Can Recovered Addicts Ever Go Back to Casual Use?

The majority of people start out using drugs and alcohol casually. You might have even tried using drugs for the first time in a casual social setting such as while you were hanging out with your friends. Addiction often creeps in so slowly that you might not have realized that you couldn’t stop until your life started to drastically change. As with any habit, it might feel a little daunting to think of what your life might be like if you can never use drugs or alcohol again. After all, you might still have a few close friends or family members who use, and leaving out one of the things you used to do together might seem impossible. You’ll hear lots of answers to the question of whether or not recovered addicts can ever go back to casual use, and the most genuine answer is the one that helps you to stay sober.

You’ve probably heard of a relapse before, and going back to casual use is one of the most common risk factors for falling back into the worst parts of your addiction. The challenge with addiction treatment is that there is not a hard and fast cure. This means that you’ll need to actively work on your sobriety for many years. The good news is that staying sober gets easier with time. While you’ll still occasionally deal with cravings, you’ll learn strategies in treatment that you can use to manage them for the rest of your life. Instead of thinking about casually using drugs or alcohol again, it helps to focus on the many wonderful things that happen when you choose to get sober.

Discover How Committing to Sobriety Transforms Your Life

When you are fully in the throes of addiction, your cravings might be so intense that you would do anything to get your hands on drugs. In your past, you might have lied, stolen or done other things that went against your morals and caused you to feel shame or guilt. In sobriety, all of those negative feelings are lifted, and you have the opportunity to start fully living your happiest life. Once you get sober, you may find that you prefer not to try using drugs casually since the hold that they once had on you is so strong that you don’t want to go through the withdrawal process again.

For most people with an addiction, even using drugs just one time or in a small amount is all that it takes to trigger the cycle to start back up. During and after your treatment, you’ll also want to watch out for these signs of an impending relapse.
•thinking you can use drugs occasionally
•reminiscing about the times when you used drugs or alcohol
•initiating contact with people from your past that still use drugs
•feeling like using drugs casually could help you deal with your stress
•developing a fear of missing out when you turn down offers to use again

The moment that you start thinking about using drugs casually while you are in sobriety is the time to reach out to your sober support team. They’ll help you to remember what it was like to go through your initial treatment, and they’ll remind you to use your strategies for overcoming cravings and dealing with stress. Your sober support team can even help you to fill your time with wholesome activities that make living without drugs more fun. Whether you go shopping together or talk it out in a group therapy session, you’ll find that surrounding yourself with sober-minded people makes it easier to turn down temptation.

Feeding an addiction to drugs leaves your body and mind too exhausted to have much room for doing anything else. Once you get the drugs out of your system, you’ll quickly find that you have more time and energy to spend doing things that give your life a greater sense of purpose. In sobriety, the sky truly is the limit to what you can accomplish. You can choose to start a completely new career, or you might be ready to finally try your hand at a hobby. Establishing a new lifestyle that doesn’t leave room for casual drug and alcohol use makes it easier for you to leave that part of your life behind. After some time in sobriety, you’ll even find that you don’t think about drugs as often as you used to.

Do you need help ending an addiction that started out as casual use? Give us a call at 833-610-1174 to start creating a life that feels better than any drug.