The Relapse Prevention Program Minnesota Trusts for Chronic Relapse
NorthStar Regional’s relapse prevention program in Minnesota is the longest stage of our continuum on purpose: 6 to 8 months or longer. You attend weekly group, individual, and mental health sessions, in Shakopee or by telehealth, while returning to work and home. With your counselor, you name your triggers, map high-risk situations, and rehearse a written plan. Relapse usually means treatment ended too soon, missed a dual diagnosis, or sent you home to the same environment. We accept Medical Assistance (Medicaid) and most major insurers, and nobody here judges you for coming back.
The program at a glance
Outpatient Care
6 to 8 months or longer
Relapse Prevention
This program helps you stay in recovery for the long term, including if you have relapsed many times before.
No judgment for coming back
Medicaid accepted
Licensed Treatment Programs
Founded 2015
Addiction and mental health care in one system
Multiple Campuses
Across the Twin Cities metro
MN Department of Health: Licensed
MN Department of Human Services: Licensed
For the ones who keep trying
Why Do I Keep Relapsing?
Usually for one of three reasons, and none of them is weakness. Treatment ended too soon: a 28-day stay against a condition measured in years. A dual diagnosis got half-treated: the drinking stopped but the depression that drove it never got touched. Or recovery got sent home to the same house, the same block, the same phone contacts tied to using. Addiction is a chronic condition, and chronic conditions relapse when treatment stops early (1). That is true for alcohol and for every drug, and behavior that looks like self-sabotage is usually caused by a trigger that was never treated. Once you understand that, a relapse is no longer proof that you failed. It is useful information about your stress, your triggers, and the support you were missing.
NorthStar Regional’s answer is to give recovery enough time to take hold. Treatment is measured in months and stages, not weeks. Mental health is part of the same plan, not a separate referral. Sober housing is there so going home doesn’t undo the work. And relapse prevention lasts long enough for the new habits to become the ones you reach for first. If you have been through substance abuse treatment three times, you don’t need a fourth copy of the same thing. You need the parts the other three were missing, and a plan that addresses what actually drives your relapse.
1. National Institute on Drug Abuse, Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment.
One Full Continuum
Where This Program Fits in the Full Addiction Treatment Continuum
Relapse prevention is the longest part of treatment, and that’s on purpose. Care here usually lasts close to a year and can run up to 18 months. You use your coping skills in real-life situations while you still have support in place. This is how we help you build long-term recovery from substance use, anywhere in Minnesota.
About 3 to 7 days
Medical Detox
Safe drug and alcohol withdrawal with 24-hour nursing at the withdrawal management center in Eden Prairie, for alcohol, opioids, and benzodiazepines.
About 35 to 50 days
Inpatient Rehabilitation
The flagship program: 35 to 50 days of live-in treatment on separate men’s and women’s campuses.
85 to 105 connected days
Low-Intensity Residential
A home with recovery support while you build back your own life.
With or without lodging
Intensive Outpatient
Outpatient treatment that fits around work and family, with a place to stay if needed.
6 to 8 months or longer
Relapse Prevention
Weekly sessions and peer support through the months that matter most. We watch closely for early warning signs.
The rest of the way
Sober Living
Substance-free housing where recovery gets an address.
The long game
What the Relapse Prevention Stage Looks Like
By this stage the program fits inside your life instead of the other way around. The work focuses on what comes before a relapse. Relapse is a process that starts weeks before a drink or a drug, and people who understand their own process can interrupt it. Relapse prevention strategies only help when they fit your real life. So the plan focuses on your schedule, your stressors, and your recovery process. Minnesotans face their own risky times of year, like holidays, long winters, and cabin weekends. The strategies here are built for them.
What Happens Every Week
Process group. One-on-one sessions with your counselor and the mental health team, as your plan calls for. Education, accountability, and a place to say the hard thing out loud before it grows.
Identify Personal Triggers and Early Warning Signs
Review the common triggers first, then the personal ones: the people, places, feelings, and stress patterns that raise your risk. Triggers often come from ordinary things: a payday, an anniversary, a certain exit off 494. People who can name their triggers early are the ones who stop a relapse before it starts. Next you learn the early warning signs that show up before cravings do, because relapse usually starts with emotional changes. Catching those changes early makes the biggest difference.
