Author: Jim Sugel

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.

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.

Why Finding New Hobbies Is Important for Long-Term Recovery

a happy young woman found a new hobby painting

Why Finding New Hobbies Is Important for Long-Term Recovery

If you’re just getting started with recovery, it can be a lonely experience. The first thing that most of us realize is that we have lost our hobbies, the things we do with our spare time, and many of our friends. That can put you in a position where you don’t know what to do with your spare time and that can leave you feeling bored, lonely, and unfulfilled. Those and other reasons are part of why it’s important to find hobbies for your long-term recovery.

You’re probably accustomed to people pushing anything they can at you in recovery. Crafts, yoga, music, painting – pretty much anything. That’s often because picking up new hobbies can be immensely good for you, for your self-esteem, and for your recovery. At the same time, it’s also important for you to find hobbies and to move at your own pace, so you can invest as you’re ready to do so.

Hobbies Build Your Self-Esteem

Starting and sticking to a hobby can boost your self-esteem and your confidence. Both of those are an important part of long-term recovery. However, hobbies can help you to build those skills in a natural way, which will in turn influence your behavior, attitude towards recovery, and your approach towards your life. Hobbies give you something to work on for yourself, meaning you can start out being proud that you’re sticking to something that you’re not yet good at, learn to be good at things, and build your skills – increasing your confidence not just in your ability to do the hobby well but also your ability to learn new things, to get good at things you started out being bad at, and to understand how you progress at those new skills.

That’s even more true if you make that a social hobby, like pottery or dancing, where you’ll get into contact with others and you’ll be able to grow as a group.

Hobbies Build Your Self-Discipline

Hobbies can require significant self-discipline. That can mean emotional regulation and managing your emotions when you fail. It can mean discipline and practice and ensuring that you keep going, keep making classes, keep practicing. It can also mean sticking with a schedule and a program so that you do actually learn. All of that will help you to develop your sense of discipline, which will transfer to other parts of your life.

Being Comfortable with Yourself Alone

Being comfortable alone and by yourself also means knowing what to do with yourself. And, knowing what to do with yourself means having an idea of what you like, what you’re good at, and what makes you feel like you’re spending your time in a way that you want. Investing in hobbies means that you’ll be able to build those skills and figure out what is a good way for you to spend your time. For example, you might find out that you really like making things with your hands. You might find out that bullet journalling is a great way to help you feel in control of your agenda. You might also decide you like getting to move and exercise. Knowing what you can fill your time with when you’re alone will make you feel less alone because you’ll be more open to spending time with yourself. And, that’s important even if your preferred hobbies are something like watching TV or reading a book rather than making something. Knowing how to keep yourself company is important, and many people just out of rehab don’t know how to do that.

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Finding Enjoyment

Do you know how to have fun with your free time without drugs and alcohol? For most of us, long-term substance abuse means we’ve mostly forgotten. Sure you used to have hobbies and you might even want to go back to those, but remembering how to just sit down and have fun with something or with people without any substances can be hard. Building hobbies means you’ll get to find that again, to build up to it slowly, and to learn how to have fun with nothing but what your brain produces naturally. Of course, that might not happen right away. Many people actually experience emotional blunting in early recovery, where the brain is incapable of correctly regulating serotonin and dopamine, which means that it can feel like you feel nothing at all when you think you should be enjoying yourself. Hobbies help with that further by building up slowly – you’ll start out in positions of not being good at what you’re doing and the enjoyment will come with practice -and that’s perfect for learning how to enjoy yourself again.

Finding new Coping Mechanisms

Most people don’t think of a hobby as a coping mechanism. However, once you start a hobby, even something like knitting can help you to stay clean and sober. Why? It gives you something to fill your free time with without getting bored. It forces you to concentrate and do something with your hands, which can help you wait out cravings. It gives you something to de-stress with (although that will require a certain amount of fluency with the hobby). You won’t try to play guitar and feel less stressed a week into learning, btu long-term, it will give you something to turn to in order to reduce stress and to relax. And all of that can be a powerful addition to your recovery now and for the long-term.

