You are owned by your attachments and controlled by your needs.

For what are you attached… approval, financial gain, prestige, power, possession, security, relief from discomfort, gratification, pleasure? Perhaps the means to maintaining these attachments create conflict or distress between you and others. Solutions which return you to your attachments could be illegal or unethical. Your route to connecting to your perceived needs could be harmful or even fatal.

Addiction is a harmful and potentially fatal solution for maintaining constant gratification, relief from discomfort and/or pleasure. Your connection to these perceived needs is what maintains the course of your addiction.

I can’t imagine life without constant gratification, relief from discomfort or pleasure. Without them, life wouldn’t be worth living.

 The ideas surrounding what you need, what you own and how you maintain these connections are often exaggerated or all-or-nothing. Treatment for addiction evaluates these thought patterns as well as the behaviors practiced maintaining connection and addiction.

Recovery is the process detaching from things which own and control you, changing the ideas and behaviors which are harmful or threatening, and discovering the qualities of freedom and choice.

Connection to others and higher principals is another benefit of recovery.

At what point does an attachment, its practices and solutions require a personal “overhaul” rather than a simple change in behavior or habit?

When we find ourselves stuck in the same rut despite attempts at changing, we probably need to get help and go deeper. Treatment for addiction helps you understand that you’re not alone, demonstrates that alternative ideas and behaviors exist, and most significantly supports your process of detaching from those things that are controlling you.

Needs change. Treatment for addiction and recovery helps you revise your ideas about what you need. You become increasingly capable of selecting those things which have control over you.

Can you change your ideas and behaviors but continue your attachments to people, places, things and sensations?

For a while. Dissatisfaction and frustration is likely to reemerge since people, places, things and sensations are rarely constant and can sometimes prove to be unreliable.

What is the difference between attachment and connection?

 Connections support your progress and development where attachments tend to control and constrain growth.

Twin Town Treatment Centers is immediately accessible to all Los Angeles and Orange County residents, is accredited by The Joint Commission, and is certified by the California DHCS. All network HMO/PPO/EPO insurance plans and Medi-Cal contract with Twin Town Treatment Centers to provide drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Our phone is answered by real people. We see people on the same they you call. (866) 594-8844`

 

 

 

There exist many reasons why some people think that drug rehab requires travel, time away from home, at a significant financial burden.

Most reasons involve money for the residential rehab and a belief in geographic cures.

Much more revenue is created in the drug rehab industry when twenty-four-hour room, board and care are provided whether they are medically indicated or not. If you were to look for published evidence that a substance use disorder requires lengthy inpatient stays to create positive outcomes, you would need to overlook the body of research which sites favorable outcomes for outpatient treatment over the costly residential option.

Desperate families are vulnerable to telephone call-center tactics playing on their worst fears and desires for a cure. If the solution takes the problem elsewhere, that is even better. “Return my family member when they are fixed …”

No matter where I travel, there I am. The problem seems to follow me.

Leaving the chaos and wreckage created through addiction temporarily diminishes their impact… things seem better for a while. Then the wreckage catches up. Finally, you turn around and face it.

Outpatient treatment provides sober support and professional guidance while you face the wreckage of alcoholism and addiction- a time it’s most needed. Problems often pile higher, especially financial obligations, while away at a residential treatment center. Returning is more difficult and treatment support is often left behind. Relapse upon returning home after residential treatment is not uncommon.

Managing alcoholism and addiction… “taking a trip, not taking a trip” … “checking into health farms and sanitariums”.

Attempts at minimizing the impact of alcoholism and addiction are as old as mankind. Whether attempting to manage alcohol and drug intake or traveling across county “for the cure”, we often use unwise and sometime desperate measures to resolve addictive behaviors and consequences… which must eventually be resolved at home, with loved ones.

Have you ever taken a call from frightened small-town, youth stuck in Orange County or Los Angeles after being booted from a drug rehab, alcohol treatment center or residential treatment?

Where ever these kids find themselves stranded… Sherman Oaks, Hollywood, Torrance, Long Beach, Anaheim or Laguna Beach are scary places to find yourself deserted, especially if you’re from Small Town America.

If the residential treatment center doesn’t get paid, if the insurance company finds inadequate medical necessity to pay for residential treatment, or if the kid fowls up and gets booted, these kids find themselves on the street in unfamiliar and dangerous territory.

Outpatient treatment is effective, covered by MediCal and HMO insurance, and helps integrate recovery organically at home.

For people returning home from residential treatment, alcohol treatment center or drug rehab, outpatient treatment aids with translating their inpatient gains into real life. The support of the outpatient treatment staff and peer group provide an initial support network to face alcoholic/ addict wreckage, damaged relationships and challenges of making a living sober.

