Aftercare Treatment and 12-Step Programs

Aftercare treatment takes place after a person leaves residential drug rehabilitation and returns home. Most people go back to their families and former jobs or schools, but they need to remain in counseling in order to remain sober and drug-free. Key components of aftercare treatment usually include individual therapy, family counseling, marital counseling, and local support meetings.

Twelve-step programs or similar support meetings are based on the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous, which was founded in 1935. Alcohol Anonymous and the newer Narcotic Anonymous offer free support meetings where people with similar problems meet and help each other by reinforcing each member's recovery.

At AA and NA meetings, participants’ identities are not divulged, and only first names are used. Participants who are relatively far along in recovery and have remained abstinent for some period of time can serve as sponsors to a new members. New members who are struggling to stay sober can turn to their sponsors for support and guidance.

One of the biggest advantages of 12-step programs is they are readily available throughout the world. You can go to meetings several times a day if you need extra help. The meetings are free and organized on the local level. Some groups focus primarily on educational work and lectures, while others organize social activities, such as parties and picnics.

Therapists often recommend 12-step programs to their clients in recovery, because these groups have a solid record (more than 75 years and counting) of helping people. The AA/NA approach requires recovering individuals to work through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

For people who do not like the idea of surrendering to a higher power or of admitting that they are powerless over drugs – or who have a problem with some other aspect of the 12-step approach – alternative recovery support groups exist. Although these groups are not as prevalent as 12-step ones such as AA or NA, you can often find one in your area, especially if you live in a large city.