Category: Health & Fitness

How to Successfully Detox from Alcohol

two clients during counseling for an alcohol detox program

How to Successfully Detox from Alcohol

If you’re struggling with alcohol, you’re not alone. Today, 29.5 million Americans have an alcohol use disorder. That often means you have tolerance, chemical dependence, and difficulty quitting or cutting back when you do try to stop. For many of us, alcoholism doesn’t take the form of constant drinking. Instead, we binge drink on weekends and do so uncontrollably. Then, withdrawal symptoms might be so bad the next few days that it feels like being sick. Others drink nearly constantly, and often to the point of using alcohol to function. Wherever you are in that, quitting can improve every part of your life, your health, and your mental health. It can give you the tools to rebuild your life, to have mental stability, and to invest in the relationships that add value to your life. And, it means you’ll be investing into yourself and your future.

At the same time, detoxing from alcohol isn’t easy. It’s not just about deciding you want to do it and going for it. Alcohol detox can be difficult and dangerous. For many people, it has setbacks and those include health complications, high risk of relapse, and emotional and mental trauma while detoxing. It’s important that you treat alcohol detox as a serious and medically important thing. For most people, that means medical supervision and potentially medication.

Talk to Your Doctor

The first step to quitting alcohol is to have a plan in place so that you can do so safely. Here, it’s generally a good idea to talk to your doctor to go over your options and potential scenarios. For example, you might move into a detox clinic to get the help you need to quit without putting yourself at physical risk. Here your options are:

Cold turkey / social detox – This means that you quit right away with no crutches or aids. It’s the thing that most people do when trying to quit alcohol on their own. It’s also the highest risk option, as about 1 in 10 people getting off alcohol in this way experience long-term complications like delirium tremens.
Tapering – If you’re drinking too much your doctor may ask you to taper off of alcohol before going cold turkey. That can make it possible to safely cut back from alcohol on your own. However, most people asking for help to quit alcohol are too sick to taper off of it, so this isn’t always an option.
Medically supported detox – Here you detox in the same style as going cold turkey, but in a clinic, with people to monitor your symptoms and how you’re doing. If you start to develop more symptoms or complications, you’ll receive medication to reduce risks and to ensure you recover more quickly. This means you can get treatment right away if you’re facing delirium tremens or other complications.
Medical detox – Here you receive a prescription medication such as disulfiram, acamprosate, or naltrexone. These prevent a withdrawal phase and mean that you can immediately move into focusing on recovery and therapy and learning the skills to stay sober. In some cases, you might be on a maintenance dose for as long as months after detox. However, you’ll often begin to taper off of prescription medication when you leave rehab.

Here it’s also important to keep in mind that detox is just the first step of getting sober. It doesn’t matter how many times you quit drinking if you don’t deal with the behavioral addiction and the underlying problems that drive you to drink in the first place.

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Choose an Approach to Quit

Once you know the options you can make an informed decision about your treatment. Your doctor can help you to reach that decision. They may also want to involve an alcohol detox specialist to help you come to a decision based on your specific history, alcohol use, and drinking patterns. The more often you drink, the harder detox will be. That often means creating a detox plan around your lifestyle and your habits, so you can figure out a way to quit alcohol that is safe for you.

That will likely also involve evaluating your risk of relapse, assessing how many times you’ve tried to quit before, and then building a custom detox plan around your specific needs.

Take the Time You Need

Detoxing from alcohol is going to take time. That’s true if you’re doing it at home or in a clinic. The actually physical withdrawal will typically take about 1-2 weeks. However, if you end up with complications, you might need up to three months to fully physically recover. That’s without considering the time needed for behavioral treatment, counseling, and recovering from the underlying causes as well as the traumas of addiction.

Alcohol withdrawal can be severe. You’ll probably feel like you have the worst case of flu you’ve ever had in your life.

That normally means taking at least 2 weeks off work. You may want more especially if you’re going into a rehab program afterwards. Luckily, you can also do so even if you have a full-time job. You’re legally allowed to take up to 90 days (unpaid) off work for family and medical reasons without disclosing why or losing your job. However, your boss may want to have a note from your doctor that you need it. Just keep in mind that they aren’t even legally allowed to ask what your medical problems are, let alone force you to disclose them.

