because of things like cravings. The longer an individual is able to remain abstinent, the more likely they are to continue applying things like coping mechanisms and relapse prevention strategies. A systematic literature review found that people who exercised while receiving treatment at an inpatient clinic and those who participated in regular exercise while attending an outpatient program had a significant change in things like: This means that regular exercise not only during an inpatient or outpatient treatment plan but also after can go a long way toward reducing your risk of relapse. Mood Improvement Regular exercise is known for its ability to change your mood. Exercise triggers the release of endorphins, and these naturally combat depression or anxiety. Research indicates that a significant number of people in recovery also experience depression and anxiety. This can be in the form of a co-occurring disorder where an individual has both conditions, but in most cases, it is simply symptoms of depression or anxiety brought about by the significant change that is getting sober. Exercise can help manage the difficult emotions and problems with mood by changing the dopamine responses as mentioned, and also by naturally elevating your mood through endorphins. Cognitive Improvement Your brain is responsible for handling all of your cognitive functions, including reasoning, learning, and memory. Addiction can disrupt these cognitive areas, leading to problems with all of them: difficulty focusing or retaining information, problems storing memory, and issues with impulse control or attention. Exercise actually improves your cognition by increasing blood flow to things like the hippocampus and reducing inflammation that could result from addiction. Regular exercise increases the release of endorphins, which work to minimize cortisol levels or stress hormones and promote good communication in the brain. Both of these factors help you to learn more throughout your life, improve your brain cell development, and improve your memory and your thinking skills. Exercise Therapy with The Differents At The Differents, we pride ourselves on doing things differently. Nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, our treatment center is just minutes from Lake Tahoe, something that we heavily incorporate into our innovative approach to finding purpose beyond addiction. Clients have the opportunity to exercise regularly from the minute their programs start, no matter the season. We know that nature can heal, so we combine nature with your individual and group therapy sessions through activities like: The winter adventures at our luxury drug rehab center give you access to scenic snowshoeing trails at Heavenly Mountain or a chance to experience sledding and ice skating at Northstar. We provide activities that are full of exercise, no matter your skill level. We take advantage of Wild Mustang Adventures and offer indoor activities where you can practice on our NBA regulation basketball court or our state-of-the-art two-lane bowling alley. Our goal is to provide ample indoor and outdoor opportunities throughout the year to reap the key benefits of exercise in addiction recovery. With each of these activities, you have the opportunity to reap the key benefits of exercise in addiction recovery, restore your connection to nature and your inner self, rediscover your purpose, and connect with other people. Among the therapies we offer is Equine Therapy where you can focus on building trust and communication by connecting with horses and going horseback riding as another way to reap the key benefits of exercise in addiction recovery.