Month: December 2023

Benefits of Faith-Based Recovery Treatment

Faith-Based Recovery Treatment at 10 Acre Ranch

Benefits of Faith-Based Recovery Treatment

If you’re moving into recovery, you’ll have a choice of faith and non-faith-based recovery centers. This means you’ll have to make a choice between what kind of recovery center you choose. And, if you want God to be a part of your recovery and your return to health, you’ll have to actively choose that – now, or in the future. Today, some 73% of all recovery centers in the United States use a faith-based approach. Some of those do so fairly lightly, with access to 12-step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. Others directly integrate service, prayer, and talking to God into treatment. So you’ll have options even inside of faith based recovery.

While you can choose whatever you want, there are plenty of reasons you’ll want to look into faith-based recovery.

Evidence-Based Treatment

Most non-faith-based treatment programs try to advertise based on the fact that they are evidence-based. However, faith-based treatment also uses evidence-based treatment including medication as part of treatment. The difference is that faith-based care adds spirituality, prayer, and faith on top of your treatment, so you get that extra level of care and support. It’s not instead of the evidence-based treatment, it’s in addition to it. That means you don’t lose anything by choosing faith-based treatment and instead get to incorporate spirituality and work on healing at an even deeper level.

Talking to God from Day One

Most people find that faith is an important part of their recovery and their life. Getting to talk to God gives you insight into who you are, who you want to be, and where you’re going. It gives us motivation, peace, calm, and acknowledgement of the fact that we are loved. Incorporating that into your treatment from day one means that you will benefit from that from day one. Many of us in recovery are resistant to God and to faith. Yet, the sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be able to acknowledge God and His presence in your life. For many people, that becomes a powerful reason to choose a better path.

Finding Motivation

Faith-based recovery treatment puts the focus on you, your future, your spirituality, and your relationship with God. It’s not asking you to get better for physical goals. It’s asking you to evaluate yourself in God’s eyes and to take steps to work on that. It’s asking for self-evaluation, honesty, and acknowledgement that although you have strayed you can always take steps to re-find the path and to welcome God into your heart. For many of us, that’s more powerful of a motivator than any amount of information about how we will be healthier, better able to hold a job, or that we’ll live longer. Of course, your family and your friends should still play a role, they are part of you. But getting to honestly acknowledge who you are and how you feel about yourself and honestly acknowledge where you need help is an important part of recovery for many people.

Experiencing Gratitude

A large element of finding yourself in recovery is realizing that you can appreciate the little things, that you can realize you can be happy with things that don’t matter, and that you can experience joy at things. It means switching focus away from and things that happen and towards good things that happen. That attitude of gratitude will help you to find positivity and joy in your daily life. And, faith actively asks you to look for it, it gives you tools to look for it, and it helps you to look for it by sharing it with others. It’s hard not to find things to be grateful and thankful for when you’re sitting down with a group every day to share the good things that happened, to talk about them, and to help each other recognize them. That act of practicing gratitude can be immensely helpful to feeling better about yourself, your life, and where you’re going. And that’s important for rebuilding your self-esteem, your confidence in yourself, and your knowledge that you don’t need drugs or alcohol.

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Getting Guidelines and Guidance

One of the hardest things about recovery is that we’re expected to find ourselves. We’re expected to find a new path. We’re expected to find motivation, gratitude, things to love. We’re expected to rebuild our sense of self and our sense of responsibility – after drugs and alcohol took those things away. Faith gives you a framework, a structure, a moral guideline to work from. It gives you steps to follow, people to talk to, help with your goals, people to lean on. The simple act of having real guidelines around your recovery can be an immense step in helping you to make it into recovery and stay there. Having guidelines on what it means to be a good person, where to go when you’re struggling, who to talk to when you need help, where to ask for help and how to do it can all be lifesaving. Most importantly, that’s not just directly talking to God but also to your pastor, to your congregation, and to your peers. You have people who are following the same guidelines as you and many of them are experienced enough to offer guidance, assistance, and care while you get there.

