When you’re using Suboxone as an outpatient treatment to break an opiate addiction, you’re going it alone. It’s the nature of the treatment and it has many perks—you are free to continue working, taking care of kids or elder family members, keep your addiction issues private—but there are a few drawbacks as well. If you do your outpatient treatment through Meditox, you get 24-hour access to their support desk which provides you with medical advice and referrals to local support groups, doctors who understand your predicament and any other resources you need to stay clean and sober. Here are a few recovery tools that you can implement on your own in addition to Suboxone treatment to increase your chances of a successful, lasting recovery.

• Think positive. If you’re down on yourself and basically waiting for the other shoe to drop, eventually it will. Focus on the good things you have thanks to your recovery. Remind yourself how much worse it could be if you weren’t clean.
• Resolve your problems. The thing about recovery is that it isn’t perfect and now you no longer have the excuse, “I was loaded,” to wipe away your guilt. You are someone who is accountable for your actions so if you mess up, admit it. Take care of it and make it right or apologize as quickly as you can. There’s nothing like a whopping dose of guilt to send you back to the needle or the pill bottle.
• Do it bird by bird. There’s a book by Anne Lamott on writing that may be one of the best inadvertent recovery books out there. Really funny and written by a lady who’s in recovery herself, she offers the advice that anything is achievable if you take it apart. A huge report on birds, for example, will be best accomplished if you take it on bird by bird rather than in its entirety. In AA, they say, “one day at a time.” When I first started out in recovery, it was “every five minutes at a time.” If you feel the urge to use, tell yourself, “I’ll do it in five minutes,” and then fill up that five minutes with something else. Hopefully that feeling will pass, but if not, five minutes later, you can call your sponsor, go to a meeting, call Meditox, call a friend or give yourself another five minutes.
• Blog about it. Countless people have taken to the web and started their own blog free of charge where they can talk about their issues in recovery. It’s a great way to build a support system and meet others around the world who are in the same predicament.
• Replacement therapy. The sheer boredom of a new life in recovery can be overwhelming for some. When you spend your life chasing a bag, what are you supposed to do with all this free time? My answer: anything but using, being around people who are using, or involving yourself in a situation that will potentially make you vulnerable to relapse. This means no bars, staying away from friends who are using, and don’t start a new romantic relationship. Do, however, invest time in your current relationship if that person isn’t using, time with your children, your dog, get a dog, learn a new language, buy a camera and learn how to use it, join a gym, take an art class, read a book, learn how to knit. Whatever it takes to keep your mind occupied, your body active, and your focus on health and happiness without drugs.

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"Tools for Successful Opiate Drug Addiction Treatment" posted in Addiction Recovery, Outpatient Rehabilitation.
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