Recovering from an addiction of any kind involves a lot of difficult steps, from detox to residential to outpatient. When moving from residential to outpatient, there are a number of changes that occur – and thus, a number of opportunities available to each individual to personalize their own recovery path.
Residential treatment provides a highly-regulated environment and schedule. When moving towards an IOP, or intensive outpatient program, maintaining a healthy environment and schedule now falls on the shoulders of each individual. But this is a good thing, and it provides many opportunities for growth.
Adapting Life Skills
Learning life skills and strategies for realigning with one’s own goals is a common venture through inpatient treatment. Yet when going through an IOP, it becomes one of the most personal and malleable aspects of recovery. Life skills in practice can be adapted to environments – especially ones that each person is now curating themselves. Keeping a clean and safe environment is now “keeping one’s own safe space clean.” A simple change in words on the surface, but now the environment is populated by things that are entirely personal.
One’s own goals, hobbies, and interests that are important to them alone take front and center. Using strategies to build healthy relationships take their own forms, as now there are a limitless amount of people to meet. These skills aren’t just applied to the people around you while in residential treatment, they are applied through daily life with strangers and friends alike. While it can make their practice more difficult, it also allows one to personalize not just how they implement the skills, but what their purpose is specifically to them.
Honing In on the Future
Identifying how each skill affects a person in their individual recovery leads directly to the next step – specifying goals. Listing goals and the steps that one can take to get there is a fantastic way to stay motivated. When it comes to implementation, the goals may adapt and change to fit different freedoms and constraints. This is perfectly normal. It may be difficult at first to deviate from a well-thought-out plan, but it is a necessary part of individualizing the path to recovery.
Goals will change, processes will mix up, and goals will become specific. This specificity of goals demonstrates the innate desires and true missions that one has. It also helps to paint what the future can look like in practice for self-actualization.
Balancing Choices and Freedoms
In an IOP, the day isn’t structured by anybody else – it is all up to each patient. While each different mode of therapy holds a benefit that it is reaching towards, some are more effective than others depending on each individual. Having learned what works for each person and what their daily needs are, the free time is now filled with choices on how to spend that time.
Some people may find they need more time to actively practice their life skills, and that brings them fulfillment and success. Others may find that they didn’t have enough time to pursue a hobby that interests them to the fullest within previous time constraints, but now they do.
These choices define how recovery will look on a personal level, by using the strategies and education already learned and applying them to a unique, real-life situation. The results are something that is valuable to each person, and that individuality through the recovery process will pave their way forward.
Learning each of the strategies is very important, and knowing the reason behind their implementation is key in maintaining use of the strategies – and therefore preventing relapse. Seeing how each of the techniques works in one’s own life, however, is the picture of how the future can play out and what goals can be achieved.
Embracing Change
There are many changes when moving to an IOP. But change means a chance to make something one’s own – to create a portrait of themselves and their life outside of a group. Bringing that personal life to the group after an individual success can bring others up and help everyone. But first and foremost, it helps the recovery of the person who lived it. People know their own likes and dislikes, and personalizing recovery is a key part of internalizing the strategies therein.
Adapt where needed, and at each turn, ask why the turn was made and how it benefited you. Personalizing recovery is a good thing, and understanding the deviations from any previous list of goals is a sign of progress to be championed. In the end, each person is in charge of their own recovery – so make it your own.
If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction and ready to take the first step, contact Lighthouse Recovery. Providing a modern take on sober living and intensive outpatient programs, Lighthouse aims to address the gap between recovery and real life. Our caring staff knows that each patient brings much more life experience than just an addiction, and creates an atmosphere that invites personality and individualism as a part of the larger whole. Addiction and recovery are fluid concepts. Lighthouse is available at each turn to personalize recovery and life skills, treating each person as an individual to create a community that feels personal, effective, and in tune with each person who walks through our doors. To learn more, call Lighthouse today at (214) 396-0259.
Learn more about our services or contact us below to discover how Lighthouse can help you on your road to recovery today. Thank you for your trust.
