September is National Recovery Month and We're Celebrating Connections
Addiction is a disease of isolation. In recovery from addiction, learning to connect with others within a community is essential. Chemically dependent people talk about “filling a void.” In repeatedly attempting to fill the void with substances, our primary relationship becomes the substances and we are living in a state of isolation or a state of reflexive compulsive reaction, chasing after some kind of high. We react to painful emotions, driven by them instead of living, feeling, and being comfortable with uncomfortable feelings. Our emotions are how we connect with self and others. When ruled by substances, it is impossible to develop and maintain meaningful relationships. Substance abuse and addiction separate us from our true feelings, cutting us off from genuine relationships. As humans, we have a fundamental need to be recognized, to be seen and understood by another.
The safety and nurturing of healthy relationships are paramount in recovery, and as such, group therapy plays a key role in treatment. The core of Freedom Institute’s clinical programming is the integration of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Relational Family Therapy. In the DBT groups of Freedom Institute’s Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), the members of the IOP come to group three times a week for three hours. (Freedom Institute also offers DBT Skills Group and Family DBT Skills Group.) The collective group is stronger, kinder and wiser than the individual and allows individual clients to learn and develop their use of DBT skills and adapt them in their real-life circumstances and relationships. DBT teaches the skills of mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness, and puts individuals in a better position to enter into relationships and communities such as family, work and friends.
In group work, individuals practice their DBT skills with respective members, then move out into ‘the real world’ to use them in their lives. Then they return to review the experience, learn more skills and again go out into the world, until these skills become innate. This is the role of connection, community and relationship within the treatment process of recovery from addiction. Clients go from the group, community experience to their own lives with the encouragement of the group to effect change in their lives and to allow them to move in the direction they want. If group therapy is done well, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts and the group is more powerful than the individual members. The goal of recovery is to live more fully and authentically and there is no recovery without connection and community.
Seek out and celebrate connections. The first step in recovery is to give voice to your struggle and connect with others. Find someone in or around your life and tell them what is happening. When we get to the place where we can say out loud: “What I’m doing isn’t working, please help me,” and we reach out to connect with someone, that is when recovery begins.
In giving voice to your struggle, join a community. One community we would like to give a shout out to is the yellowlife. The color yellow has a rich history of identifying non-drinking communities and YELLOW is a first-of-its-kind brand designed for anyone who is “currently not drinking.” Seek connection, wear yellow and above all seek help as we are here for you. Contact us at Freedom Institute or call (212) 838-0044.