A framework for staying sober after chemsex treatment by recreating rehab's structure at home: change your phone number, block apps, schedule every weekend and high-risk evening, cut ties with using networks, and share your location with accountability partners. The goal is building a container where you can experience life without drugs and develop the willpower to resist cravings.
Chemsex recovery, you have to create your life as if it's a virtual rehab. This is what I do in my program. Think about when you're in rehab, there's no access to your phone, okay? When you come out of rehab to create your container, the transition after rehab to create your container of virtual treatment, change your phone number. No, you have no or limited access to internet when you're in treatment. How do you recreate that? Apps and sites are blocked, not just removed from your phone, blocked. And the other apps like our favorite Telegram, you set your screen time so that it limits the time you can be on it to at least a minute so that you can only be on Telegram for a minute. You might have it downloaded, but you can't use it. Okay. In rehab, you have no access to your user buddies or your dealers. There's no way for them to reach you. There's no way for you to reach them. How do you create that in your virtual treatment? You are going to meet new people and you're going to meet them in new spaces. And again, that goes back to changing your phone number, apps and sites blocked so that you cannot access them. They cannot access you. When you're in rehab, your schedule is defined for you. In virtual treatment, you are going to proactively plan your schedule every weekend, every holiday. If weeknights are your danger zone, you think ahead and you plan it out so that there is no chance you could use. There's no opportunity. There's no alone time. You're going to have to set it up so that if there— there is no option to choose between Tina and no Tina. Because if there is an option to choose in early recovery, you're going to choose Tina. Be proactive. This is the biggest thing, proactively planning your schedule So that you are unable to have an opportunity to use. In rehab, you have consistent routine. Out of rehab, in virtual treatment, consistent daily action and a routine. Create a morning and evening and preferably noon routine that you stick to consistently every single day. In rehab, you have daily recovery work. Daily recovery work is required when you come out of rehab, whether that be 12-step meetings, whether that be journaling, whether whatever it is, listening Into Recovery podcast, something every day that grounds you into recovery so you don't forget. We forget so easily that we're trying not to use meth that we need something to remind us every day. While you're in rehab, everybody knows your whereabouts in rehab. In virtual rehab, transition out of it, your location is shared with those closest to you and you have accountability checks. Everybody knows where you are at all times. This allows you to not be sneaky. This doesn't— this allows you to not go under the radar. This is giving up some of your privacy, but what is it worth to stop using this? So what this leads to here, your virtual rehab container, is life after chemsex. You have to have space between, or space away from the substance to experience what life is like after chemsex. And once you do experience this, You get a taste of it, then you can let loose of some of these boundaries and you're going to have enough of a vision, a compelling enough vision that drives you forward so that you can then have willpower and self-control and decide not to use in those vulnerable moments because you know what life is going to be like. But you can't get there unless you set up this container after rehab.