Make Sure You Have Accountability

Quitting alcohol is about more than putting it down once. It’s about consciously choosing, every single day, to not pick it up. That means building routines, finding accountability, and finding social accountability to stay clean and sober. If you’re detoxing at home, you need accountability to stick with it at home. If you’re detoxing in a clinic, you need accountability there and accountability for when you leave treatment. That often means:

Finding personal motivation and realizing how much you want to be sober. Then, checking in with yourself, reaffirming this is still what you want and why, and putting in the work to hold yourself accountable.
Keeping track of yourself so that you have a visual milestone of progress. For example, marking off days in a calendar so you always know when you had your last drink and exactly how well you’re doing.
Finding social motivation of people to hold you accountable. For example, friends and family to check up on you, a self-help or support group, or regular visits to a counselor or a treatment center.

Any of those steps can help you to find accountability, to hold yourself to staying on track, and to ensuring that you have someone to check up on you, including yourself. That will help you to stay in detox and, over the long term, in recovery.

Eventually, an alcohol use disorder is a lot to deal with on your own. You shouldn’t have to. It’s important that you take steps to ensure you can detox safely and without endangering your physical or mental wellbeing. Often, that will mean getting detox support and medical treatment to ensure you can withdraw from alcohol safely and in comfort. Here, you should also start counseling and therapy, to ensure you have the emotional support you need to get through treatment as well. Good luck detoxing from alcohol.

Does Meth Cause Heart Damage and Cardiovascular Disease?

Methamphetamine or meth is one of the most commonly abused drugs in the United States. In fact, with an estimated 2.5 million Americans using the drug, it’s extremely likely that you or someone you know uses it. In addition, some 1.6 million Americans are addicted to meth, which means they heavily use and go through withdrawal if they stop using it. Meth is well-known to cause myriad health issues, ranging from horrifying weight loss to rotting teeth and hair loss. Most people are also aware of the significant slips in personal hygiene, personal care, and care of social responsibilities associated with meth. However, fewer people are aware of the fact that meth can have a significant impact on your heart and your cardiovascular health.

In addition to causing significant problems to your mental health, your social life, your financial life, it can significantly stress your heart, cause permanent heart and cardiovascular damage, and can even kill you. It’s the second most common cause of death in methamphetamine users, following accidental overdose. There’s no safe way to use meth, so if you or your loved one are using it, you are putting yourself at risk.

Heart Risks Caused by Methamphetamine

Meth can significantly damage your heart and your cardiovascular system. It can also indirectly cause to both indirectly by preventing you from cooling down properly. Here, it’s important to know that methamphetamine is a stimulant that causes increases in heart rate, blood pressure, and the production of dopamine, serotonin, and even adrenaline. It’s an “upper” and many people who use it won’t sleep until the dose wears off – which can be over 36 hours.

Heart Attack – Methamphetamine users are significantly more likely to suffer from a heart attack than non-methamphetamine users. This happens through two mechanisms. The first is that meth is a stimulant and causes increased blood pressure and increased activity. Users may also continue using, taking multiple hits over the course of a day and may stay at this state of heightened arousal for 12+ hours. This can result in significant strain to the heart and eventually in a heart attack. However, methamphetamine can also cause cardiotoxicity, which may result in a heart attack. Here, catecholamine builds up in the heart and may cause heart muscle death, resulting in heart failure or a heart attack.
Cardiotoxicity – Catecholamine activity is responsible for modulating the heart rate and blood pressure. Excessive catecholamine activity results in high blood pressure and high heart rate. This can eventually lead to heart muscle death, heart attack, and heart failure. It can also cause narrowing of the blood vessels and spasms of the blood vessels, both of which can result in other complications.
Stroke – Methamphetamine causes increased risks to the heart, which means that you are at a significantly higher risk of stroke. Here, you’re at the highest risk if you’re over the age of 45. However, anyone is at risk and it’s usually a mix of increased heart activity and heat. Therefore, you can reduce risks by keeping cool and not overextending activity beyond what you would do while clean and sober.
Cardiovascular Damage – Meth causes significant strain to the cardiovascular system which can result in semipermanent and permanent damage. Here, spasms, narrowing of the blood vessels, clots, and strain are all likely side-effects. Cardiovascular damage can result in needing surgery. It can increase your risk of heart complications. It can also result in brain damage when a blood vessel bursts, clots, or hemorrhages.
Weight Loss – many people taking methamphetamine end up losing a lot of weight. That’s because the drug increases your metabolism and reduces interest in food. However, this can create a lot of extra strain on your heart, especially if that weight loss is rapid. Maintaining your nutrition levels and physical weight is important for your heart health. Heart strain from weight loss or from being too thin can cause heart attack, stroke, and heart failure.

