Together We Heal
Individual Addiction Counseling
Connected Path offers individual therapy as a part of our addiction treatment program.
When you enter drug or alcohol addiction treatment, you will experience a variety of therapies. These therapies combine to give you the best possible chance of strong, lasting recovery.
Individual counseling includes several approaches. You hear this therapy called talk therapy, behavioral therapy, and psychotherapy as well as specific names like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Although many types of individual therapy exist, one thing holds true of all of these types — you go through individual counseling with a licensed addiction counselor or a mental health therapist in a private, trusting, and safe setting.
You need individualized support and connection with a counselor within the treatment program to get the best results. For most people, this therapy meets essential needs for understanding your disease, addressing individual issues, and building specific relapse prevention skills that are realistic for you and your circumstances. This therapy also helps address symptoms related to any co-occurring mental conditions that you suffer along with your addiction, such as depression, anxiety, or PTSD. Learning coping skills in groups as well as individually is a routine and important part of the recovery process and our programs.
Why You Need Individual Therapy To Recover
Making a connection with your addiction counselor reduces the risk of relapses. Many hurdles exist to your recovery. Without someone to walk the road with you, you may not see these hurdles coming, and they could take you back to drugs or alcohol. The hurdles include stress, family problems, mental illness, your triggers and temptations, friends who used with you, and other risks for relapse.
These issues do not go away on their own. Often, they feel worse once we are sober. Many, like sudden life stress, never go away. You can bank on experiencing a few big life problems at some point in your future, right? For these problems and the urges to use, individual counselors help. Moreover, your one-on-one time with a counselor helps you identify your specific issues, cravings and learn to cope with life situations without using drugs or alcohol.
How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Works
Drug and alcohol addiction responds well to cognitive behavioral therapy. This approach is a form of behavioral treatment. You would typically undergo CBT in one-on-one sessions with an addiction counselor. At the heart of this treatment is the understanding that there’s dysfunction in your life. A therapist helps you to pinpoint it. Areas of examination include your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Because they each affect one another, it only takes one domain of dysfunction to cause problems.
For example, imagine that you completely misjudge a situation. This mistake now leads to your having negative feelings that aren’t necessary. You also act in a way that is not in keeping with the reality of the situation. That said, misjudgment could happen for any number of reasons.
Maybe you had something similar happen to you in childhood. You might be relying on faulty third-party information. You have a false sense of self-worth that colors your thoughts. Many things can upset the triangle of thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Why You Can't Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps
Many people dealing with addiction believe that they should be able to handle the issue by themselves. You may be one of them; however, if you have every tried to quit or cut back on your own, you know that it is often impossible. Addiction has been determined to be a disease process by the AMA, WHO, APA, and many others in the medical field for many, many years. Substance abuse is not a moral failing and does not seem to yield to the strongest of attempts made by our own willpower. Many people can quit, but STAYING quit seems to be the problem. This paradox is explained in the disease model where we address the obsessions and compulsions of the mind, the physical and neurological components, and how all that works together to create a disease of addiction that needs to be met with strong support and connection with others in order to have a full recovery.
It is not something that you can quit just with willpower. Cognitive behavioral therapy and similar modalities are treatments that help you overcome addiction. Professional intervention is a crucial element of getting sober.
Use What You Learn To Overcome Addiction.
Treatment in general won’t fix your life, but it can help you make far-reaching changes. By recognizing areas of dysfunction, you can actively work on replacing them with positive thoughts and actions. Some are quick and easy to overcome. Others take more time and support. Recovery is always possible.
Take The First Step Toward Becoming Sober Today!
Find out how this treatment can help you recover today. At Connected Path, addiction therapists routinely work with people just like you. Click the button above to send us a message or call (855) 888-2600 to learn more about how individual addiction counseling can help you recover!