A Relapse Prevention Plan You Actually Practice
Trigger mapping, craving management, boundary work, and a written relapse prevention plan. You practice it and share it with the people who support you, so it is not a binder that gathers dust. Together, you build it, adapt it as lives change, and add backup moves for the moments the first step fails. Creating it is only half the work, and rehearsing it is the rest.
Ongoing Support and Check-Ins
Peer meetings and support groups of your choosing, alumni connection, and a team that already knows your story if a hard week needs a faster response. Support groups meet in every corner of Minneapolis and the metro. We help you find the ones that fit, because different people need different groups. If you have a setback, we respond with a plan, not a lecture. Asking for help early is one of the most important skills in recovery.
Addiction and dual diagnosis
Treating Substance Use and Mental Health Together
Untreated mental health is the most common cause of relapse: depression that makes sobriety feel pointless, anxiety that makes people drink to calm down, trauma that never felt safe enough to treat. At this stage, dual diagnosis care isn’t an extra. It is the strategy for co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders, treating both at once. That way, relapse prevention treats the causes of relapse instead of just watching for the symptoms.
For Addiction
Addiction treatment goes on at this stage for every substance we treat, from alcohol to everything else. It runs from the first assessment through sober living. Each is explained on its own page.
For Mental Health
At most NorthStar Regional campuses, these disorders are treated with addiction as co-occurring care, in one plan. Mental health treatment on its own is offered at our outpatient clinic in Shakopee. No established diagnosis is needed to contact us.
Inside Treatment
Therapies and Services Inside This Program
The toolkit narrows to the strategies that hold under pressure, the ones that survive bad weeks. Your mix is set through comprehensive assessments and rebuilt as you go. It is tailored to your risk picture. It works because it’s rehearsed in daily life, not just discussed.
Group and Individual Counseling
Weekly process groups, mental health groups, and one-on-one counseling sessions. Each is focused on what’s live in your recovery right now.
CBT, DBT, and Coping Skills
Noticing the thought, catching the pattern, choosing a new path. Plus emotion regulation and distress tolerance, the skills for handling strong feelings. These coping skills get you through high-risk times.
Family Therapy
Addiction affects relationships, and so does recovery. Family sessions rebuild trust and promote honest talk. They teach families how to help without constant worry.
EMDR for Trauma
For many clients, substance use grew around trauma. EMDR helps the brain process traumatic memories that talk therapy alone often does not resolve.
Life Skills and Employment
Work, budgeting, and the practical skills of a stable life. Stability is relapse prevention. A structured week is the quietest relapse prevention strategy there is.
Comprehensive Assessment
A comprehensive assessment, updated as you go. That way the plan keeps matching where you are.
Where this program runs
Where Relapse Prevention Runs
Outpatient
Outpatient Mental Health Clinic | Shakopee
Weekly work at our freestanding center on Marschall Road. We serve people from Minneapolis, the southwest metro, and all points between.
From home
Virtual Delivery
Keep going in this stage by telehealth, video or phone sessions, anywhere in Minnesota. Use it when distance or work demands it. You get the same access to your team, with no site visit needed.
The next step
Sober Living Pathway
Drug-free housing with recovery rules. You return to work, family, and daily life.
What Recovery Makes Possible
What Life Looks Like After Treatment
Recovery is about the freedom to function. That means a job you can hold, a family that trusts you again, and an ordinary weekday that doesn’t need managing. This is the stage where your life grows bigger than the program. Promotions, apartments, custody restored, a winter and a summer both gotten through sober. For families who have watched the relapse cycle before, relapse prevention is the change they can finally rely on. It works because it treats staying in recovery as its own work, not an afterthought.
Healing involves the whole family. Parents, spouses, and kids have been worried and waiting too, so family work is built into the program, not an add-on. Our resources for families are available before your loved one ever says yes.
Before You Call
Signs You're Ready for Treatment
If you’re asking whether you have a problem, you probably already suspect the answer. Maybe you’ve hidden it, counted how much, promised to stop on Monday, or woken up trying to piece together last night. Maybe you’ve quit before and it didn’t last. You don’t need to lose everything before you deserve help, and you don’t need to be certain to start. Being willing for even a minute is enough to make one phone call.