In each case, the longer you use methamphetamine, the more built-up strain that it causes. This means that using meth for longer results in increased risks, longer term damage, and more built-up damage over time. However, if you’re at risk of a heart attack, have a history of heart disease, or have a risk of heart strain, then you’re at use every single time you use the drug.

All of these health problems can vary in severity depending on your sensitivity, genetic profile, weight, gender, physical health, and starting point. Someone with a high risk of heart problems is more likely to have problems with meth. However, someone who is already underweight when they start meth might over-strain an already weak heart and immediately cause health problems or death. Eventually, without a thorough health panel upfront to see if you are at risk, you have no way of knowing how you’ll respond to using meth every single time you use the drug.

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Can You Avoid Heart Damage with Meth?

Unfortunately, there’s no way to avoid potential heart damage from meth if you are using it. However, if you are using the drug anyway, taking steps to reduce heart damage can make it safer for you. That means:

Using less of the drug at once
Sticking to a few hits and then taking breaks. The longer you’re high, the worse heart strain gets
Getting plenty of sleep, typically no more than about 18-20 hours apart from the last time you slept
Eating well to maintain your physical weight to reduce strain on your heart
Talking to a doctor about your usage and how to make it as healthy as possible

Unfortunately, there’s no way to make methamphetamine use safe. You’ll always take on risks and you’ll always increase heart strain, risk heart damage, and risk cardiovascular disease. The longer and the more you use meth, the worse those risks will get. That’s even true if you’re a casual user and not struggling with addiction or dependence. You’ll always be putting yourself at risk of physical health problems including long-term and permanent heart damage. The best way to mitigate that damage is to not use meth at all. However, if you’re already using, getting help with quitting, detoxing in a healthy manner rather than going “cold turkey” without support, and ensuring that you move safely through detox is the best start you can make to getting your health back.

Getting Help

If you or a loved one is using meth, it is not safe. Methamphetamine always creates a risk of heart damage, heart attack, overdose, and psychosis. There is no safe way to use the drug. Getting help can mean getting assistance with detox and withdrawal, so you can get off of the drug without causing additional health risks. It can also mean getting support and mental health treatment, so you can get started with recovery and with learning the skills to stay in recovery rather than relapsing.

Meth is extremely common. However, it’s also dangerous for your body and for your mental health. The sooner you get help, the easier it will be to recover and the less likely you are to deal with long-term side-effects. Good luck getting treatment.

How to Take Care of a Pet When You Are Newly Sober

Woman Taking Care of her Pet after recovery

How to Take Care of a Pet When You Are Newly Sober

If you’re just out of recovery and you have to take care of a pet, it can mean extra challenge. In fact, if you don’t yet own a pet, most recovery groups will recommend waiting to get one. Here, recovery groups often start individuals out on buying a plant and keeping that alive first. Once you’ve proven you can do that, you can start with pets. But, if you already have a pet, you’ll have to jump right into taking care of and managing the life that is in your care. That can be a massive responsibility.

The good news is that there are plenty of strategies you can use to ensure you’re providing good care for the animals in your life – even when you’re newly sober. These tips will help you make the right decisions and the right calls.

Take Your Pet to Rehab with You

An increasingly large number of rehab and treatment centers will offer pet care during recovery treatment. This means that you can simply bring your pet with you and continue offering it care while you work on yourself. That’s often relatively easy as you can keep a cat in a room with you, birds in cages, and rehab often involves hiking and plenty of time to walk, so dogs can also get exercise.