Twin Town Treatment Centers is immediately accessible to all Los Angeles and Orange County residents, is accredited by The Joint Commission, and is certified by the California DHCS. All network HMO/PPO/EPO insurance plans and Medi-Cal contract with Twin Town Treatment Centers to provide drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Our phone is answered by real people. We see people on the same they you call. (866) 594-8844

In sobriety, is it important to find the “right” recovery program or “correct” addiction treatment? Isn’t it essential to find the “right” way of thinking and feeling?

There exist many paths to recovery from addiction. What is most important is that a recovery program is immediately accessible, that it is constantly available and requires daily practice, and that it replaces behaviors which lead to or result from addiction.

Find a program which is free or affordable and which takes recovery into your daily life.

Practice the program everywhere you go. Addiction and its triggers will continue to follow you and you need to build new defenses and solutions.

Replace the words “right” and “correct” with “useful” and “productive”. Striving to be “correct” or “right” will take you back to your addiction. We form mental “committees” to debate and prove our righteousness. Obsessions start to cloud our consciousness and “being right” becomes self-destructive.

After so many years of research, why are there so many different treatment programs and approaches to recovery for addiction?

Many motives, both benevolent and self-serving drive research and the design of treatment programs for recovery.

The higher the cost or the greater the financial investment over time, the more important it is to research its mission and intension of the addiction treatment program.

Addiction is perhaps the most multifaceted disease which requires scientific research from medicine, sociology and psychology, also needing insights and guidance from spiritual, philosophical and humanistic schools. The result is a diverse set of approaches and programs for addiction recovery.

From large bodies of research, the most effective addiction treatment is provided by a trusted and respectful person who provides structure and direction over an extended period. The methodology of treatment is less important than type of relationships developed in a program of recovery.

Why do so many sober people insist that it is so important to give up self-reliance and personal initiative to find a recovery program from addiction?

Through our process of addiction, secrecy and dishonesty have become necessary defenses which have destroyed our ability to trust others. It is this trust that researchers have found as the essential ingredient for treating alcoholism and addiction.

Significant neurological and cognitive impairments result from alcoholism and addiction. Using this broken machinery to solve an all-encompassing problem is impossible. People engaging in a recovery program must accept different direction, take in new information and stop being “right”.

“Being right” implies that new directions or information are not needed. The alcoholic and addict present a desperate need for different solutions.

The belief that we cannot recover from addiction through our own knowledge and direction seems self-defeating and weak.

We become self-defeating and weak when we repeatedly try failing solutions and behavior, expecting different results. Using alcohol and drugs to relieve discomfort or to gain pleasure become futile exercises toward the later stages of alcoholism and addiction.

Attempting to practice new behavior without the assistance of others and the support of a sober support network is also often futile. In recovery, people learn from each other and replace the relief and pleasure of the chemical with that of being a friend.

How could someone else know what I need to get sober anyway? Why should I listen to what others say? I’m unique!

Terminal uniqueness is a great defense against change. People who have limited their solutions and resources to drugs and alcohol desperately need outside information, advise, direction and support.

People gaining sobriety are unique as are people who have successfully engaged in recovery. That difference can be shared along with the commonality with our struggles with drugs and alcohol. Our feelings are often common.

The story may sound different but the loneliness, fear, hopelessness and desperation are shared.

 Why is “being correct” dangerous to a personal recovery program?

To maintain sobriety and engage in long-term recovery, we must remain “teachable”. Being right or correct often closes us off from very helpful teachers and new ways of understanding and solving our problems.

Our old behaviors and solutions no longer work in recovery.

What is humility and why do people think that it’s so important for recovering from an addiction?

 “Humility” allows sober people to remain “teachable”. Consider “humility” as finding where we fit in a sober support network and how we accept help and new solutions.

What does “self-righteous indignation” mean anyway?

“Self-righteous indignation” is that annoying characteristic that some people practice helping them feel better about themselves or convince themselves that their work is over… they have achieved righteousness.

“Self-righteous indignation” isolates people and creates resentment and loneliness. In sobriety we find that being open to new information and solutions, and reducing the friction we create between ourselves and others is essential.

Twin Town Treatment Centers is immediately accessible to all Los Angeles and Orange County residents, is accredited by The Joint Commission, and is certified by the California DHCS. All network HMO/PPO/EPO insurance plans and Medi-Cal contract with Twin Town Treatment Centers to provide drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Our phone is answered by real people. We can see people on the same day you call. (866) 594-8844

People who have become alcoholic or addicted to drugs are familiar with using temporary solutions to fix their mounting and long-lasting problems. External remedies are sought to solve internal matters. “Take a pill”, “move”, “change partners”, “quit a job”, “celebrate”, “try more exercise” “listen to someone’s inspiration”- they work for a while until you catch up to where you left off.

Families with troubled youth often want to send them out for repair. A new changed person is expected after a couple of months in a residential treatment or rehab center.

People accustomed to taking a drink, a pill, a line, a bump, a hit, a snort, a shot to make things better attempt to fix the troubles with easy solutions. Problems which keep knocking on the door are changed by changing door. “Move to another city” … that will solve the trouble for a while until you find yourself there, again.

