One of the main areas where the addiction treatment program in Massachusetts devotes its attention is in the aftercare area, and it can be very well understood why. Addiction treatment does not mean just removing the substance of addiction from the body of the person, which is what a detoxification program does. The reach of a good addiction treatment in Massachusetts should be much more. It should be able to remove the tendency of using the substance from the person's body and mind completely; only that can be called as effective treatment. This is where the need for a proper relapse prevention strategy comes in.

A relapse happens when a person falls back into using the substance once the dependency has been treated for. Half-baked measures at recovery can make this happen. However, the substance abuse treatment program in Massachusetts is quite well aware of this possibility and hence it has implemented some methods for relapse prevention.

Keeping up a maintenance medication therapy is one of the most important of these methods. Different kinds of addictions respond to different kinds of medications. For example, buprenorphine is used to keep a person away from a heroin dependency.

In addition, the patient is counseled to overcome any emotional issues that might be keeping them with their addictions. Even the families of the patient are trained on how they should behave with the patient and what they must do in order to control any urges for using the substance in them. The patient is counseled to get involved in constructive activities. They are kept on constant monitoring through aftercare sessions to check their progress into complete recovery.