Of course, bringing a pet to rehab with you will reduce the number of rehab centers you can choose from. On the other hand, it means that caring for your pet is part of your schedule from day one. It is good to be able to focus on yourself first and foremost during recovery. However, rehab offers plenty of time for pet care, which means this can be a great option.

Ask for Help When You Need It

You won’t always have the headspace or the time to care for your pet. It’s important that you learn to reach out and ask for help when you need it. That might mean having a pet sitter. It might also mean having someone come over to help you with cleaning a litter box or cages when you notice you’re having trouble keeping up. If you treat early sobriety like being in recovery from being sick or like having a depression diagnosis, you’ll understand that you will have good and bad days. Some days you will need help. That may mean having someone on call to help you with your pet so that you know your pet gets the care it needs. Asking for that help can be hard because it can make you feel like you’re not being enough for a pet, but it’s important to recognize that you are sick and you do need help sometimes. If you can’t do that, then your pet may actually go without because you are in recovery and you won’t always be healthy enough (mentally or physically) to offer the care your pet needs.

Work Pet Care into Your Routines

Moving into recovery often means building good routines into your life. That means good food, exercise, and taking care of your home and space. It’s important that your pet be part of those routines from day one. For example, if you have a dog, you can make multiple long walks a day your exercise routine. That means you and your pet get the care you need. You can also work cleaning up after your pet into your morning routine. For example, taking 10 minutes before and after bed to check food and water, to clean up messes, etc., can be extremely good for your pet. Of course, any pet will also need extra time for play and for enrichment, which means setting that time aside. But, providing you make it part of your routine, you’ll have a better idea of when to do it and how to do it. Creating that routine will also help you to maintain good pet care even when you are having a bad day and are having a hard time.

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Have Someone Check in on You

Keeping up with your mental health and your recovery can be difficult. It’s important that you have someone looking in on you. That means two things. The first is social accountability. Here, you know someone is checking in on you so you have external motivation to do something that should be done. That can be more helpful than most people realize. For example, if you’ve ever suddenly had the motivation to clean right before guests show up, you’ve experienced social accountability. It can be surprisingly powerful, even for things you want to do like taking care of your pet.

In addition, having someone check in on you can help you to notice sooner when you start to do badly. You might be struggling but someone will realize it and may help you to break out of it before things go bad. And, if they can’t, they will likely be able to help you take care of your pet so your pet does not lose the added care. That will be better for your pet and its wellbeing either way. Of course, that does mean having a self-help group, having people visit you, having that check-in, and that can be hard to ask for and hard to maintain.

Talk to Your Therapist

You might not be ready to take care of a pet. It’s important to accept that. It’s also important to accept that if you can’t take care of your pet right now, you should be getting help. That help might mean having someone drop by daily to help you with pet care. It might also mean having your pet live with a friend or family member for a bit while you work to recover your physical and mental health. Recovering from a substance use disorder is a lot. You might need help. You might have ups and downs. Your bad days might be so bad you cannot or can barely take care of yourself. Having a pet at the same time means taking on responsibility you might not be ready for. That means talking to your therapist, getting help, and figuring out what you’re capable of.

It’s always a good idea to wait with getting a pet if you can. However, pets can help with loneliness, they can help you to feel loved, they can give you a good baseline for self-care, and they can provide external motivation for doing things. On the other hand, if you wait till you’re further into recovery, you’ll be in better shape to ensure your pet has the care and emotional stability from its caretaker that it needs. Whatever situation you’re in, don’t be afraid to reach out, ask for help, and try to involve your pet in your therapy and recovery. Eventually, taking care of a life is a big responsibility and it should be an important part of your life, including your rehab and your self help and support. That can mean added complexity, but it will mean you get companionship, and your pet gets the care it needs.

Good luck with your recovery and with taking care of your pet.

If you or your loved-one struggles from alcoholism or other substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our alcohol rehab, detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. 10 Acre Ranch also has specialty tracks like our pet friendly drug rehab and couples substance abuse treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.

