12 Oct Clinical and Non Clinical Addiction Treatment
Clinical Recovery
I’m not a clinician and don’t pretend to be. I’m speaking from my own experience as someone who has gone through and understands the recovery process including the multiple times I asked “why am I doing this?” or “how is this beneficial to my recovery?”
There are a series of phases one progresses through from a clinical standpoint:
- Detoxification
- Residential (or inpatient) treatment
- Levels of outpatient treatment
- Sober living homes/environments
- Therapy
- Other support
These phases of care are in place to serve each guest in the most comprehensive manner as possible. Some guests will need all of them, and others will not.
Detox:
Physical detox by licensed and knowledgeable professionals is absolutely crucial as withdrawal from certain substances is very dangerous. Detoxing at home can be deadly. If you are not supervised by a medical team, health issues like seizures and dehydration can occur. We encourage you to seek out a medical professional regarding a full physical detox. Before a guest can enter treatment, the individual must be clean of all substances and have as clear a mind as possible.
Inpatient/Outpatient:
Depending on the individual, the next step would be residential treatment or outpatient treatment. These range from full inpatient treatment centers where the individual is under 24 hours surveillance to a few hours a day. Regardless, the individual should have quite a few people in their corner at this point including doctors, a case manager, therapist(s) and a peer recovery coach.
Your treatment program and support groups are all dependent on the specific program. Good programs that are most invested in their guest’s success will have a team around them. The more support the individual has, the better. During this time, there will be group therapy, individual therapy, process groups, check-ins, etc., to guide the individual in early recovery, and they will learn different therapeutic modalities to combat their toxic thinking, which has always led them to using substances.
Sober Living Component:
The living component (again, program specific), should involve a sober living home/environment and at least one live-in house manager or peer recovery coach for the individuals to have support during off clinical hours. Generally, there is structure in place here such as curfews, individual specific restrictions on over-nights and more. All freedoms allowed or not allowed to a guest are based around the individual’s progress, behavior and attendance of clinical responsibilities.
Non-Clinical Recovery
In order for sobriety to be effective, an individual must learn to apply what they’ve learned in treatment to real life scenarios. Under the guidance of their clinical team, as well as peers and peer recovery coaches, this task is very manageable as long as there is honesty, consistency and transparent communication between everyone involved.
Peers and especially a peer recovery coach is critical in this area of the individual’s recovery because this is the time for the newly sober person’s community to grow. That is why we stress regular and consistent attendance at 12-step meetings, as well as “sober fun” – whether that be in the form of a sports league, discovering new hobbies (some of my favorites are the gym/exercise, going to farmers markets, cooking and different art mediums) – the key is to get out and try different things. So having a strong, tight-knit community and a strong peer recovery coach will help ease this process.
Productivity and keeping free-time to a minimum is also important. When your mind is active, they tend to wander or get caught up in negative thinking (inevitably leading to negative behavior), which is common in active addiction. So the trick here is to break old habits and begin new, productive and healthy ones.
All of the above all work in tandem to significantly improve the probability of getting, and more importantly, staying sober. The individual themselves is tasked with having the willingness, the motivation and putting in the work. It is up to them, and them alone, but with guidance and support, their prognosis of recovery greatly improves.
Please contact us to learn more about our services.