Recovery Blog & Resources

Recovery Tips

Summer in Lafayette: Staying Sober Through the BBQ Months

By the RBHN Clinical Team - Published February 2026 - 7 min read

Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the texture of a week in Lafayette changes. The pool gatherings start, the backyard barbecues fill the calendar, and the standing Friday-night cocktails on the Mount Diablo Boulevard patios become the social default. For someone in their first sober summer, every one of those moments carries a specific kind of weight - and a specific kind of risk.

Clinically, summer relapse risk rises for three reliable reasons: schedule disruption from travel and longer evenings, the sheer density of alcohol-forward social events, and the cultural expectation that you will be drinking alongside everyone else. The good news is that each of those is addressable with specific planning, not willpower. Our outpatient team runs a summer-specific workshop in May that walks through practical scripts for declining drinks at backyard parties, sleep-protection strategies for travel and longer evenings, and how to pre-arrange a sponsor or peer-support check-in before a high-risk event.

Local AA and NA meetings hold extended summer schedules at several Lafayette and Walnut Creek locations; our resources page keeps an updated list. If this is your first sober summer, a conversation with a clinician before Memorial Day weekend is one of the most protective single actions you can take. Call (831) 270-9518 and ask for outpatient scheduling.

Recovery Tips

Mindfulness for the Unmindful: A Practical Recovery Starter

By Sofia Brennan-Castile, Clinical Director - Published December 2025 - 7 min read

Mindfulness has acquired a kind of marketing baggage that can make it feel inaccessible to anyone who is not already drawn to a particular aesthetic. We want to set that aside. The clinical evidence on mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP) for substance use disorder is robust and growing - the technique works whether or not you are interested in the cultural packaging that often surrounds it.

What it actually is, in plain terms: a practice of noticing - without immediate reaction - what is happening in your body and your thoughts. For people in early recovery, this matters specifically because cravings are physical events that build, peak, and pass. The pre-mindfulness habit was to react to the building craving by using. The mindfulness skill is to notice the building craving, recognize it as a physical event that will pass, and ride out the peak without acting on it. That is the technique, simplified.

Our residential schedule includes a daily mindfulness block, and our IOP curriculum integrates MBRP techniques across the eight-to-twelve-week protocol. You do not need to sit cross-legged or burn anything. You need to notice. The rest builds from there.

Recovery Tips

What to Eat in Early Sobriety: A Lafayette Kitchen Guide

By the RBHN Clinical Nutrition Team - Published October 2025 - 7 min read

One of the clinical realities that surprises new residents at RBHN is how much of early sobriety is a physical problem, not just a psychological one. Years of substance use - particularly alcohol, opioids, and stimulants - produce measurable deficits in B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, omega-3 fatty acids, and protein stores. Those deficits map directly onto the cognitive fog, irritability, disrupted sleep, and craving surges that dominate the first weeks after detox. You cannot think your way past a magnesium deficiency.

Our kitchen, supervised by a registered dietitian, organizes the residential menu around three specific clinical goals for early recovery: stabilize blood sugar, rebuild micronutrient stores, and establish protein adequacy. For Lafayette and East Bay alumni continuing in IOP, we distribute a printed nutrition playbook at discharge - simple, budget-conscious meal templates that work in real Bay Area kitchens, including practical guidance on shopping at the Lafayette Farmers Market and the Whole Foods at Mount Diablo Boulevard.

Recovery is built in a lot of places. The kitchen is one of them.