What Is a Wax Pen Vaping Device?

What Is a Wax Pen Vaping Device?

Everyone has heard of a vape or a vaporizer. But, more and more often, you’ll get terms like “wax pen” or “wax vape”. Wax pens are similar to vaporizers but are designed for vaporizing different substances, usually at higher temperatures.

Otherwise, wax pens are portable vaporizers designed to vaporize cannabis products. They’re also virtually useless for anything but cannabis dabs (crystals) or other crystalized drugs because they’re too hot for any non-processed product. However, they’re fully portable and convenient products for using concentrated drug products without the hassle of a traditional multi-part rig.

If you or a loved one is using or considering one, here’s what you need to know.

What is a Wax Pen?

A wax pen is a handheld vaporizing device consisting of a cartridge, a battery, and a mouthpiece. The system is extremely similar to a standard vaporizer in that the wax pen uses the battery to heat the cartridge, sending the vapor to the mouthpiece, where it can be inhaled.

Most have a small form size, which can be fit into a hand or a pocket. They’re usually a bit bulkier than traditional vapes though. Why? They’re actually a lot warmer. Most vaporizers cap out at about 450 degrees, or about the same maximum heat as a kitchen oven. Fresh cannabis mostly benefits from lower heat.

Wax pens on the other hand typically cap out at about 850F, or about the maximum heat of a soldering iron used to melt metal. That’s because wax pens are used to melt highly processed and crystalized substances.

Are Wax Pens Dangerous?

Is it dangerous to carry something that heats to 850F in your pocket? It can be. However, it doesn’t have to be. Wax pens can be manufactured to high standards of safety, which means having thermal overload, automatic shutdown, and significant insulation. You wouldn’t want to leave one on in your pocket. However, providing you buy one from a licensed manufacturer, most should have a safety switch to prevent this from happening.

Wax pens are also a lot safer than dab rigs. Here, you typically superheat a dab in a glass container or pipe and then inhale it. Glass can overheat and can even explode. In fact, burns, cuts, and burns around the mouth and the lungs are not uncommon with dab rigs. Therefore, in most cases, the wax pen is considered significantly safer than the dab rig or bong.

Of course, bongs can be perfectly safe to use as well. However, they are accident prone and may be dangerous to use.

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What are Dab Pens Used For?

Wax and dab pens are normally used to consume “Dabs”. Dabs are highly concentrated doses of THC which are extracted from a plant, much like hash is. In fact, dabs are made up of THC and butane hash oil. In most cases, growers use the trim (leaves, buds that are too small to sell) from the plant. They then cover it with butane (yes, the same butane used in cigarette lighters). This process is done in a lab with masks, gloves, and protection from the butane and should not be tried at home. The THC dissolves into the butane, producing a sticky, wax-like substance.

That “Dab” can contain 70-90% THC. That’s about triple the potency of the highest possible TCH contents of smoking straight cannabis.

Dab pens can also be used to vaporize other chemically processed drugs. For example, it’s rare to see drugs like meth used in vape pens. However, it’s increasingly common in dab pens, because the higher temperatures make it more effective. Again, this is safer than using a pipe for the same process.

Are Dabs Dangerous?

Dabs can be dangerous for a few reasons. The first is that the amount of THC is extremely high. This means you increase risks of dependence and addiction. You’ll also see increased impacts to mental health in terms of increased anxiety and even psychosis risks from smoking dabs over marijuana. And, because it’s so strong, it’s extremely difficult to keep your usage light or to control your dose at all. In fact, many people smoke too much, get paranoid and anxious, smoke more to calm that down, and exacerbate the cycle.

It’s also true that butane is highly flammable. Vaporizing it theoretically removes all of the harmful vapors meaning you shouldn’t be causing any extreme health risks to yourself by inhaling it. However, it’s dangerous to light and to have around heat – because it could technically ignite. As a result, wax pens can result in fires.

It also goes without saying that many of the other substances you can use a dab pen for are extremely dangerous. Meth, crack cocaine, and other free base versions of drugs are potent, addictive, and often extremely dangerous to uses. That’s unrelated to using a wax pen, and the wax pen will actually make using them safer than using a traditional glass pipe.

