P.  Create Recovery Plan

OBJECTIVE

Maximize the patient's chances for achieving his/her rehabilitation goals by summarizing, simplifying, and solidifying key recovery ingredients.

ANNOTATION

Summarize on paper "the basic things I need to do to meet my rehabilitation goals,” including the following:

1.          Information on treatment appointments and mutual help meetings to attend

2.          Recognizing relapse warning signs and triggers and appropriate coping responses

3.          Maintaining contact with recovery support network

As part of discharge instructions, provide this to the patient to facilitate compliance with aftercare plans.

DISCUSSION

A Recovery Plan (Tri-Service Addiction Recovery Center (TRISARC), 1998) is a mutual effort between the patient and treatment team to crystallize those aspects of aftercare that are essential to being successful in recovery.  Recovery Plans can be personalized to the individual patient's needs or the treatment team's discretion. However, some basic areas to be considered include the following descriptive (rather than prescriptive) list:

1.        A listing of the names, dates, and times of follow-up meetings.  For example: 12 Step (or non-12 Step) support meetings the patient will be attending after rehabilitation (including the frequency of attendance); first name and phone number of sponsor(s); aftercare and other medical appointment dates, times and locations as well as phone numbers/addresses (and provider's names, if known).

2.        A summarization of the primary issues the patient has been working on during rehabilitation treatment and the specific methods the patient intends to use towards resolution of these issues.

3.        The patient's personally identified (with the help of their sponsor, rehabilitation counselor, etc.) relapse warning signs and triggers, and the respective countering coping skills planned (Gorski & Miller, 1986).

4.        A listing of individuals within the patient's identified recovery support network (Galanter, 1997) (other than sponsors and providers) along with some description regarding the role of each in the patient's recovery.

Relapse warning signs are those behaviors manifested by the patient that often precede a lapse or relapse (Talbott et al., 1998).  Examples may include behaviors such as defensiveness with one's sponsor or support network, impulsive behavior, failing to plan one's days out ahead of time, or irregular eating habits.  While not specifically predictive of a relapse, they are nevertheless suggestive and important to monitor.  Both the patient and her/his support group may benefit from such knowledge.  While combinations of relapse warning signs are unique to each individual, various texts on recovery offer common examples (Gorski & Miller, 1986).

As opposed to warning signs, relapse triggers are those items in the patient's everyday internal or external environment that may place her/him at increased risk of imminent relapse (e.g., spouse conflict, occupational stressors, depressed affect, and episodes of rage).