How Can an IOP in Arizona Help You Cope With Stress at Work?

March 22, 2023

Written By: Buena Vista Recovery

You’ve got a stressful job, and you need help. You have turned to substances to deal with the stress and are struggling with substance use disorder (SUD). You need to get treatment to overcome your addiction and learn how to manage the work stress that initially drove you to use it in the first place. Luckily, there is an affordable option: an intensive outpatient program (IOP) in Arizona. An IOP in Arizona offers many different treatment options and treatment centers for a fraction of the price of inpatient programs and allows clients to live at home while receiving treatment. 

How an IOP in Arizona Can Help

When work becomes too much and too overwhelming, it can be hard to know where to turn to. An IOP in Arizona can provide addiction treatment and help you learn how to manage your stress in a comfortable environment. This is an excellent option for those who don’t want to leave their job or abandon their daily life or take on the expense of an inpatient program.

IOPs offer individualized plans that can include many different treatment options. Some of those options include group therapy, individual counseling, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), or other interventions that can help you learn new skills to manage your stress levels instead of using substances to cope.

Learning Healthy Coping Mechanisms

IOPs in Arizona can help you learn techniques to healthily manage your stress and anxiety. These techniques can help you better control your emotions and relax. Additionally, with the help of staff members and medical professionals, they can strengthen your time management and other work-related skills. When you learn healthy coping mechanisms to navigate work stress, you can learn to avoid self-medicating with substances or turning to other destructive coping mechanisms. 

At Buena Vista Recovery, we want to teach you how to cope with these stressors. By participating in our IOPs in Arizona, you will have the tools under your belt to not return to substance use. Rather, you will feel confident in your ability to replace your substance use with healthier habits. 

Learning to Recognize Your Stress Triggers

Stress can be caused by a variety of factors. Some examples include work-related issues such as deadlines and excessive workloads, personal problems such as financial difficulties or family issues, or even the weather.

If you are feeling overly stressed at work, it is important to become aware of your triggers and how they are affecting your life. Ask yourself: Are there certain tasks that you are responsible for that stress you out? Is there maybe a specific co-worker or boss that triggers you? Are there certain factors you can control that make it harder for you to concentrate in your environment, making it harder to complete your tasks?

Learning to recognize your triggers will assist you in improving your work environment. For example, you may learn how to ask for help when you are feeling overwhelmed. Additionally, you may request to move desks or avoid working directly with certain people who trigger you. Once you learn your triggers, you can start addressing them in hopes of no longer suffering in silence or turning to drugs or alcohol to cope. 

IOPs in Arizona can help you start to identify these triggers. By using resources like group therapy or individual therapy offered through an IOP, you can learn how to effectively address and navigate your triggers.

Using the Support of Peers and Therapists During Your IOP

IOPs in Arizona are designed to help you learn and practice new, healthy ways of coping with stress. Therapists and other staff members can provide you with support and guidance during your treatment. Additionally, treatment can connect you with other peers in recovery. Having a recovery community can help you build confidence and find healthy outlets to deal with your work stress. It can be very easy to isolate, thinking no one else will understand. But there absolutely are others who are going through this and can be there for you through this. 

The support of your peers and therapist can be especially important if any of the following apply:

  • You feel like no one understands what it’s like at work or home right now
  • You get frustrated easily by other people’s reactions when they don’t understand what’s going on with their own lives either
  • Your friends or family members don’t understand why it feels so hard right now

Using an IOP in Arizona to Manage Work Stress

You can use IOPs in Arizona, such as a program offered by Buena Vista, to manage stress at work as well as in stress in other areas of your life.

Stress will always be part of our lives. It is inevitable, unfortunately. However, learning to recognize when it is getting out of control can help you take steps to reduce your stress levels without using substances. If you feel like your job is taking over your life and you are having a hard time with other parts of your life, entering an IOP can help you heal.

Here at Buena Vista, we want to teach you how to stay grounded during these stressful times at work and in other areas of your life. Learning to create a healthy work-life balance is so incredibly important to your sobriety, mental health, and overall healthy daily life. 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by stress at work and don’t know where to turn, IOPs in Arizona can be a great resource for you. These programs offer support from peers with similar struggles as well as therapists who can help you develop coping strategies that will work in any stressful situation. Self-medicating with alcohol and other drugs can be detrimental to your health and well-being. At Buena Vista Recovery, we can help you learn to manage your work stress and any other stress in your life that feeds your addiction. For more information about the programs we offer or how we can help you or your loved one, give us a call at (480) 741-9414 or complete an insurance form.