Therapy. 12 steps. Refuge Recovery. Religion. Spirituality. Abstinence. Love. Will Power.
Positive habits. What sort of treatment modality transforms us from the ravages of addiction to the empowerment of freedom? What is the recipe for the effective treatment of addiction, and alcoholism? If you have a strong enough desire to know, then the answer will be yours. The answer is not an ultimate truth, but it is your treatment, your journey, a collective collaboration between healers, therapists, guides, teachers, and your own strength of focus.
How does one fall into the pit of addiction, where treatment is called for so desperately, where help is both yearned for and resisted? Where the internal tug of war of threatens to tear you into remnants of yourself? Is it a quick dive down? or is it through a gradual compiling of trauma, stress, and conditioning from unhealthy individuals, and society at large? From one perspective, there is an untangling that must occur- a complex mix of discovery, insight, and practice that effective treatment can help to accomplish.
The Fruits of a Bountiful Treatment
Effective treatment roots itself in the ground of transformation, addressing all the areas of life where the energy of addiction took hold- trauma, relationships, physical imbalances, mental and emotional blockages. Treatment works through the same avenues that addiction built up momentum, gradually and consistently, attending to new patterns of thought, and new ways of being in the world.
The Branches of Healing
There are many effective elements of Treatment, that provide long lasting freedom from drugs and alcohol. These are the avenues that healers, therapists, and doctors provide. They strengthen the weakened responses to life that got engrained over time through repeated stress and addictive mechanisms. Some of these avenues that contribute to the healing of the whole individual are:
-Yoga, somatic awareness, and physical movement (hiking, dancing, walking, etc.) These are the physical aspects of treatment that move stuck energy in the body. They combat years of tension and poor habits of movement, that contribute to automatic responses to life, and to addictive impulses. Read more on the power of Movement here, and Somatic Awareness here.
-Therapy, counseling, and coaching. This combination helps to consciously gain awareness of the way words and focus are used in destructive ways and learn new ways to shift into greater capacity for choosing these words and focus for healing and expansion, as opposed to self- destruction.
-Community and friendships, within the framework of a supported environment. This enables clients to bring challenges and triggers, from connections with others, to therapists for learning, and to move through negative patterns from past dysfunction. This also helps bring light to the ways that addiction is fueled from unhealthy perceptions based on others.
The Connection Key
One of the key factors in providing Treatment that is truly transformative, is the power to instill in an individual new healthy connection that is strong. Addiction came to be over time with many disconnected events, and feelings of disconnection from the higher self (the one accessed through the frontal lobe of the brain.) As neuroscientist, Dr. Becky Bailey teaches, connections on the outside build new neural connections on the inside.
Treatment offers a model of connection that serves as an antidote to all the unhealthy “treatment” an individual has withstood in life, from the self and others, and society at large (often as a confirmation of a perception of self, adopted from unhealthy messages, and “teachers.”) Holistic treatment of an individual, occurs through guiding addicts through the ups and downs of learning new ways to connect, thereby re-wiring the brain. This is the kind of treatment that builds a new world for the individual, both internally and externally, replacing the past with new healthy patterns and connections.
This is the kind of Treatment that enables a recovering individual to see the world not as it has been in the past, but as they themselves are, in this present moment: free to choose and create a desired reality, more and more each moment they become present for.
This presence is cultivated through mindfulness, compassion, attention, and a treatment environment that builds a growth mentality, where mistakes are honored for the teachers that they are and what does not serve is let go of, gradually, with the power of intention and open- mindedness.
With effective treatment, all things are possible, from survival and staying alive, to thriving and manifesting miracles, and everything in between, the choice is yours.
