Drugs & Alcohol Addiction Counseling
Drug and/or alcohol addiction is a powerfully debilitating disease as anyone suffering from it would tell you. It’s time to explore assistance from a professional addiction counselor when an addict recognizes that they cannot handle their addiction by themselves. You will be able to establish a recovery plan, stay sober and gain an understanding as to what caused your addiction with the variety of therapy options available.
Counselors
An important component of addiction therapy is the involvement and role that the counselor plays in the treatment process. An addiction counselor assists the addict throughout the entire process of treatment creating a customized plan for recovery as well as post-care providing constant and consistent support.
Pinpointing what caused the addict to turn to drugs or alcohol, identifying potential triggers and designing a long-term sustainable plan to maintain sobriety is accomplished with the assistance of an addiction counselor. The role of an addiction counselor includes:
- Customizing a treatment plan specific to the individual needs of the addict
- Providing impartial emotional support to treatment program participants
- Supervising confidential one-on-one therapy sessions to understand the source of the addiction
- Conducting repeated drug tests
- Assisting the addict to create an aftercare program based on the available care in the area
Group therapy sessions are also conducted as a way to incorporate other patients undergoing treatment or family members. Group therapy often leads to dialogues regarding family dynamics and the resulting detrimental relationships generate and encourage addictive behaviors. These flaws once identified allow the patient to begin taking important steps toward recovery and post-treatment.
Types of Therapy Available
There are a number of therapies available designed to accompany traditional addiction counseling treatments, such as:
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) – Used on patients with a dual diagnosis, the main objective of DBT is to assist patients to gain coping abilities and confidence to manage stressful scenarios in healthier ways. Additionally, DBT helps to improve self-image and communication.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) – CBT is an effective method in helping addiction because of its focus on the relationship between the choices and behaviors that are a result of a particular thought process. The patient is trained to modify the thinking process in order to gain control of the physiological outcomes. Through CBT a counselor is able to help a patient determine triggers that lead to unhealthy choices and behaviors and replace them with healthier ones.
- Biofeedback and Neurofeedback – Using real-time displays of activity in the brain, monitoring blood pressure, heart rate and muscle tension. This helps the patient understand how to modify their brain function so that they can better control their actions.
- Holistic therapies – Gaining an understanding of their addiction through learning coping skills and introspection holistic can be helpful to addiction patients. It provides patients with an alternative way of opening up such as art therapy, yoga and equine therapy.
- Mindfulness, Guided Imagery, Hypnotherapy and Medication – A focus is placed on pinpointing triggers, using deep relaxation methods and controlling stress with these forms of therapy. The objective is to get the patient into a more relaxed state of mind to gain a greater understanding of what is causing the addictive behavior.
A standard addiction treatment center will provide a diversity of therapies so that treatment can address the entire program, eventually leading to the patient’s long-lasting recovery.
The temptation to think that you can recover without the assistance of addiction counseling and therapy is great – considering it isn’t the most pleasurable experience. Uncovering painful and traumatic experiences is no walk in the park. Without doing the work to expose any latent issues that are feeding the addictive behavior, any potential recovery you gain is temporary at best.