What Should You Know?

If you or a loved one is using a wax pen for dabs or for anything else, there are pros and cons. On the one hand, if you have to use something at the potency of dabs, it’s probably a bad sign for your mental health and your drug use. You might want to consider cutting back and trying to ensure your use falls within healthy parameters. If you can’t, it may be important to look into getting professional help to do so. Substance use disorders are a normal result of exposure to drugs. In fact, cannabis use disorder occurs in about 30% of “heavy” users. You also can’t use dabs without qualifying as a heavy user, which means you’re more at risk.

On the other hand, wax pens are a lot safer than glass bongs and pipes. If you’re using anyway, a wax pen produced by a licensed manufacturer may decrease risks of fires, burns, and glass cuts. So, if you’re going to keep using, a wax pen is a great way to minimize the physical safety risks of doing so. However, it’s important to ensure that you understand the safety precautions for the wax pen, to use the safety off, and to use the pen in a responsible manner. Unfortunately, using drugs decreases your ability to do so, which means your wax pen will likely never be completely safe. However, it’s still better than superheating glass.

If you’re using hard drugs or high concentration drugs and extracts, you might want to look into getting help. Drugs impact your mental health, decrease mental stability, increase risks of anxiety and paranoia, and increase risks of psychosis. That’s true for regular cannabis without looking at high-purity drugs like dabs. This means that dabbing or using a wax pen for dab or shatter greatly increases your risks. If you’re having trouble or even aren’t sure, talk to your doctor to get advice and to figure out how you’re doing. If you need help, it is there.

How Can I Handle College Parties and Stay Sober?

How Can I Handle College Parties and Stay Sober?

Going to college can often feel like everyone is focused on one thing – and that’s having a party. That’s very often not true, but especially in the media, college life is glamorized with parties, drugs, and alcohol front and center. But, if you’re trying to stay sober, want to take care of your health, or are in recovery from a substance use disorder, that’s the last thing you want. You might still want to take part in social life and parties – but you want to do so sober.

Can you? Of course you can. However, it might mean staying away from some parties. It will also mean planning, putting effort into taking care of yourself, and putting effort into learning where your limits are. The following tips will help you join college parties while staying sober.

Go to Sober Parties

A lot of people aren’t aware that there are plenty of sober parties and activities on most campuses. In fact, many people try to get through college sober – which means their events and parties will generally be alcohol free. If you’re not sure, ask around the campus and even ask your counselor. Some colleges actually sponsor alcohol free parties – just because getting students to socialize more with less alcohol is the goal of any college.

If you don’t have an existing sober party set up, feel free to plan one yourself. You can decide if it’s absolutely no alcohol or low alcohol. You can also organize with your sorority/fraternity, with the college itself, or with any other group you like. Having games, a movie marathon, dancing, or any other social activity is a great theme for a party – and it doesn’t need alcohol.

Make Sure You Have a Sober Buddy

If you’re going to parties where alcohol is being served, it’s a good idea to have someone to watch your back. Here, your best bet is to try going to campus support groups like AA, NA, Smart Recovery, or LifeRing. That will allow you to meet other sober people – however, you should be in recovery from alcohol abuse to join them.

If not, you might just want to ask around to find like-minded individuals who don’t want to drink.

Why do you want a sober buddy?

You’ll feel less alone
You’ll feel less peer pressure to drink
You’ll be able to talk to someone if you do experience cravings or want alcohol
You’ll have someone to help you say no and to hold you socially accountable

The best option is to bring someone to the party with you who also wants to stay sober. However, even having someone to text or call is better than nothing.

Know Your Motivations

If you want to stay sober, it’s for a reason. Keep those reasons in mind. In fact, if you’re struggling with saying no to alcohol or are afraid you’ll slip up, try writing down your motivations before you leave for the party. That will ensure they are clear in your mind and you’ll have a good idea of exactly what you’re saying not to alcohol for.

