Key Factors of Preventing Relapse Recommended by the World Health Organization
When a person goes to rehab, that individual generally has plenty of support in their earliest days. They go through a detox, get the drugs out of their system, and wake up sober again. The real challenge is avoiding relapse. After all, life is going to offer that person the same challenges, the same disappointments, and setbacks that may have originally led them to drug abuse. These challenges might start as soon as they walk out the doors and back into their old life. It could even start before they get out of rehab.
International agencies such as the World Health Organization have pointed at life skills training as an essential component of rehab for there to be lasting sobriety. Whether or not a drug rehab program offers effective life skills training can serve as a yardstick when judging that program.
Addiction Results in Loss of Life Skills
Many programs for youth talk about teaching adolescents life skills because in many cases, young people have not yet developed these competencies. However, what’s not as obvious is that adults lack life skills as well. Adults who have never learned to live life without experiencing negative emotions or those who have become stuck in a past bad experience often lack the skills needed to escape the downward spiral of addiction.
Typical patterns in addiction for many adults involve:
- Breaking the law by obtaining and possessing drugs
- Diverting money from their normal life expenses such as rent, food, or care of children to their drug habits
- Chronic lying to a spouse, parents, and other family and friends about drug use
- Chronic lying to employers and coworkers about drug use
- Isolating themselves from family and friends, especially when drunk or high
- Experiencing a seriously deteriorating style of living that can include homelessness, unemployment, and illness
- Theft or other crime to obtain the money to get drugs
- Loss of jobs or businesses
- Neglect of children or other important responsibilities
- Driving while drunk or intoxicated
Many adults and even adolescents engage in further criminal acts to fund their addiction, many committing crimes that they would never have imagined themselves committing. Among them:
- Prostitution
- Drug dealing or trafficking
- Causing property damage or injury while drunk or high
- Witnessing fatal overdoses or other kinds of injury or loss of life
When actions like these are in your past or present, one’s normal ability to interact with other people and communicate openly is devastated. The guilt is overwhelming. It’s no wonder that many addicted people refuse the help of family—they feel like they don’t deserve that help.
Advice on Preventing Drug Abuse from the World Health Organization
The World Health Organization lists the life skills considered most vital to making healthy choices and staying drug-free:
- Decision-making
- Creative thinking
- Communication
- Self-awareness
- Coping with emotions
- Problem-solving
- Critical thinking
- Interpersonal skills
- Empathy
- Coping with stress
These are the skills or qualities that go out the window when drug or alcohol addiction takes over a person's life. Instead, decisions and life choices are focused on whether or not the individual can obtain and use more drugs or alcohol. They are no longer thinking rationally about self-awareness or coping with stress, for example. They no longer trust or respect themselves or others.
It’s exactly like the drugs are doing the thinking, not the individual. An addicted person is often involved in actions and decisions that they never would have considered before they were dependent on drugs. While this is heartbreaking, it also means that when a person finally breaks free from drugs, the family may once again see that good-hearted person they lost so long ago.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Adds More Skills
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime offers a similar list of skills that must be achieved to prevent drug abuse and make healthy decisions:
- Communicate effectively with a wide range of people.
- Identify problem or risk situations and make decisions based on firmly held values.
- Cope with peer influences and assert their ideas.
- Use decision-making and assertiveness in drug use situations.
- Maintain friendships, give care, and get help.
- Recognize and deal with a range of feelings and changes in relationships over time.
American Drug Rehab Experts Also Weigh In on Life Skills
The National Institute on Drug Abuse evaluated the usefulness of teaching social skills in substance abuse treatment and reported:
“The results indicate that social skills training reduces substance use and related behaviors such as aggression, withdrawal, truancy, and stealing in adolescents…. The findings suggest that social skills training is an effective means for substance abuse prevention…”
“The findings suggest that social skills training is an effective means for substance abuse prevention…”
Another review of social skills in preventing drug abuse noted: “We found that appropriate social behaviors, inappropriate assertiveness, and functional communication were factors associated with less tendency to substance abuse…”
Nationally and internationally, the value of these life or social skills has been recognized by the highest authorities on health and recovery.
Life Will Never Stop Challenging Each of Us
A person recovering from addiction needs to get a big boost in their life skills while in rehab. They are going to need strong life skills to cope with everyday challenges like these:
- Breakup of a serious relationship
- Loss of a job
- Death of a valued family member or friend
- Running into former drug dealers or drug-using friends
- Long-standing family, job, or relationship conflicts
- Subtle or obvious peer pressure
- Bullying
To stay sober, a person has to have tools to help him deal with upsetting situations that would have just been covered up with drugs or alcohol in their earlier days. That’s the defining characteristic of drugs and alcohol—with heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, or other drugs, one’s problems just seem to be unimportant. A loss, argument, or conflict can be dealt with by tapping into the euphoria or oblivion of one’s drug of choice. For sobriety to last, a person must have a strong foundation that keeps them from seeking that destructive solution.
Use Life Skills Training as a Standard for Evaluating Drug Rehabs
You can evaluate a drug rehab program by getting answers to questions like these:
- What provisions does a rehab program have for teaching life skills like those listed above?
- How effective is the training? Ask to see the curriculum and make your own judgment. Or talk to a graduate.
- Does the life skills training demand that the individual gain some experience using this training before they leave rehab so that it's not just “book learning”?
- Is there a provision for helping the person in recovery find relief from guilt?
- Are communication skills thoroughly taught?
- Is there a module that helps restore honest values and integrity?
If a recovery program only offers one-on-one counseling and group therapy, when will a person be able to dedicate themselves to learning new life skills? How will they acquire better communication skills to improve their ability to listen or honestly express themselves? How will they build new decision-making skills or learn to truly help and care for another person? It’s skills like these that protect each of us from substance abuse and addiction.
Sources:
- Life Skills Education. World Health Organization, 1996. WHO
- School Mental Health Training. World Health Organization 2021. WHO
- School-based education for drug abuse prevention. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2002. UNODC
- Prevention of adolescent substance abuse through social skill development. National Library of Medicine, 1983. NLM
- The Role of Social Skills in the Prevention of Drug Addiction in Adolescents. National Library of Medicine, 2020. NLM
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