Your release from prison potentially means a second chance, a fresh start, a better future, but only if you free yourself from the things that were holding you back. Substance abuse—alcoholism, prescription pills or illicit drug addiction—is one of those things.
Whether you were addicted before your incarceration—maybe your addiction led to your arrest—or you became addicted while incarcerated, it doesn’t matter. Either way, you may have stopped abusing drugs or alcohol before your release, by choice or necessity.
Don’t be tempted or driven to resume that abuse now. It might seem like a way to cope with the frustrations of trying to rebuild past relationships, finding a place to live, transportation, or a job, or even just readjusting to life on the outside. There are better ways that don’t include the risk of sending you back to jail or dying.
If you do relapse, don’t give up. The relapse rate for addiction is about 40 to 60%, about the same as for chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma. One relapse is not a final failure unless you stop trying. Like life in general, you don’t have to do it alone.
Why You Need to Stop Using Drugs After Prison
Don’t be just a statistic. If you are addicted to drugs or alcohol, the first thing to do is to not resume your habit upon your release.
Even if you think you were a functional drug addict before your imprisonment, things have changed. You have never been at greater risk of a fatal overdose than the first two weeks after release because:
Your body has lost some or all of the tolerance it built up. That means a dosage that might have left you only pleasantly high before could now be fatal.
There may be new and deadlier drugs available now than you were accustomed to. For instance, fentanyl is a fairly new but far stronger opioid than OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin or even heroin. Policemen and police dogs have experienced fentanyl overdoses just from accidental skin contact.
You don’t always know what you are getting. Fentanyl is not only stronger than other opioids, it is synthetic. That means that following crackdowns on prescription pill mills and heroin from Mexico, fentanyl also is far cheaper and easier to obtain.
If you are tempted to pick up that habit once more, get help. If you found a way to continue your habit in prison, stop now by finding help. If you received drug rehab treatment in prison, you need to continue it. If you didn’t, you need to start.
Employment After Incarceration
Finding employment after prison is one of the hardest and most necessary tasks to fortify your recovery. Being honest about your past may cost you the job, but not revealing it can be cause for dismissal if the information turns up later.
(You may not need to volunteer the information. So-called “ban the box” campaigns are underway to prevent employers from asking the question. Find a link to check your state labor laws here .)
Again, look to your support network, especially former employers. If they can give you a job, your odds of being employed eight months after release increase from 43% to 61%. For long-term employment, it’s considered the most successful strategy.
Sometimes your history might help you. The US government offers a Work Opportunity Tax Credit to employers for hiring from designated target groups who have had a hard time finding employment, including ex-felons.
After Incarceration Support Services
Substance abuse itself is a type of mental illness, as well as a chronic medical condition, so the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)’s 2013 guide Coming Home: A Guide to Re-entry Planning for Prisoners Living with Mental Illnesses also may be of help.
The least expensive and easiest support to find are the free programs Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Both are 12-step programs, fellowships of other addicts who meet regularly to help each other stay sober. AA and NA are informal treatments, by addicts for addicts. You can find meetings online.
At a meeting, the group shares stories of failures and successes. You receive support in your sobriety from others, most of whom have been sober longer than you. You can learn from their examples, their experiences. You also learn about the 12 Steps, which you can “work” in order to acknowledge your addiction, resolve to do better in the future, and make amends to those you have wronged.