Understanding You’re Not Alone

Struggling with a substance use disorder alienates you from everyone. It disengages you from your body, from your social life, from your relationships, and from everything you love. It can make you feel entirely alone. Moving into a group of your peers, a group of people who have been to the same lows you have, can help with losing that feeling. But getting to talk to God, getting to feel loved, and getting to feel like you are part of the greater whole of your congregation will do so much more. You’ll have someone to talk to whenever you need to, you’ll have someone to have obligations to whenever you need them, you’ll have someone to be accountable for, and you’ll have a friend who will be there with you however you progress through recovery. For many people, that realization is one of the most important aspects of choosing a faith-based treatment center. You’re not alone because God is always there with you – no matter what.

Getting Help

Most treatment centers offer some form of faith-based recovery. However, many of them offer simple 12-step additions to their treatment. If you want a more in-depth faith-based program you’ll have to look for it. Often, that will mean choosing a program that offers a Christian approach to addiction treatment alongside cognitive behavioral therapy, counseling, and group support. That means you get the best of both worlds, with medical treatment and support and full emotional and spiritual support from your new congregation.

Choosing to move into a faith-based program means you’ll get help and you’ll talk to God from day one of your treatment. The people around you will be as invested as you are. And, that’s an important part of getting help and taking steps to improve your life. Good luck with your treatment and your recovery.

If you or your loved-one struggles from alcoholism or other substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our alcohol rehab, detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. 10 Acre Ranch also has specialty tracks like our pet friendly drug rehab and couples substance abuse treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.

The Importance of Prayer in Addiction Recovery

The Importance of Prayer in Addiction Recovery

If you’re recovering from a substance use disorder, it can seem like it dominates your life. For many of us, alcohol or drugs take over every part of our life, including our faith, while we’re addicted. Stepping away from that and moving into recovery gives you the chance to open up and to find your faith and your spirituality again. And, doing so can mean that you open yourself up to peace, to finding motivation to stay in recovery, and to finding a new lifestyle that helps you to stay clean and sober. If you want God to be an important part of your life moving forward, embracing prayer and talking to Him is an important part of the process.

That can be seen in how almost every self-help recovery group focuses on using prayer and embracing a Higher Power. Prayer is an important part of acknowledging that you are not alone, that you have someone to talk to, and that you have time to are committed to connecting to God and working towards creating a better life for yourself.

Taking Time Out

Making space in your life for daily prayer gives you time to step out of your busy life, to find peace, and to have some quiet. Try taking ten to fifteen minutes before bed and when you wake up to talk to God. That should involve sitting and thinking about what you want to say, framing what you want to share, and then saying it. Here, some people have an easier time writing things down, which gives you more space to figure out what you want to say. In either case, you’re taking the time out to contemplate over your day, to figure out what you need help with, what you’re looking forward to, what you’re grateful for, and what’s important. That can be valuable for framing the rest of your day. It’s also valuable for giving you insight into what you’re doing and in asking for help with.

Finding Peace

Taking time to talk to God can give you perspective, it can help you to find peace with who you are and what you are, it can help you to find resolution for your past actions, it can help you to make peace with yourself. Of course, just talking to God isn’t enough. However, taking the time to talk, to be honest, and to share what you’re feeling and how you feel about it with God can open your life up to making better changes, to investing in growth, and to understanding yourself better.

Taking time to be honest to God and to share how you feel will also make it easier to share with the people in your life. That will, in turn, improve your ability to build those relationships, will improve your ability to clear up how you feel, and will allow you to work on yourself from a better understanding of yourself.

That will help you find peace and find quiet, to find meaning, and to come to terms with yourself and with the world around you.

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Experiencing Wonder

One of the primary goals of groups like Alcoholics Anonymous is to get you to experience wonder, to acknowledge a higher power, and to recognize yourself as a tiny part of a larger plan. Prayer is part of that process because it means stepping back and acknowledging that you have to ask for help, you have to be grateful, and you are a small part of a larger plan. Realizing that and feeling it through daily prayer and connection with God can be an important part of your recovery.

That’s true whether you’re praying on your own, in a church, or as part of your AA support group. Talking to God means acknowledging who and what He is and that means experiencing wonder. And, that will be good for your recovery and your ability to say that things are out of your hands, you are merely responsible for making the decisions that guide you as best as possible on the route you want to be on.

