What Gets Treated First with Co-occurring Disorders? Substance use can change people’s behaviors, moods, and personalities. When this happens, it is difficult to determine underlying causes like mental illness or trauma. Living with undiagnosed mental health issues can make a person feel pushed to the margins. Addiction is, in itself, a mental illness, but it…
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Should Treatment Goals Be Incentivized? Contingency Management (CM) is a new strategy being used for some people in recovery from addiction. It is a method of therapeutic support which provides incentives for people to achieve recovery goals. They receive tangible rewards when they reach milestones, including a number of therapy sessions or consecutive negative urine…
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How to Cope with Unsupportive Family Members in Recovery In a perfect world, a person in recovery would have a supportive family to help them following treatment. Not everyone has this arrangement. Some people lack a nurturing, loving family. Especially when spouses have been hurt, siblings may have been lied to, and parents may have…
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When you wake up after a drug overdose, or you are struggling in recovery, there are people there who can support your recovery. These people are former substance users who have overcome the struggle and are in recovery. If you are fortunate to connect with a peer recovery specialist, you will be offered a source…
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Once you get stuck in a pattern of ruminating thoughts, it is harder to get out of it. By not entering this way of thinking, you put a stop to them before they even start. Prevention is key, but it takes time to learn skills for how best to handle the triggers for rumination and…
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Recovery from drug and alcohol addiction makes you question the value of what is really helpful in staying sober. It may be hard to find help, open up, or talk to a small group of people about your issues. It can be anxiety-ridden, trying to decide how to approach this issue but there are myriad…
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Being happy is kind of the ‘in’ thing to do right now, but that does not mean happiness is going to find everyone at the same time, if at all. Sometimes people really struggle with finding true happiness and joy. In the end, it is about being healthy, more than being happy, and there is…
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Paying for rehab may seem like a huge task at first but that should not stop a person from getting what they need. Every person’s situation is different. People with a wide range of options don’t need to see it as a barrier to obtaining high-quality treatment. There are ways to pay for it. If…
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When a person decides to get professional help for addiction, they have several options available. Many treatment centers provide therapeutic tools that are outside the norm of what people typically think of as helpful in rehab. Traditional talk therapy is one way people get help but they also seek help with art, music, and other…
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To overcome addiction, long-term residential drug rehab is the best choice. Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of the brain reward, memory, motivation, and related circuitry. When a person cannot abstain from alcohol or drugs, addiction also results in behavioral control impairment, cravings, inability to recognize problems with work, school, and interpersonal relationships. An addiction…
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