When you complete your time at an addiction recovery program, it is not uncommon for people to be unsure of where they will end up next. Many people risk returning home to an environment that puts them at high risk for a relapse. A common next step after completing rehab is to enter into transitional living. The purpose of transitional living is to help ease the patient back into their normal world, now substance-free. Post-rehab life does not come easy to everyone. Transitional living helps bridge the gap between rehab and normal life. Rather than being thrown back into your routines again, you can take your time and properly adjust.
What Is Transitional Living?
Transitional living is sometimes confused with sober living, but the two tend to be separate levels of care. Before fully adjusting into sober living with minimal amounts of accountability, transitional living is the last phase of accountable, structured care. It is called transitional living because it is the time in treatment when clients start preparing for their transition from regular, structured accountability to almost complete independence. Too many treatment programs offer a short period of treatment followed by sober living, without any transitional care. It takes time and skill to learn how to live independently and start assuming life responsibilities in healthy ways. Reintegrating into society and the workforce, or back into home and family life, is triggering and intimidating. Transitional care offers topic-specific counseling in addition to other forms of support to reduce the stress of transitioning out of treatment into autonomous living. Vocational coaching and training helps clients build new resumes, interviewing skills, and finding jobs. Helping to balance schedules between work and recovery, clients learn how to make appointments and schedule in time for self-care activities like eating, sleeping, hygiene, and exercise.
What Happens in Transitional Living?
Transitional living grants you a level of freedom you likely did not have during your recovery program. Because you are making your way back to everyday life, it is important to stay focused on maintaining your sobriety. The purpose of transitional living allows you to have a support system but being our of the initial rehab center. Transitional living monitors you and provides a number of services in order to make sure you are staying clean.
Regular Testing
Daily breathalyzer tests and weekly, biweekly, or bimonthly urinalysis might be part of a transitional care program. Regular testing is a way to maintain accountability and make sure that with a new introduction of independence isn’t a trigger for relapse.
Outpatient Services
During transitional care, most clients are still involved in outpatient treatment. They are attending group therapy once or twice a week to check in about their experience transitioning into independence and starting to live their life of recovery. Still handled by trained therapists, the group processing continues to examine behaviors and build skills.
After Care
After the completion of outpatient, aftercare is a once-weekly or twice monthly check-in of recent alumni who have fully transitioned into independent living.
Learn More About Oceanfront Transitional Living Options
Addiction does not have to take control of your life forever. Oceanfront Recovery offers a number of addiction treatment therapies that can help your or a loved one overcome addiction once and for all. Some of these programs include:
- Family Therapy Program
- EMDR Therapy Program
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Program
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Oceanfront Recovery is a treatment facility offering residential treatment programming from medical detox to transitional living. Our theory is that when you change your story you change your life. By providing a unique set of therapy treatment methods, our program empowers men to take more control of themselves and their new lives of recovery. For information, call us today at 877.296.7477
