Addiction Therapy

What is Addiction Therapy?

Alcohol and drug addiction therapy can describe a wide range of interventions that treat substance use disorder or address a pattern of drug abuse. Some therapy options address addiction directly and provide coping mechanisms to help you deal with cravings and triggers without relapsing. In many cases, these therapies are centered on helping you form relapse prevention strategies with which you can safeguard your sobriety.

Other therapies can be focused on underlying issues that may contribute to or worsen a substance use disorder. For instance, trauma is often associated with alcoholism. To treat drug use in someone who has experienced trauma, it may be necessary to use therapy options that specifically address disorders like post-traumatic stress like eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR therapy).

Addiction therapy can also be split into two other categories: evidence based treatments and alternative therapies. Evidence-based interventions are supported by research and, while alternative therapies have some apparent success in clinical settings, they haven’t been verified through studies. Addiction therapy can also address root problems that may have contributed to your initial drug use. For instance, substance use disorders have a significant rate of comorbidity with other mental disorders, especially depression and anxiety. In some cases, substance abuse begins as a way of self-medicating to relieve negative symptoms of a mental disorder. Drug and alcohol addiction therapy, as well as our dual diagnosis treatments, can address these issues to remove the need to self-medicate and prevent mental disorders from triggering an eventual relapse.

• EMDR: Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a treatment that combines repetitive eye movements with discussions about past trauma to help clients recover from traumatic life events. Since people exposed to childhood trauma have a higher risk of substance abuse, this addiction therapy can address addiction by pinpointing its underlying causes.
• CBT: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helps people discover and replace their negative thoughts and actions. Using this therapy, you’ll learn more about how your thoughts and feelings relate to your addictions and how you can change your mindset and behaviors to overcome them.
• Trauma therapy: Trauma therapy benefits people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other conditions caused by past trauma. Because many people use alcohol and drugs to cope with these traumatic memories, trauma therapy focuses on both resolving current addictions and overcoming the stress of the past.
• Art therapy: We believe our core therapies offer incredible, noticeable benefits for our clients, but we also understand that treatment can be both physically and emotionally taxing. Art therapy is intended to relax your mind and communicate your feelings more effectively than words alone. Taking part in an enjoyable creative process can help you manage cravings during and outside of your treatment.

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