It doesn’t matter if those reasons are “I want to take care of my health”, or “I deserve to experience social life sober”, or “I’ve worked too hard to be sober to give it up now”. Writing out your motivations, including negative repercussions of alcohol can help. Your reasons can be as simple as you like.

They just have to remind you why you’re saying no.

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Know Your Limits

If you don’t trust yourself to say no to alcohol, don’t go to parties with alcohol. If you’re not sure if you can say no, try going only when you have support or someone to help you. Knowing your own limits is an important part of navigating life – and it’s even more important when you have to say no to things like alcohol to meet your goals.

That’s also important if you experience triggers, if you have cravings, or if you’re struggling with alcohol abuse or did in the past. What’s likely to trigger you? How can you avoid that? How can you manage that if you can’t avoid it? When are you most likely to experience cravings? How can you avoid that? How can you manage that when you can’t avoid it? What can you do if things get bad?

Understanding yourself is the first step to managing yourself. And, that means paying attention to when and how you react to things and using that information to make better decisions for yourself.

Take Care of Yourself

Getting enough sleep and eating your vegetables might not sound like the best way to avoid drinking, but it might be. Giving yourself a solid foundation of rest, exercise, and nutrition ensures that you feel your best. That also holds true with ensuring you have regular social interaction, time with friends, and time to relax and have fun. Giving yourself a stable routine with good self-care ensures that you are as mentally healthy as possible.

That puts you in the best possible position to take care of yourself. That includes not needing a release or getting drunk as much as you might if you go back and forth between not getting enough sleep and feeling bad because you’re not giving your body what it needs. It also means having more emotional stability, so you’re less likely to be invested in pleasure-seeking.

Good routines can be difficult to start and harder to maintain. But, taking care of yourself is an important part of staying sober. And, if you’re taking care of yourself in other ways by going to the gym four days a week, eating 80% healthy meals, and going to bed and waking up at about the same time every day – indulging in alcohol is going to feel a lot less like giving yourself a break and a lot more like self-sabotage, which will make it easier to say no.

Talk to People

If you’re at a college party, chances are, you know almost everyone there. That makes it relatively easy to talk to people, to say no, and to explain why you want to stay sober. Most people want to be respectful of the people around them. Most people want to be good friends. So, simply going “No, I don’t want any alcohol and here’s why” can do a lot for ensuring that people don’t offer you alcohol. It might not feel that way. You might feel like skipping out on alcohol makes you the sad looser of the bunch – but chances are, there are more people there who are also abstaining. Talking about things, making them public, and ensuring that the group knows that taking care of you means not offering you alcohol can do a lot for you getting to enjoy college parties without alcohol. And, if that’s not the case, you’re probably at the wrong parties.

If you’re struggling with alcohol abuse, you don’t have to tell that to strangers. But you should practice saying no, get comfortable with it, and learn how to exit a situation if you’re pressured instead of accepted.

College parties can involve a lot of alcohol. But, more and more often, there are also options for sober get-togethers. Hopefully, these tips help you to manage parties and to get through college without sacrificing your social life to stay sober.

How Do I Stay Clean and Sober Through Surgery?

How Do I Stay Clean and Sober Through Surgery?

If you’re in recovery, staying off of drugs and alcohol can seem critical for staying in recovery. But, if you’re heading for a major surgery, it might be impossible to avoid pain pills. For any recovering addict, those pills are a massive risk because they’re mostly opioids. That can trigger a relapse, or a major addiction to pain pills – and that’s the last thing you want.

Unfortunately, you can’t always skip pain medication when you go through surgery. Managing pain allows you to recover by keeping stress, inflammation, and shock to a minimum. In addition, pills aren’t the only risks for relapse during surgery. You’ll have to plan around several factors like your habits, coping mechanisms, and quality of life.

Talk To Your Doctor

If you have a history of substance abuse, it’s important to talk to your doctor. Even the nurse at your clinic can help you to make choices that are best for you. Here, you can share concerns, share your history, and ask for advice and help.