Recovering alcoholics and addicts label moving to avoid problems, “taking a geographic”. It is avoidance of responsibility and magical thinking. The problem remains through space.

Wherever you go, you eventually find yourself… you take your problems wherever you go. Treatment and rehab should not be another “geographic” escape from the problems and the consequences of a life that has become unmanageable. Facing the wreckage, triggers, and problem behavior at home is required if a solution is to be found.

Addiction, including alcoholism is characterized by many signs and symptoms. A distinguishing symptom is when the addict or alcoholic continues their use in the face of its negative consequences. (“Crazy” is when you take the same action but expect different results.)

Recovery starts with avoiding the first drink or drug… abstaining from addictive substances one day at a time. That beginning may be inside a safe and supportive rehab or treatment center, or the beginning could be at home with the direction, instruction and support of an intensive outpatient program. The practices of recovery must be established at home in the long term… postponing may feel comfortable but may be unnecessary.

Intensive outpatient treatment provides an “at home” process of learning, understanding, becoming increasingly aware, practicing new skills, and monitoring personal ideas, feelings and behaviors. In intensive outpatient treatment, people discover at home, with loved ones and at work, with coworker a new way of acting. An openness to learn and understand new ideas, and to practice new behaviors and skills is developed naturally, where it is needed the most. An outpatient support group and professional helps find new ways of facing triggers, people, places and things which were once part of the addictive lifestyle.

New friends and acquaintances who understand and support sobriety are gained, and can be maintained over the long-term in outpatient treatment. Leaving outpatient treatment or rehab doesn’t mean losing all the supportive relationships and practices that may be fragmented when leaving a residential program.

Intensive outpatient treatment can be as or more effective than residential treatment as demonstrated by research. It is also much more affordable and accessible, especially if insurance coverage is to cover the costs of treatment.

Twin Town Treatment Centers is immediately accessible to all Los Angeles and Orange County residents, is accredited by The Joint Commission, and is certified by the California DHCS. All network HMO/PPO/EPO insurance plans and Medi-Cal contract with Twin Town Treatment Centers to provide drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Our phone is answered by real people. We can see people on the same day you call. (866) 594-8844

A: Rather than chasing the first high, twenty years later, becoming clean and sober provides something else to do. Change is next to impossible during the time that your time is occupied with “getting-by” and making it through until the next drink or hit or toke. When your priorities start with getting that feeling back or getting rid of the feelings that you have, little room is left for other activities.

Becoming bored, miserable, discouraged or afraid with the lifestyle of the alcohol and addict, many people decide that it’s time to clean up and sober up.

Q: How long does it take to clean up and sober up?

A: The change from alcoholic/ addict to clean and sober comes “one day at a time”. Don’t rush it. Enjoy the process like the experience of early spring to summer- each day presents new growth and new changes of weather. The rain nourishes the flowers and color enters a once gray world.

Q: What is the difference between abstinence and recovery?

A: Abstinence is NOT doing something. Recovery is doing MANY things.

Practice this exercise: Don’t think of white winged horses. What did you think about? Now, instead of thinking of white winged horsed, think about what is really in front of you right now. This is the difference between abstinence and recovery.

Q: Recovery is often described as a superior status for people with drug and alcohol problems. How is it different and what does it mean?

A: People with drug and alcohol problems often get stuck in a rut that they only make deeper. That rut is full of frustration, loneliness but is creating with ease: behaviors that are known and seem safe and require no thought are recited over and over. Addiction and alcoholism is easy and requires no thought.

Recovery requires waking up to reality, as unpleasant as it may be. Recovery requires new ideas, new behaviors and the honesty, humility and willingness to learn them. Recovery is not easy.

Q: What is so special about recovery anyway?

A: Remember the coldest winter you’ve encountered. The cold gray weather keeps you indoors and you can’t do anything except keep warm. One day you notice a warm spell. The next day the snow starts to melt. Eventually green sprigs of grass appear followed by buds on the trees. Eventually the world is a colorful garden full of flowers, birds and warmth!

Recovery connects and reconnects you with people who care for you and you care for them. Recovery allows you to awaken fresh with hope for a new day, each day. Recovery gives you new adventures which you enjoy.

Recovery restores your love of life and appreciation for things outside of yourself.

Recovery allows you to want what you have.

Q: How do people gain recovery?

A: Recovery can start today. There are many routes to recovery which include talking with your therapist or doctor, calling a mutual support organization such as AA, NA central office or SMART Recovery, or calling a trusted rehab program. Avoid internet searches and instead rely upon people who have gotten recovery or professionals who have directed people successfully to recovery.

Twin Town Treatment Centers is immediately accessible to all Los Angeles and Orange County residents, is accredited by The Joint Commission, and is certified by the California DHCS. All network HMO/PPO/EPO insurance plans and Medi-Cal contract with Twin Town Treatment Centers to provide drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Our phone is answered by real people. We can see people on the same day you call. (866) 594-8844