Being in Quarantine Proves to be a challenge for some in Addiction Recovery

Opioid Use Disorder Recovery in Quarantine

LAS VEGAS- Being quarantined may lead you to stay in bed longer, binge TV shows, eat unhealthy, and other poor lifestyle habits. 

For people overcoming addiction, this can be extremely difficult and even detrimental to recovery. The daily routine of staying busying and being productive is what keeps a lot of people in recovery on track – losing that can be a big barrier to staying clean.

Breann McCulloch, a Las Vegas native sober for almost 5 years says, “We come from lifestyles before where all we did was get high, sit on the couch and watch TV” “Now you tell us to go back to the very thing that almost killed us.”

Breann says the pandemic reminds her of some of her darkest struggles with opioid and heroin addiction. The limitation of in-person activities, eating out, community service, etc. have severely debilitated the ability to stay on track with recovery. Isolation isn’t the path to recovery – human interaction is. 

Luckily Breann has been developing mechanisms to cope with recovering for several years. She tries to maintain her daily habits even in quarantine to stay busy, take care of her kids, and focus on life – not addiction. 

She is also mentoring other women similar to her who are starting their path on addiction recovery, now from a distance. 

“I can’t imagine trying to get sober in a time like this,” she said. “There aren’t as many freedoms available right now as I had when I was getting sober.”

Some facilities saw an uptick in admissions to their clinics during this time. 

One addiction clinic owner says “It’s unfortunate but we don’t shoot our wounded, we welcome them back with open arms and we never give up on our fellows.”

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