Getting Sober Archives | Oceanside Malibu

EMDR in Addiction Treatment

EMDR in Addiction Treatment We know for sure that trauma occurs in well over 90% of people who seek mental health or addiction treatment. When a trauma occurs, it is outside of the normal range of human experience. When the experience happens and it enters into the brain, the brain doesn’t know how to process it, metabolize it for lack of a better word. Consequently, it gets frozen and isn’t processed like every other experience. If it’s frozen in time, the person consciously or unconsciously is still hanging on to the remnants of that experience and that can last for many, many years. We certainly don’t want blame any person more »

Medication-Assisted Treatment

The medications traditionally used in harm reduction or medication-assisted treatment programs for opiod addiction are Suboxone, Subutex & Sublocade. Suboxone is really made up of two medications with the main med being Buprenorphine. It is a long-lasting opiate. Now why would you take someone off of opiates and put them on more opiates? Well, Buprenorphine attaches to those opioid receptor sites in such a way that makes it very difficult to overdose. Consequently, it increases safety for anyone addicted to opioids or heroin. Another thing is, since suboxone has a tiny bit of naloxone, which is an opioid blocker, it adds a bit more of a safety net. Thus, adding more »

How Outpatient Treatment Helps The Chronic Relapser

How Outpatient Treatment Helps The Chronic Relapser Treatment facility professionals will usually discuss with patients and their families, the need for outpatient treatment. You may have heard the terms extended treatment or sober living after completing the initial detox portion of a program. The reason for this is results. It has been shown that completing a full continuum of care helps patients remain clean after treatment. Outpatient treatment is especially helpful for people who have been to many treatment centers for addiction and have repeatedly relapsed. There is benefit for everyone to participate in an extended care treatment program. It may however, be particularly helpful for young adults and more »

The Harm Reduction Approach To Treatment

Harm reduction is an approach to treating addiction that focuses on keeping addicts safe and minimizing death, disease and injury associated with higher risk addictive behavior, while recognizing that the behavior may continue despite the risks. At the conceptual level, harm reduction maintains a value neutral and humanistic view of drug use and the drug user. It focuses on the harms from drug use rather than on the use itself. It does not insist on or object to abstinence and acknowledges the active role of the drug user in harm reduction programs. At the practical level, the aim of harm reduction is to reduce the more immediate harmful consequences more »

Remaining Active In Recovery

Remaining Active In Recovery The people you surround yourself with may influence your recovery or hasten a relapse. The people that surround you are a reflection of yourself. When you leave treatment, you are no longer the person you once were, but are instead a brand new version of yourself. If you go back and hang out with the friends or family members that got you into trouble in the first place, you are setting yourself up for failure. A person’s environment is an important factor to maintaining recovery. Your living space can be another contributing factor for relapse. Most former active addicts lived in an area that had easy more »

Improving Self Esteem

Improving Self Esteem It is not unusual for people in treatment for addiction to describe feeling like they never belonged, how they never fit in or how they always felt ‘less than’ other people around them. For anyone who felt that way growing up, using substances may have been the first time they were able to quiet those feelings. Briefly and early on in substance abuse, drugs and alcohol can give an individual a glimpse of what if might actually be like to feel good, about life and about oneself. The factors that contribute to low self esteem include trauma, disapproval from parents or authority figures, uninvolved parents/caregivers, extensive bullying more »