Finding Positivity and Gratitude

Prayer should always be about sharing gratitude, about sharing what you have, and about acknowledging and accepting that gratitude. That often means shifting perspective to start looking for the things you’re going to be grateful for. For example, if you decide to share at least one thing you’re grateful for every day, you’ll have to look for that. And, that can mean shifting to a mindset where you’re actively looking for positivity – which will be good for your recovery. That’s especially true for addicts who very often focus on the negative. If something is wrong, we focus on it, aggrandize it, and make it more and more of a problem – that’s often addiction talking and pushing us to use or drink more – but it creates a negative outlook that decreases our quality of life. Taking the time to talk to God and to be grateful can reverse that cycle.

Self-Awareness and Perception

How often do you take time to sit down with yourself to look at yourself, who you are, how you interact with others, and the choices you make? Taking time to talk with God means doing that every day and having an honest conversation about your thoughts, feelings, motivations, goals, and how your actions line up with those. That can improve your awareness of how your actions align with who and what you want to be, can allow you to set daily goals, and can allow you to have a better understanding of not just who you want to be but who you actually are. Eventually, that will help you with recovery, and it will give you insight into yourself and what you need to do to get to where you want to be.

For example, talking to God can allow you to identify and refine your beliefs. What do you think being a good person looks like? What do you think a good person acts like? Are you doing that? You’re holding yourself accountable by telling it to God every day and working with Him as you learn, grow, and change.

Moving Forward

If you’re moving into recovery, chances are, you’re moving into a church, AA group, or other support group as well. It’s also important that you do so, because connecting with God is not a thing that most people do alone. It’s important to have guidance, to get support, to have people to talk to, and to be able to ask for help when you don’t feel heard or like your prayers are being answered. Having a church with a pastor to guide you can be an immensely important part of developing talking to God. Most importantly, it allows you to take asking for help, being honest about yourself, and committing to doing and being good into a community where you can put that into practice.

Alcoholics Anonymous insists that its members acknowledge a higher power by joining AA. That means stepping away from ego, recognizing ourselves as an equal part of everything around us, and understanding that we are part of a network, a community, a group. Learning how to live that means working with others and your church, AA community, etc., is a great place to start – and that will kickstart your prayer and being able to talk to God more than anything else. Good luck with your recovery journey.

What are Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders?

What are Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders?

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders or FASDs are a group of conditions that occur in people who were exposed to alcohol before birth. Typically, that happens when a pregnant person drinks. It can result in physical development disorders, learning development disorders, and behavioral disorders, and often a mix of all three. All of these disorders are also lifelong, including physical development, coordination, learning ability, problems with hearing and sight, and much more.

Today, almost 1 in 1,000 children in the United States are born with some level of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. In children 7-9 years old, it’s prevalent in 1 in 3,000. And, in all children of a school age in the United States, it’s 6-9 out of every 1,000 children, depending on region, location, and poverty levels.

What Causes Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder?

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is caused by exposure to alcohol before birth. This normally means the mother drinks during the pregnancy. In addition, higher rates of alcohol consumption lead to higher risks of FASDs or to worsening symptoms. At the same time, some 13.5% of pregnant adults in the United States report current drinking. Some 5.2% reported binge drinking during the last 30 days. This means that 52 in 1000 children are at high risk of developing FASDs because of exposure to alcohol before birth and 135 in 1,000 are at risk.

Alcohol use required to result in an FASD diagnosis is also lower than many people would think. For example, having consumed 16 beers over the course of 30 days during a pregnancy or more than 2 alcoholic beverages in a single sitting is enough to meet qualifications for FASD during diagnosis after birth.

Signs and Symptoms of FASDs

Diagnosing a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder can be extremely difficult. There’s no blood test or conclusive way to say that a baby has been born with FASDs. However, there are some physical symptoms that can be extremely obvious in strong cases. In addition, many of the symptoms overlap with other disorders, which can make it difficult to give a conclusive diagnosis.

