Alumni Recovery Program

Rockland Recovery’s alumni program is free, open-ended peer support for anyone who has completed treatment with us, at any level of care. It exists for a specific reason: the months after treatment ends are when most relapses happen, and the people most likely to stay in recovery are the ones who stay connected to other people in recovery. The program gives graduates a standing place to do that, and a fast, judgment-free way back into care if they need it.

The Gap Between Treatment and Life

For eight or twelve weeks, recovery is the organizing fact of the day. You are in group every morning with people who understand, a clinician knows your name and your triggers, and there is always someone to call. Then treatment ends. The schedule empties, the group disperses, and by the third week people are back at work with coworkers who do not know where they were and a phone full of numbers they have not called. The National Institute on Drug Abuse puts relapse rates for addiction in the same range as other chronic conditions like hypertension and asthma, meaning the first year after treatment is a risk window, not a finish line.

Aftercare planning addresses part of this: the outpatient therapist, the prescriber, the meeting schedule. What it does not replace is the specific thing treatment gave you, which was a room full of people at the same stage who had been through the same program. That is what an alumni program is for. We wrote about the broader case in the importance of aftercare in drug addiction recovery.

What the Alumni Program Includes

Alumni meetings are led by staff alongside alumni themselves, in person and online. They are peer support, not therapy: a place to say how the month went, hear how someone two years out handled the thing you are facing, and be known. Sober social events happen through the year, from cookouts to holiday gatherings, because a lot of people in early recovery have no idea what to do on a Saturday and need somewhere to go where nobody is drinking. Our team checks in with recent graduates in the months after discharge.

Alumni also come back to speak with people currently in program. For someone in their second week of IOP, hearing from a person who sat in the same chair a year ago and is now working and sleeping through the night does something no clinician can. For the alumnus, it is a reason to stay accountable and a reminder of how far they have come. This is the part of the program participants most often describe as the reason they keep showing up.

When Recovery Gets Shaky

Alumni and the Rest of Aftercare

The alumni program is one piece of continuing care, not the whole of it. Most graduates step down from IOP into outpatient treatment, a weekly session and medication management, for months to a year. Some live in our sober living program while they get work and housing settled. Nearly everyone benefits from a peer community outside Rockland Recovery as well, whether twelve-step, SMART Recovery, or a recovery community center, since those meet daily in every town and the alumni program does not. Our addiction aftercare page lays out how these pieces fit together and how the plan gets built before treatment ends.

For Families of Alumni

Family members carry their own version of the first year: watching for signs, not knowing whether to ask, rebuilding trust one ordinary evening at a time. Families are welcome at alumni events, and our family therapy program stays open to relatives of alumni regardless of how long ago treatment ended. Recovery lasts longer when the household is part of it.

Joining

Everyone who completes a level of care with Rockland Recovery is enrolled in the alumni program at discharge, at no cost, with no expiration. If you finished treatment with us a while ago and lost touch, call the main line and ask about the alumni program; you are still an alumnus. Alumni events are held through our centers in Braintree and Quincy and serve the South Shore and Greater Boston.

This page is for information and does not replace an assessment by a licensed clinician. If you are thinking about harming yourself or someone else, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or dial 911.