Monitoring your progress in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program will help you keep up the motivation necessary to make these difficult changes in your life. Because the things that you learn and the skills that you implement are often minor on a daily basis, it is difficult to be able to see how much progress you are making without keep track of it.

However, those small daily changes add up quickly. Setting specific goals and watching yourself and as you accomplish them can give you the drive to keep fighting substance abuse through the difficult days when you don’t even want to get out of bed.Some addiction treatment centers will keep a measurement of your progress for you. There are many ways to do this. The simplest is to keep track of how many days it has been since you began the drug and alcohol detox process, which is, of course, the length of your sobriety. In the beginning, each day without substance abuse is a major accomplishment. You should also monitor your progress in other ways, as well. For example, some rehab centers give their patients a weekly quiz, and they can watch their scores of certain behaviors or depression symptoms improve over time. It’s also rewarding to keep a journal that you can look back on.

Keeping track of the accomplishments you are achieving will help you want to stay in an addiction treatment program because you will know that it’s working. Continuing to do so after you leave will provide motivation for maintaining recovery. Over time you should forgive yourself for the past, but you should never forget the low point you were at before you ended up in a rehab center. Remembering this can help you to avoid relapses when the going gets tough.