If you are ready to quit drugs for good and enjoy long-term successful sobriety, counseling is your best bet. Counseling is just one spoke on the bike wheel of what is needed for getting sober and staying sober, but it is one of the most important parts. Keep reading for more about counseling for drug addiction, the different types of counseling, and what else is needed for successful, long-term recovery.
Counseling for Drug Addiction: Individual Counseling
Individual counseling, also known as one-on-one therapy, is one type of counseling you can look forward to receiving at a drug rehabilitation center. With individual counseling, you will sit in sessions one-on-one with a counselor who can help you explore your reasons for using, underlying causes for using, co-occurring disorders, triggers, and help you with the tools you need for overcoming your addiction.
The ability to be open and honest with your counselor is key for individual counseling. Counseling for drug addiction works best when you connect with your therapist, the program, and have an individualized treatment plan. This makes finding the right top rehab facility important.
Co-Occurring Disorders
According to reports published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 37 percent of alcohol abusers and 53 percent of drug abusers also have at least one serious mental illness. You cannot sustain long-term sobriety without treating the co-occurring disorder, making counseling essential in treating addiction.
Co-occurring disorders include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- PTSD
- Bipolar Disorder
- ADHD
- Schizophrenia
- Many more
Group Counseling
Another form of counseling for drug addiction is group counseling. Group counseling provides a safe environment for individuals to share stories and experiences, be able to bond with others, seek advice, and helps put your own situation into perspective by listening to others.
Building Sober Support
Support is a big key to drug addiction recovery. Having a support system of people to call or rely on that understand what you are going through is essential. Leaning on each other, providing advice, a shoulder to cry on, or having fun hobbies together are all things you can gain from group counseling.
Family Counseling
Addiction can cause severe damage to a family and affects all members, not just the person experiencing the addiction. Family counseling is important for drug addiction recovery because it can help:
- Establish better communication
- Begin repairing broken bonds
- Setting up boundaries and consequences
- Working through hurtful situations
- Learning how to support each other moving forward
- Rebuild trust
What Else Is Needed
Counseling for drug addiction is a very important part of the recovery process, but it won’t work by itself. Other important aspects of drug addiction recovery include:
- Medication-assisted detox. Getting sober can be difficult not only behaviorally, but physically as well. Medication-assisted detox will help you detox from drugs safely and more comfortably, especially from dangerous prescription drugs.
- Healthy lifestyle. Eating healthily and staying active is not only great for your body but they are also great for your mind. Keeping stress levels low is essential for long-term sobriety.
- Aftercare program. Once your residential treatment is completed, your work will continue. Deciding what to do after you leave residential treatment and sticking to it is important, no matter how confident you are in your recovery.
About Seasons in Malibu
Drug addiction counseling will help you get off drugs, learn the tools to stay off them, and also teach you what to do if you’re feeling tempted to relapse. Treatment at Seasons in Malibu is systemic, integrative, and client-centered. Our philosophy is grounded in the understanding that in order for the client to heal, the entire system needs the opportunity to heal along with them.
We start from the premise that the treatment that is currently available to active addicts, even the supposedly high-end variety, is woefully inadequate, and our mission is to offer something better. Here we believe strongly in understanding your underlying issues and figuring out what’s motivating you to use drugs, and in order to accomplish that goal, we offer more individual therapy sessions in 30 days than any other drug rehabilitation or alcohol rehab centers in the country.
It is a priority for us that our life-changing drug and alcohol treatment be available to the people who need it. We are fully familiar with how much strength and courage it takes to pick up the phone and ask for help. Our counselors are invested in your well-being and are ready around the clock to guide you or your friend or family member through the initial steps of overcoming drug or alcohol addiction.
With our superior team of clinicians, we are able to succinctly pinpoint those areas of focus that will give the client the most advanced opportunity for success. Our approach towards healing is collaborative, comprehensive, and committed.