However, symptoms include:

Central nervous symptom problems
Small head size
Abnormal facial features, such as a smooth ridge between the nose and upper lip
Lower than average height
Lower than average weight
Prenatal alcohol exposure
Poor coordination
Hyperactivity
Poor memory
Difficulty in school
Learning disabilities
Speech or language delays
Intellectual disabilities
Poor reasoning
Sleeping problems
Sucking problems
Organ problems
Bone problems

Unfortunately, many of these symptoms can overlap with ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, and physical disorders like William’s Syndrome. Therefore, it can be difficult to conclusively say that your child has FASD, although your doctor may give this diagnosis even without proof of consuming alcohol while pregnant.

All of these symptoms are lifelong. Adults will need special care and attention for the rest of their lives.

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Diagnosing FASD

FASD is typically diagnosed before the age of 6. It’s rarely diagnosed as an infant. However, if an infant shows extreme physical deformities, they may be diagnosed very early. Later in life, FASD is typically diagnosed into one of four categories, with many children receiving all multiple diagnoses:

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome – This diagnoses means that the individual has a mix of all problems. This includes mild facial feature distortions, mild growth problems, and mild central nervous system problems (poor coordination and motor controls). They can have problems with learning, memory, attention span, vision, hearing, and behavior. Often this results in difficulty socializing and means having a hard time in school and learning and later with work.
Alcohol-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorders – Alcohol-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorders mean that the individual has significant difficulties with learning, especially math. They might have attention with memory, attention, judgement, impulse control, and learning in general. They may also be intellectually disabled.
Alcohol-Related Birth Defects – These include problems with the heart, kidneys, hearing, or with the bones.
Neurobehavioral Disorder Associated with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure – This diagnosis means that the child has problems with thinking and memory, behavior, and day-to-day living. This can result in problems like difficulty with planning, easily forgetting things, irritability, difficulty shifting attention from one task to another, problems dressing, problems playing with others, and tantrums or mood issues.

If you have an child and you think they’re struggling with development or behavior, it’s important to take them to a doctor. Most states have early intervention programs, where you can raise issues of past alcohol use and alcohol use during pregnancy. However, your doctor will still likely review for other problems such as birth defects, autism, ADHD, and William’s Syndrome before offering a diagnosis.

It’s Never Safe to Drink While Pregnant

There is no safe time to drink while pregnant. In addition, there’s no safe amount to drink. While higher levels of alcohol increase the risk of FASDs in infants, any amount of alcohol can result in symptoms. Therefore, if you are pregnant or could be pregnant and intend to carry the child to term, it is important to stop drinking alcohol. However, even if you’ve been drinking (even heavily) over the first four to six weeks of pregnancy, before realizing you’re pregnant, it’s still important to stop drinking and that can prevent damage.

Studies show that having just two drinks in a single sitting while pregnant can result in lifelong harm for an infant. That happens because alcohol crosses the blood brain barrier in the infant and interferes with development, which can cause significant problems later in life. In addition, with no treatment, only mitigation measures, there is no way to reverse the damage after it’s been done.

Getting Help

If you’re planning or expecting to be pregnant or are already pregnant, it’s critical to stop drinking and immediately. Even if you’ve already been drinking while pregnant, stopping now can prevent or minimize harm done. Today, over 20 million Americans struggle with alcohol abuse and quitting on the spot often isn’t an option. Behavioral disorders mean that relapse is very likely. In addition, most people drink to cope with emotional turbulences, high stress, and mental health problems. Pregnancy is highly likely to exacerbate all of those issues. For that reason, women with alcohol use disorders are recommended to seek out medication assisted treatment for the duration of pregnancy. Medication will reduce cravings and the effects of alcohol, making it easier for you to stay sober to protect the health of your infant. In addition, you should seek out treatment for mental health and emotional support during pregnancy, even if you’re not getting help with alcohol use disorder and learning skills to help you cope with things without alcohol.

Often, having children will make many of the problems behind alcohol use disorder worse. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to seek out treatment, to learn coping strategies, and to get as much help as you can while pregnant. Quitting alcohol can be extremely difficult. Luckily, you don’t have to do it alone and there are people to help at every step of the way.