Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention: How Mindfulness Can Help You Pass Your Pre Employment Drug Screening

Are you currently recovering from addiction? If so, you’re not alone. In recent years, 21.5 million American adults battled a substance abuse disorder.

Recovery from drug or alcohol addiction is extremely difficult, especially if you’re in the job market. It’s easy to constantly worry that you’ll relapse right before an important drug screening. This is a common worry, but there are some things that can make the process a little smoother. One of those things is mindfulness-based relapse prevention.

Mindfulness can mean a variety of things, so keep reading to find out how it can help prevent relapses and how you can work it into your daily routine.

Your Guide to Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention

Everyone can see benefits from practicing mindfulness in their everyday lives, but this is especially true for those trying to prevent a relapse while they’re searching for a job.

If you’re worried about relapsing, here are three steps to take before you take a pre-employment drug test:

1. Start Meditating Daily

Meditation can help you control your addictive thoughts and behaviors. It also helps treat the underlying cause of your addiction, such as depression or anxiety. Meditation only requires a few minutes out of your day to be effective. While simply breathing and being alone with your thoughts might not feel like it’s working right away, research has shown that it’s effective over time.

If you’re confused about how to start, there are tons of different apps, books and resources on the web to help. There are also plenty of guided meditations specifically for addiction recovery.

2. Practice Urge Surfing

If you want to go above and beyond meditation, you can try another mindfulness practice called urge surfing. This practice recognizes that impulses to relapse come and go like waves.

When you’re conscious that these feelings come, get stronger and then fade out like a wave does, it can help you ride through the feeling instead of acting impulsively and relapsing back into old habits.

This technique is based on years of research, so it’s important to read more about it before working it into your own routine. The research has found that impulses to do drugs or drink rarely last more than 15-20 minutes. If you can ride out this craving “wave” you can beat the impulse and avoid a relapse.

3. Take an At-Home Test

After you’ve put these two practices to work, you’ve hopefully found that they’re quite effective and you’re ready to take any drug test that comes your way. If you’re still uneasy about the process, try taking a test at home to calm your nerves.

You can purchase drug tests, such as Rapid Detect, online or at a pharmacy. These tests are pretty accurate and will let you know if you should proceed with a pre-employment drug test or not.

Learn More Mindfulness Techniques

The road to sobriety is difficult, but you don’t have to do it alone.

For more information on mindfulness-based relapse prevention, check out the rest of our articles. We have tons of different tips on meditation, mindfulness, motivation and other self-help topics.