Completed Rehab and Now You Hate Your Life? What You Can Do to Get Back on Track

You made it through the ordeal of detox, then treatment and are now in recovery. You probably had your doubts while going through the process. It may even have been worse than you could have dreamed. But you made it. Congratulations. Now, however, things don’t seem as promising as you hoped they’d be. In fact, you hate your life. It’s not fun anymore. It’s too much work. You start to think maybe you’ll go back to drinking and/or using. What can you do to stop this train before it becomes a wreck?

Take Stock of Your Life

Sit down, take a pen and paper and write out all the positive things in your life in one column and the negatives in another. Positives include the fact that you’re clean and sober for maybe the first time in years. You’ve made new friends that share a similar background and you’ve gone through treatment with them. You learned new coping skills and techniques – and list those individually, just to remind yourself what they are. You may be healthier than you’ve ever been – at least while you were drinking or doing drugs. Your eyes are no longer bloodshot. You wake up without a hangover. You remember what happened yesterday and last week.

Negatives may include feeling depressed, wanting to drink or do drugs, feeling the urge to hang out with questionable friends who are still using or go to places that were the scene of your former bad habits. Maybe you haven’t dealt sufficiently with the guilt and remorse over what your life had become while you were using, or perhaps some family members didn’t come around as you hoped and you’re still estranged. Maybe you feel, what’s the use?

Now take another sheet of paper and write down life goals. Surely you discussed these with your therapist or counselor during treatment. See if they’ve changed. Have you accomplished any of them? If not, why not? Have you sincerely tried? What about the steps you are undertaking at your support meetings? Are you regularly attending them? This should be paramount on your to-do list. Remember, just because you went through treatment and are now in recovery, it doesn’t mean that you can just walk away from what you learned. You will always be in recovery. And, at times, you will feel depressed, anxious, angry, defeated or abandoned.

Recommit to Your Goals

Remind yourself what you want to become in one month, a year, two years or ten. What do you need to do to get yourself there? Do you need to change or find a new job? Do you need training? Do you need to sell your home or move to another location? Is your goal to completely start over in a new city or state? Do you want to have a family, reconnect with your family, make amends to those you have wronged? Mark these goals in big block letters and highlight them, if necessary. You may even want to print them out in large font on a computer and have them laminated on a piece of card stock you carry with you. It’s important to keep sight of goals – especially when you wake up in the morning and can’t seem to think of one good reason to get out of bed.

Go See Your Counselor or Therapist

In your continuing aftercare, you have resources to get in touch with your counselor or therapist. If this isn’t part of your treatment and recovery plan, call your treatment facility and inquire how you can receive ongoing counseling and treatment. If finances are a problem, ask about federal, state and/or local assistance. Contact community groups that offer low-cost or no-cost counseling for those in recovery. Call a hotline to discuss your needs and get referrals to agencies in your area.

Step Up Attendance at Support Meetings

You need to be among people who are or have been in similar circumstances. Every recovering alcoholic or drug addict – no matter what the drug of choice – has been through what you’re experiencing. They can and will help you through this difficult period. Through the strength of individual and group support, you will be able to overcome these feelings of worthlessness and despair.

Until you are able to create new strategies for dealing with these feelings, until you learn even more powerful coping techniques, plan to attend support meetings on a more regular basis – even daily for a few weeks. Depending on how recently you left treatment, you should be regularly attending support meetings for at least the first six months. After that, most successful recovering addicts and alcoholics say they keep up a maintenance routine of regular meeting attendance – just as an insurance policy. They know the support method works, since they’ve been on both the receiving and the giving end of it.

Use their success as an example to strive to achieve yourself. Make use of their ear as a sounding board. Or, just listen as others relate what’s going on with them. You may surprise yourself at how you come up with suggestions to help others – and, in the process, you may learn something about how to better help yourself.

Celebrate Small Victories

Milestones are critically important for those in recovery. When you achieve certain points on your ladder of success, take the time to recognize them and celebrate your achievement. Some 12-step programs have buttons for X-number of days of sobriety, or some other badge of recognition. Even without such a group acknowledgement – which is terific for the ego, by the way – strive to undertake your own self-congratulations. It doesn’t have to be any more than sending yourself a congratulatory e-card, or marking on the calendar with a big star or exclamation point with a highlighter or marking pen. Take yourself out for a celebratory meal – minus alcohol, of course – or reward yourself with a weekend trip, go to a sporting event or play or musical – even a wrestling match. It doesn’t matter what the reward is, the important point is that you do something to give yourself the accolades you deserve.

After a short while, you’ll begin to look forward to these special occasions. And they are special, indeed. Each marks another step forward in your life in recovery. Each step means a lot of hard work and determination, fighting off the cravings that seek to insinuate themselves back into your life, reminding yourself that you are a better person now and you deserve happiness.

You are the architect of your own destiny. Only you can make tomorrow the kind of future you want. Embrace that fact. Make it what you truly want. You’ll not only be back on track, you’ll be leaving all your former demons and doubts in a trail of dust behind you.