When your time in residential drug and alcohol addiction treatment ends, your recovery journey is just beginning. You will need continued support to ensure you can maintain sobriety even when faced with life’s stressors. Enter aftercare. Aftercare is like a toolkit of resources that you can use to remain sober and healthy.

Why Does Aftercare Matter?

Addiction can’t be cured. It’s a disease that will remain present in your life, though it will become less of a daily struggle over time. You will likely get to the point where you don’t think about using substances every day, but that doesn’t mean you no longer need care.

Studies indicate that continuing care is a component of effective treatment. It allows you to remain active and committed in your fight against this disease, and that’s empowering to you and your future. Aftercare is one way to remain connected to the core beliefs, strategies, and tools you’ve developed during treatment.

How Does Aftercare Work?

Some people need continued addiction treatment for years. For others, it’s possible to scale back over time. However, everyone who completes an addiction treatment program will benefit from aftercare during the period immediately following treatment.  Aftercare provides a structured plan designed to meet your individual mental health and physical goals. Your plan will include the necessary strategies to support your continued health. This may include:

• Engaging in an alumni program with your drug and alcohol treatment center.
• Ensuring you have a place to live that’s drug- and alcohol-free and supportive to you.
• Engaging in routine community-based recovery meetings on a consistent basis.
• Developing a relationship with a mentor and learning how to reach out for hands-on help when you feel at risk for relapse.
• Engaging in continued counseling and support for mental health needs.

Your aftercare plan should be designed to address your specific physical, emotional, and mental health needs. For some people, aftercare is more hands-on, potentially including intensive outpatient treatment or transitional living. For others, it might include weekly therapy meetings and recovery support group involvement. In all cases, aftercare is one of the most powerful tools you have to succeed in sobriety. 

What is Aftercare Like at Victory Addiction Recovery Center?

At Victory, we see the value in providing our clients with all of the tools and support they need to thrive in treatment and in the years to come. Our aftercare and alumni program in Lafayette is uniquely poised to provide you with the support you need in an environment you want to be in. Aftercare allows you to remain connected with others who have gone through the same challenges you have. It is one of the core components of your long-term sobriety goals.

When you engage in aftercare within our community, you will see a number of opportunities and benefits, including:

• You remain involved in your care and your recovery. You continue to focus on your well-being and healing.
• You build a strong support system with people who actually understand you, your thought processes, the frustrations, and the wins. Having a community where you feel like people understand is vitally important to recovery.
• You develop healthy bonds with other alumni. You’ll often find that alumni can be some of your most trusted friends.  

As a treatment center, our primary goal may seem to provide our clients with the ability to get sober. Yet, there’s more to recovery than that. An alumni and aftercare program can help you develop a future that you love and one that supports you on a continued basis.

Take a look at some of the ways we foster and support your success in our recovery and aftercare programs:

• You’ll have access to the Victory app, a type of social media app that’s private to alumni. It’s the group of people you know you can turn to no matter where you are.
• We host monthly social events as well as holiday events to help support our clients and keep that bond and connection going with alumni.
• We provide aftercare meetings to keep you focused on your goals and work through this week’s challenges.
• We’ll invite you to come back as a guest speaker. A part of your recovery goals may be to support your new family and those who are entering treatment. Volunteer and speak to those who need your thoughts, opinions, and experiences to thrive.
• We’ll help you remain engaged in the community. You’ll receive newsletters and tools to help support you and give you the information you need to be successful.

We aim to be the best addiction recovery center in Lafayette, and our aftercare program supports this. Learn more about how Victory Addiction Recovery Center is helping our clients to get healthy and stay that way. Contact us now.

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