Meeting New People and Friends

Having hobbies is an important part of meeting people, of finding people you have things in common with, and of sharing achievements and goals. People who share hobbies feel more emotionally fulfilled, more connected, and more in-touch with those around them. That’s especially true when you turn to physical hobbies like dance, yoga, martial arts, etc. However, you can share a lot with your class even with something simple like sharing a pottery class, learning to play a game together, meeting up with a group of people to play boardgames once a week, or learning cooking together. Of course, not every hobby should be with other people. At the same time, ensuring that at least some of what you do with your free time is social can be a great way to add that connection into your life – and that will be good for your long-term recovery. Most importantly, hobbies don’t have to be about other people in order to include them, because groups, classes, and meetups are all extremely common and you can just look for one and join it.

Moving Forward

New hobbies can be hard to start. It can be difficult to figure out what you like. And there’s a lot that goes into trying new things, figuring out what you want to stick to, and then doing so. At the same time, taking that time and investing in finding new hobbies can help you to improve your quality of life, improve your recovery, and give yourself coping mechanisms for the long-term. Not every hobby will be good for you or good for your recovery. However, finding something you can invest in, can stick to, and can work on improving at will improve your sense of self-esteem and confidence, your discipline, will broaden your social circle, will help you feel connected to yourself and others, and will give you a way to have fun, while reducing stress levels. And, all of that will be good for your recovery.

Benzo Flu: Benzodiazepine Detox and Withdrawal

Today, benzodiazepines are one of the most misused prescription drugs on the market. In fact, in 2021, an estimated 3.9 million people misused prescription benzodiazepines, whether for recreational or self-medication use. Benzos are challenging for users because they are highly addictive in that they are both dependence inducing and in that they result in significant withdrawal symptoms. Someone who starts using may be forced to keep using until a point when they can afford taking up to five weeks off to be sick – and that can be extremely difficult for many.

Benzodiazepines are mostly used under close supervision with medical doctors with Risk Evaluation and Mitigation programs in place. However, if you’ve been using before those measures were put in place, slipped through the cracks, or started using recreationally, you could easily be dealing with a significant drug dependence. Quitting benzos means withdrawing from them and doing so means seeking out medical care so you can do so safely. Benzo flu is the term used to refer to withdrawal – which can be two or more weeks of significant medical side effects.

What is Benzo Flu?

Benzo flu is the street term used to refer to the withdrawal period for benzodiazepines. Benzos significantly impact large areas of the brain and change the chemical and hormonal output of the brain. This means that withdrawing from them can be significant and can be dangerous.

In most cases, benzo flu results in symptoms like:

Heavy sweating
Panic attacks
Anxiety

Nausea and vomiting
Dizziness or lightheadedness
Headaches

Insomnia or sleeplessness
Hallucinations
Psychosis

Irritability
Mood Swings
Shaking and tremors
Seizures

These symptoms typically start out fairly light and increase over the first few days. Most people start shaking and sweating and will feel like they have the flu. You may also have a runny nose and watery eyes. These typically happen as your brain re-adapts to changes in chemicals like neurotransmitters. Here, GABBA, dopamine, and serotonin are the most effected.

Here, withdrawal is often called a “flu” because you basically have to take several weeks off work. You will be too sick to work. And, you may spend the entire time coughing and vomiting, just like with the flu.

What’s the Timeline for Benzo Withdrawal?

In most cases, you can expect benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms to last for about two to five weeks or a bit longer. In some cases, you might also suffer from post-acute withdrawal symptoms, which means that withdrawal may last for up to three months. In each case, it’s important to ensure you have medical monitoring so you can get intervention and treatment if things start to go wrong.

In addition, the severity and longevity of symptoms will depend on what kind of benzos you’re taking, how heavy of a user you are, and how long you’ve been taking them. Your gender, age, body fat, and other factors will also play a role. For example, benzos are stored in body fat, which means that the withdrawal process will take longer if you have more body fat.