For example, you might be offered an alternative pain management schedule. This introduces more risk management to your pain medication schedule, meaning you get more checkups, more tests, and more questions to ensure you get on and off the drugs as quickly as possible. Having someone around to constantly monitor what you’re taking and why can also help you to avoid abusing opioids. In addition, your nurse or doctor will be able to better understand when you can switch to prescription-strength Tylenol after the surgery. Depending on your reaction, that could be anywhere from 2-14 days after surgery – which means that having consistent monitoring could mean getting off opioids much sooner.

Depending on how high your risk is, your doctor could actually opt to keep you in the hospital until you can switch to Tylenol. That means you’ll never take opioids home, minimizing your total risk.

Maintain Good Habits

Your lifestyle has a large impact on how you’re able to cope with emotions, cravings, and to avoid drugs. Most of us are aware that moderate exercise, healthy eating, and doing social things with friends and family boosts our mood, so we don’t feel the need for drugs and alcohol as much. However, surgery can get in the way. For example, if you’re in debilitating pain, you can’t exercise. And, if you have stitches, you shouldn’t. But it is important to maintain your social life, to stay engaged, and to get outside where you can. You’ll also want to know when you can start exercising again. For example, many people need to go into physical therapy after surgery, if that’s the case, when can you start going and how much you do? The faster you get back into it, the faster things will improve.

You’ll also want to pay attention to food and drink. If you eat well and avoid sugary drinks, you’re less likely to crash than if you do the opposite. So, managing your diet will improve your ability to stay clean and sober.

In addition, the sooner you start physical therapy and light exercise, the less pain you’ll be in. That means you’ll probably need less medication, meaning you can go back to full sobriety more quickly.

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Go to Therapy

Most people don’t think of therapy as a pain management technique, but it can be. In addition, therapy can help you to improve mental health and maintain emotional regulation and mood during surgery recovery. Recovering from surgery can be traumatizing. You might find that you’re basically helpless, you’re in pain, and you’ll experience significant mood swings and depression. This is a normal part of major surgery and pain. Yet, if you’re in recovery from addiction, you’re especially at risk for relapse. This means getting therapy and counseling over the period may be essential to staying in recovery.

You can do that for pain, for your mood, or for both. But, you should ask for and plan for it before your surgery starts.

Therapy can also help you with stress management so that you don’t need as much of an outlet. For example, if you’re stressed because you can’t do as much, you might find that having therapy reduces your drive to lean on alcohol or painkillers to relive that stress. Of course, therapy won’t cure stress, but it can help and it can give you validation and more effective tools to do something with it.

What to Do If You’re Struggling

The ideal is that you discuss risks upfront with your medical care provider, that you have measures put in place ahead of time, and that you get support as an ongoing thing. However, if you’ve been through surgery and are now using pain pills and are struggling, it’s important that you take steps as quickly as possible. The first is to talk to your doctor.

Explain your medical history and your history of substance abuse
Discuss any cravings, abuse, or overuse of the drugs you have that you’ve been experiencing
Ask for extra checkups – in most areas this will be easy to arrange, although your insurance may not oblige
Practice care with your pain pills. For example, waiting until you’re in pain to take pills. You’ll also want to talk to your doctor about switching to prescription strength Tylenol as quickly as possible. Depending on the surgery, they might be able to offer you NSAIDs immediately instead of opioids.
Ask for a hotline to reach out to for help. If you’re living alone, don’t have support, or don’t have home motivation to stay on track with your recovery, having someone you can call and talk to can help.

The most important part of staying clean and sober through surgery is to talk to your doctor upfront. You’ll also want to ensure that you have social support and friends and family over to visit and give you support and help while you’re recovering. And, you’ll want to take steps to minimize the amount of stuff you’ll struggle with. For example if you know you’ll be in a wheelchair for several weeks, you’ll want to ensure your home is wheelchair accessible to reduce frustration. Taking steps to care for yourself after surgery will reduce the amount that you feel down.

However, you’ll also need emotional, mental, and physical support. Going to therapy, going to physical therapy, and talking to your doctor will help. No surgery is without risk for someone who’s in recovery, however, you can reduce risks and help yourself to stay clean and sober.

If you or your loved-one struggles from alcoholism or other substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. 10 Acre Ranch also has specialty tracks like our pet friendly drug rehab and couples substance abuse treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.