What Happens After Alcohol Rehab Ends?

Published by John Gillen | Last updated: 3rd March 2021

Withdrawing from alcohol and overcoming its addictive traits can be one of the hardest steps to take. Alcohol rehab is a worthwhile yet challenging process to complete, as you’ll face many opportunities for growth, which in tandem, naturally carry obstacles.

From unbearable withdrawal symptoms to emotional barriers, to the struggles associated with old psychological wounds, alcohol rehab, on the surface can feel even harder than alcoholism itself.

Facing up to the reality of alcoholism and the damages that it has caused can be draining, overwhelming and disappointing.

However, deep down, under those obstacles, alcohol rehab offers an opportunity to change your life, to change your lifestyle, and to change your health.

While knowing what to expect of rehab itself may be possible, down to the offering of pre-created treatment programmes, one of the hardest steps of the entire recovery journey in fact falls on life after rehab.

A common question we get asked here at Cassiobury Court is ‘what happens after alcohol rehab ends?’. This showcases how unfamiliar and how unpredictable long-term recovery can be as post-rehab experiences differ for each client on a significant scale.

However, by committing to rehab and ongoing offerings available through our treatment centre, gauging some degree of expectation is doable.

Here’s what happens after alcohol rehab ends, focusing on the efforts that you’ll need to continue to make addiction recovery worthwhile.

After Alcohol Rehab

Expected recovery rates through alcohol rehab

As we’ve shared above, visiting our rehab clinic here at Cassiobury Court will offer many benefits in association with alcohol addiction recovery.

Through a negative outlook, it’s easy to see how the challenges of rehab can feel overwhelming, sometimes even harder than the experience of alcohol abuse itself.

However, through a positive outlook, through seeing alcohol rehab for what it is, the recovery process, once accepted and understood can act as a life-changing lifeline to promote the detachment of alcohol and its addictive traits.

Alcohol rehab itself provides a platform to facilitate recovery efforts, by promoting addiction treatment services, wellbeing sessions, mental health support services, and relapse prevention planning.

However, while proactive and highly supportive steps are offered, it is important to remember the realism of long-term recovery.

Completing rehab can help you recover from addiction. However, there are many unrealistic outlooks of what rehab is and the potential results that it can influence over a 28-day period.

Alcohol rehab as a standard offering can provide the motivation, the mindset, the steppingstones and the tools to initially avoid alcohol exposure, in turn, personal triggers.

Yet, as many believe, rehab isn’t a cure, isn’t an overnight fix, and isn’t a definite way out from addiction.

If you believe that it is, it’s important to consider what happens after alcohol rehab ends, surrounding the necessity of ongoing recovery efforts, and the expected steps that you’ll need to take.

 

What happens after alcohol rehab ends?

Life after alcohol rehab ends will be very different from your current reality. Hopefully, by this point, you’ll have reached sobriety, by withdrawing from alcohol and by learning healthy coping mechanisms to utilise through high-risk situations.

Yet, on a post-rehab basis, this will be your chance to recover independently, where residential and intensive streams of treatment will come to a halt.

Understandably, this can be challenging, where your efforts will need to remain to maintain your results from rehab, into the future.

Life after alcohol rehab ends will be controlled by you. While the below services and steppingstones will be available to you, you must remember the realism of long-term recovery, and how alcohol rehab will not unravel and cure all of your problems with alcoholism.

Although significant value is available through our alcohol rehab, although we operate on a comprehensive offering, life after rehab is your chance to transition those assets over to fit your alcohol-free life.

 

A new reality

Once alcohol rehab ends, you’ll be faced with a new reality. This reality may be very different from your current when considering your routine, your outlooks and your desires.

It is however important that you hold onto that new reality and translate those desires into your new lifestyle.

Without this step, your pre-rehab life can be triggered to return, resulting in potential relapse risks.

Yet through a healthy lifestyle, working on your mind, your physical movement, your sleep and your nutrition, what happens after alcohol rehab ends can be much easier for you.

 

The need for relapse prevention planning

One significant step which happens after alcohol rehab ends focuses on securing your progress so far while reducing potential relapse risks. Relapse prevention planning will begin through alcohol rehab.

However, with ongoing support, the strengthening of your plan will continue to ensure that you have a strategy in place if you are exposed to alcohol.

Relapse risks are likely for the majority of clients, which can manifest as mental, emotional and physical. Knowing how to reduce their impacts and return to sobriety is very important on a post-rehab basis.

 

The offering of addiction aftercare

After alcohol rehab ends you will have access to addiction aftercare services. Here at Cassiobury Court, this is a guaranteed service for our clients, to offer guidance, further addiction treatment services, such as support groups and emotional support through this overwhelming time.

 

Mental health support services

Life after rehab can be testing on your mental health. This will be down to the change that you’ve experienced. As addiction recovery is for the long-term, mental health support services will be offered to help you maintain clarity and control over your reality.

 

Ongoing recovery efforts

Ongoing recovery efforts are required when considering the question of ‘what happens after alcohol rehab ends?’. If you can maintain those efforts, your advancement through alcohol rehab can be carried over to your new reality.

Every small step you take, whether that’s participating in alcoholics anonymous sessions, to monitoring your lifestyle, your efforts will benefit your future.

Life after alcohol rehab ends can feel daunting, can feel even harder than rehab itself and can feel lonely at first.

Yet, by embracing available support, by remaining realistic and rational, and by seeing long-term recovery for what it is, you can normalise a life without alcohol.

If you’re worried about rehab itself, your potential to recover, or the commitments necessary through life after rehab ends, contact our team at Cassiobury Court.

While rehab cannot fix your problems entirely, it can offer the next best thing, a handheld way out from addiction.

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John Gillen

John Gillen - Author Last updated: 3rd March 2021

John Gillen is a leading addiction treatment expert with over 15 years of experience providing evidence-based treatment methods for individuals throughout the UK. John also co-authors the book, The Secret Disease of Addiction, which delves into how the addictive mind works and what treatment techniques work best.