In most cases the withdrawal timeline look something like:

Early Withdrawal – Early withdrawal starts within about 12 hours of your last dose but as early as 6. You’ll typically start craving more of the drug. That will evolve into anxiety which will continue to escalate over the course of the day. If you normally take benzos to treat panic attacks, the lack of benzos could also trigger panic or anxiety attacks. Most people also can’t sleep.
Peak – Symptoms escalate over the first 1-5 days. This will mean that every day, symptoms are worse than the day before. This stage can last for up to 14 days if you have long-acting benzos. Here, you’ll develop extra symptoms like sweating, anxiety, panic, nausea, vomiting, general malaise, and headaches. You’ll also be at risk of hallucinations and paranoia. Most people also tremble, and you may have seizures. However, if you do, it is important to contact your doctor immediately.
Plateau – Symptoms will stop escalating and will be about the same for about 2-5 days or for up to 3 weeks for long-acting benzos. During this stage, the symptoms will remain about the same and won’t continue to escalate. Therefore, if you’re suffering from severe withdrawal effects, you may need medical treatment so that it stays safe.
Recovery – Withdrawal symptoms will start to taper off and will take 5-15 days to go away for short-acting benzos and up to 4 weeks for long-acting ones. Here, the intensity of symptoms gradually declines, and some symptoms may fall away altogether.

This extremely long and intense withdrawal is often why many doctors prefer to use a tapering schedule for benzos. This means you’ll cut your benzo dose in half every week to every few days, reducing the amount of benzos in your system slowly. You’ll still feel bad for the entire time, but you won’t be putting yourself at risk of life-threatening seizures. However, if you’re struggling with addiction and seeking behavior or self-control around benzos, this approach may not work for you.

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Risk of Seizures

Anyone who withdraws from benzodiazepines is at significant risk of seizures. Benzos interact with the GABBA receptors in the brain, which results in seizures during withdrawal in every substance known to interact with GABBA. (E.g., alcohol). In addition, some 20% of all persons withdrawing from benzodiazepines have a risk of grand mal seizures. These are significant seizures that can threaten your life and your long-term health if left untreated. For this reason, it’s extremely important that you either take a medically monitored tapering program to reduce benzo usage or that you receive anti-seizure and convulsant medication and detox under medical monitoring. Benzo withdrawal can have life threatening complications.

What is Benzodiazepine Detox?

Detox means getting medical monitoring and support during your withdrawal. Depending on your situation, you are also significantly likely to be recommended into a tapering schedule first. However, if your doctor doesn’t think you can safely manage a tapering schedule, you’ll likely be recommended into a clinic for treatment and detox instead.

Tapering – You might be asked to switch to a lighter benzodiazepine. You might also be asked to cut your dose down over about 10 weeks first. This will reduce the danger involved with detox. However, if you’re struggling with addiction, tapering programs rarely work.

Medical Monitoring – Your detox should include medical monitoring to ensure nothing goes wrong. That means checking in on your health, responding in case of alarming side effects, and giving you the medication and treatment you need to withdraw safely. Often that will mean reducing the intensity of symptoms. However, it may also mean simply responding in case of seizures or to prevent seizures.

Behavioral Health Treatment – Many detox programs integrate early behavioral health interventions to ensure you have the tools to stay off of benzos once you get clean. Of course, you’ll still need follow-up treatment for addiction and drug dependency. However, early-stage behavioral health interventions can help you to withdraw in a more comfortable fashion because you’ll have support, motivation, and help at every step.

Getting Help

If you or a loved one is struggling with benzodiazepines, it’s important to get help. That should normally start out with a visit to your primary healthcare provider – where you can talk about your usage, get input on tapering, and get a referral to a detox program and treatment program. Having medical monitoring during your benzodiazepine withdrawal can be lifesaving, so it is important that you check into a detox center to ensure you have the care you need.

Good luck getting off of benzodiazepines.

What are Harm Reduction Strategies for Drug Abuse?

husband is convincing his wife to get to treatment center

What are Harm Reduction Strategies for Drug Abuse?

If you or a loved one is abusing drugs, you’re not alone. Today, an estimated 24 million Americans have a drug-related substance use disorder. Worse, a 106,000 Americans died in 2021 as a result of drug abuse and drug overdose. Those statistics show that traditional approaches to drug abuse like tough love and cutting people off simply do not work. Instead, they put people in danger, increase substance abuse, and push people into situations where they cannot get out.

Harm reduction strategies for drug abuse take the approach of treating the person as more important than the drug abuse. It means stepping back and accepting that someone is sick and is unable to make good decisions for themselves. And, it means taking steps to reduce the harm of substance abuse as much as possible, so you and your loved ones can be safe.

What Are Harm Reduction Strategies?

The primary goal of a harm reduction strategy for drug abuse is to accept that you can’t get someone to stop using, therefore you want them to use in as safe a manner as possible. This includes an approach for safer use, managed use, meeting people using substances “where they are at” and working to improve the conditions of substance abuse.