Being ready doesn’t mean you’re not afraid, and it doesn’t mean you’ve stopped doubting. It means you make the decision and let us handle the logistics. You only need one moment of willingness. We handle everything after that.
Reading this for someone you love who’s still struggling? You can start the entire process on their behalf: call, and we’ll coach the conversation. Start with our guides for parents and for spouses and partners.
Paying for Care
Insurance and Payment Options
Our team helps review your benefits and handles the paperwork with you. If you have no insurance, we help walk you through enrolling for benefits. County case managers, probation officers, hospitals, and crisis teams send clients to us because, in their words, we just get it done.
Insurance and State Funding
Commercial plans, Medical Assistance (Medicaid), county placements, and private pay. We verify benefits and handle the paperwork with you.
We Are Here to Help
We help review your benefits, find your right starting point, and schedule you for the same day or the next whenever possible. Then we pick you up anywhere in the Twin Cities metro.
Reviews from Google
Why Clients Choose NorthStar Regional
Don’t just take our word for it. Here is what alumni say about their time in treatment.
Who's behind the work
About NorthStar Regional
NorthStar Regional is Minnesota’s treatment system built around access: alcohol and drug treatment centers and mental health care across multiple Twin Cities metro locations. Founded in 2015, we provide one connected continuum: detox (withdrawal management), residential, outpatient, mental health, and a sober housing pathway. Separate men’s and women’s campuses, co-occurring care at designated programs, and no faith requirement set us apart. We accept Medical Assistance (Medicaid) and most major insurers, and if you are uninsured, our admissions team helps you through enrollment. A person can walk in with nothing and leave with everything they need to build a life.
Keep reading
Related Articles and Resources
Resources
Before You Call
How admissions works, guides for families, and the forms you can complete early. More resources are linked throughout the site, or contact admissions and we’ll send anything by email.
Questions we hear every day
Common Questions About Relapse Prevention
What is the relapse prevention program?
Relapse prevention is an outpatient program at NorthStar Regional that lasts 6 to 8 months or longer. You go to weekly group, individual, and mental health sessions while you return to work, home, and daily life. It is the longest of our outpatient programs, because staying in recovery takes longer than getting sober.
I keep relapsing. Is there a treatment center for that?
Yes. Relapsing again and again is common, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. Chronic relapse usually means earlier treatment ended too soon, missed a dual diagnosis, or sent you back to the same setting. Every level of our care is built to address all three. That means longer connected care, mental health treatment alongside substance use treatment, and sober living options so going home does not set back your progress.
Does relapsing mean treatment failed?
No. A return to use is information about what the last plan was missing, not proof you can’t recover. Relapse is common with chronic conditions, and addiction is a chronic condition (NIDA). What matters is what the next plan does differently. Each adjustment lowers the chance of another relapse and helps you understand what happened. And you come back without judgment.
What does relapse prevention actually involve?
Weekly groups and individual sessions focus on the strategies and skills that hold under pressure. You review common triggers, identify your own triggers and early warning signs, manage cravings, and set boundaries. Then you rehearse a written relapse prevention plan that you update as life changes. Assessments keep the plan current. The program also includes continued mental health work, because stopping relapse depends on it. Untreated depression and anxiety are the most common causes of relapse.
Does relapse mean starting substance use treatment over?
No. Alumni who slip call us first because the answer is a plan, not a lecture, and usually an adjustment rather than a restart. However you got here, you are in the right place, including if you got here by coming back.
How long does it last?
Relapse prevention lasts 6 to 8 months or longer, depending on your needs. Clients who complete every level of care stay with NorthStar Regional for a year to 18 months, and relapse prevention is the longest single stage.
Will insurance cover it?
Coverage depends on your plan, the service, eligibility, and authorization requirements. Our team helps review your benefits and available payment options. Benefits verification is not a guarantee of payment.
What happens after relapse prevention?
The sober living pathway and alumni life. Here recovery is supported by community, not by an institution. At each stage you take on more responsibility for your own life, one step at a time.
Admissions
Make the First Call and We'll Take It from There
Confidential, no obligation, and answered by someone who knows what you’re facing and cares to listen.