This is important because often the conditions of drug abuse are as dangerous as drug use itself. For example:

People cannot get high or use at home so they do so in public, which puts them at risk of injury, assault, and sexual assault.
People cannot access clean or safe needles and so share needles and put themselves and others at risk of transmitting STDs and infections.
People don’t have access to safe resources so find themselves using unsafe substances to get high. For example, cooking heroin for injection with water from a mud puddle. Or using unsafe drugs.
People don’t have the ability to easily tell if their drugs are safe or if they’ve been cut with a potentially harmful substance. This means they put themselves at risk of overdose every time they get high but often don’t have the self-control to not get high.
People struggle with substance use disorders and so cannot simply “quit” and when pushed into going cold turkey, often relapse and increase their risk of overdose because their tolerance has dropped.
People don’t have access to information about how to safely use drugs and so can significantly harm themselves while trying to self-inject, to use pipes, or to get high.

All of this means that people using are in danger from significantly more than “just” drug abuse. Harm reduction strategies work to reduce the harm implicit in drug abuse and in those factors surrounding drug abuse. That gives you or your loved on the chance to get better by ensuring that you can have as safe and as trauma-free of an experience as possible.

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Harm Reduction Strategies You Can Adopt

Harm reducing strategies mean taking steps to reduce the harm inherent in substance abuse. Some common steps include:

Acceptance – Illicit drug use is going to happen. Drug use is a complex phenomenon, and it can stem from a lot of factors like trauma, stress, genetic vulnerabilities, or simply a desire to use and get high. If someone is using and doesn’t want to get better, it’s important to accept that they are using and they are going to use. No amount of being upset, angry, or attempting intervention is likely to change that until they are ready to quit. This means accepting that drug use isn’t going away. Instead, you do care about that person, and you want them to use in as safe and as healthy a way as possible. That also means understanding that qualify of life, continuity of life, and individual happiness are more important than “quitting” drug use.

Providing Help – People who are struggling with substance abuse often need help to use safely. That means taking steps to ensure they have the means to do so. Often, it also means deliberately going out of your way to provide safe access to drugs, drug use, and preventive care. For many people, this step can feel like “Enabling” but as part of harm reduction, you’re accepting that drug use will happen and are taking the steps to make it as safe as possible. That can look like:

Keeping Narcan or Naloxone (at least 3 doses) on your person at all times.
Designating a room of your home for someone to use safely
Finding local supervised injection/consumption sites and driving your loved one there when they want to use
Ensuring access to safe and clean syringes
Finding safe-drug use information relevant to the drug(s) you or your loved one are using and following those
Finding drug test centers and paying for drug tests. Or, getting drug safety test kits like DanceSafe or equivalent kits
Focusing on safe usage with emphasis on sourcing quality drugs and using in a safe manner over not using at all
Intervening for safety reasons or not at all

Education – Harm reduction strategies always include education and learning, which may mean helping you or your loved one learn to cope with the real problems behind substance abuse. It can also mean working on strategies to improve quality of life, improve mental health, and improve other things that may contribute to drug abuse. In addition, it means learning how drug abuse and use disorders actually work, how they impact everyone involved, and how to cope with them in a healthy manner. Harm reduction strategies never work to minimize or ignore that illicit drug use can be extremely harmful, it just means accepting that it happens and you can’t prevent it happening, so you want it to happen in as safe of a way as possible.

For many people, taking harm reduction approaches to drug abuse means a considerable shift in mindset. For example, many of us are raised to see substance abuse as a personal failing or as someone choosing to do wrong. Learning how to use safely, how to reduce harm when using, and how to provide safe spaces to use means accepting that use will happen, meeting the user where they are, and taking a core step of saying “you and your health are more important than the fact that you use drugs”. You may have to overcome a lot of biases to actually reach that step. However, it will ensure that your loved one can move through addiction as safely as possible, so they have the chance to recover and to heal.

Why Traveling for Addiction Treatment is a Good Idea

a man traveling to rehab treatment center

Why Traveling for Addiction Treatment is a Good Idea

If you’re considering going to rehab for yourself or for a loved one, you likely have a lot of options. Not only do most areas have local outpatient programs, you can travel to one of the over 16,000 treatment facilities across the United States. Those treatment centers off inpatient care to local and out-of-state visitors – with an estimated 4 million patients each year. While that’s less than 10% of the total number of people who need treatment, it does mean that you have significant options to seek out treatment away from home.

And, while traveling to rehab treatment can seem like a big deal, it may be a good idea for your needs. That’s especially true for professionals who need discrete treatment to protect their career. Or, if you’re not yet ready to share about treatment with your community or your workplace. However, there are many reasons other than privacy that might mean traveling to rehab is a good choice for you.

You Want a Choice of Different Treatment Options

Most treatment centers in the United States offer 12-step treatment. If you’re going to an outpatient program, chances are it’s made up of counseling and 12-step and potentially cognitive behavioral therapy on a group basis. If you want something more intensive or more diverse, you might have to travel to find it.

For example, one-on-one motivational therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and dialectal behavioral therapy are proven to be effective in helping people to recover from a substance use disorder. In addition, you may benefit from family and relationship therapy, child care, pet care at the facility, EMDR, or any of a number of other treatment options that aren’t available locally.

That’s especially true if you have a co-occurring or dual diagnosis, where you might need specific treatment to offer support for getting substance abuse treatment while continuing medication. Or, if you want to go to a program that offers support for LGBTQ+, female-only, male-only, or medication assisted (or the lack of) programs.

The further out you’re willing to travel, the more options you’ll have. And, those will extend to complementary therapies and options like mindfulness, music therapy, physical therapy, nutritional therapy, etc.

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Taking Time Off Shouldn’t Feel Like a Hospital Visit

It’s also true that if you go to a local rehab clinic, especially on an outpatient basis, you’re essentially taking a lot of time out of your life for what will feel like work. It is important to note that rehab is work. You will have to spend a significant amount of time and personal effort on changing yourself, your behavior, and the way you think.

Traveling for rehab allows you to reduce the stress of that investment by making it something of a vacation. You also don’t have to go to a luxury rehab to get that feeling. Almost every rehab center has activities, group exercises, and entertainment, designed to help you to be happy and healthy throughout the program – while building the life skills you need to be happy and healthy outside of treatment. That means you can:

Let go of daily responsibilities and focus on treatment
Dedicate all of your time to recovery and building yourself up
Get to relax in a private and safe environment
Step away from the possibility of relapse into an environment where you can’t drink or use

Going to rehab doesn’t have to feel like you’re visiting a hospital everyday or staying in one. That’s stressful and demotivating. Traveling to a rehab center in a nice location means you can enjoy weather and nature and get to relax and destress while you work on yourself, and that should improve the quality of your experience and how much you can learn.

Getting a Fresh Start

Most people build habits around where they live and who they live with. This means that if you’re going to rehab and not changing the habits of how you live or who you hang out with, chances are, you are likely to relapse again. Stepping out of that environment means you get a fresh start, away from the people, places, and things that could trigger you to use.

That’s especially important if you frequently drink or use with friends or family. Or, if you have habits built around getting home and drinking or using. The more barriers you put between yourself and falling into automatic habits, the easier it will be to actually get clean or sober.

Of course, that does come with a caveat as well. If you travel to rehab, you’ll have to readjust when you get back and you’ll have to learn to avoid those triggers, to cut them out, or to mitigate them with better coping mechanisms or strategies. That can mean you’ll want to stay in a sober home when you get out of rehab, it may mean you’ll want to move, and it may mean you’ll want a new set of friends. However, getting the fresh start will be an important first step in helping you to step away from habits and give yourself the opportunity to build new ones.

You Need Extra Help

If you’ve tried to quit drugs or alcohol in the past and didn’t manage, have been to outpatient care, or qualify as having a significant substance use disorder, you may benefit from the extra support, hands on treatment, and higher rate of personalized attention in an inpatient center. While personalized treatment and more one-on-one time with counselors and therapists doesn’t guarantee better outcomes, it does mean you get the benefit of a program that is built around your needs, adapted as you move through therapy to match your progress, and based on your personal treatment history. And, when you graduate, you can move into aftercare programs, often via virtual therapy, so you can continue getting support as you navigate early recovery.

There’s no one right way to go to addiction treatment. In fact, if you’re choosing between outpatient treatment at a local facility or no treatment at all, the outpatient treatment is always better. However, traveling to treatment can offer a lot of benefits that will help you as you progress through your recovery journey.

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 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.