Addiction Treatment
Treatment
Overcome addiction and regain control of your life
At Navesink Wellness Center, we believe substance use disorders and addictive behaviors are symptoms of an underlying issue, not the problem itself.
Addiction and Substance Use Disorders affect individuals and their families across all socioeconomic systems. The repercussions can be serious causing such things as loss of employment, strained relationships, financial insecurity, incarceration, and even death. Addictions occur over time and follow a pattern of experimentation, regular use, problem or risky use, dependence, and addiction. This timeline mostly applies to SUDs but is also relevant in other types of addiction like gambling, shopping, or sexual.
If you are concerned that you or someone you know has started down the path of addiction to alcohol, drugs, gambling, or any other unhealthy behaviors; the time to seek assistance is now. Substance Use Disorders have a high level of co-occurrence with other mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma, and Bipolar Disorders.
Therapists can assist in recovery by exploring the clients biopsychosocial history to identify contributing factors, assessing for comorbid mental health conditions, family reengagement counseling, and treatment planning.
The Five Stages of Addiction:
1. Experimentation: Defined as voluntary and infrequent use or participation. Motivations include:
- Relief from depression, anxiety (general and social), physical pain, and stress.
- To enhance performance athletically, professionally, or academically.
- To fit into society. We learn from an early age thru behavior modeling that in order to “fit in” we need alcohol or drugs
- The individually has a genetic propensity for risk seeking behaviors.
2. Regular Use: Defined as the experimenting behavior starts to evolve into patterns of behavior like drinking on the weekends, occurring around certain groups or activities, or identifiable triggers.
3. Problem and Risky Use: The individual begins to put themselves and/or others at risk while engaging in the behavior. This could look like driving after drinking, showing up late to work or school, a noticeable effect on personal or family finances.
4. Dependence: This can be physical, psychological, or both. For use disorders, this could be developing a high tolerance or the emergence of withdrawal symptoms. For behavioral addiction, the individual is aware of the negative impact on finances or lifestyle but continues to struggle to make the necessary changes
5. Addiction: An individual is seen as having an addiction when their substance use or behavior is compulsive, out of control, and is causing impairments. This final stage is also characterized by intense cravings, most of the time spent procuring or preparing for the behavior (use). In the case of SUDs, the client would experience severe withdrawal symptoms if they discontinued use.
The Focus Of Our Work Together
One goal of addiction treatment is to help you regain power and control over your life and re-narrate your story.
A comprehensive treatment approach can be successful in minimizing the symptoms of addiction, as individuals gain a greater understanding of their experiences, learn to self-regulate, alter their perspectives and regain control of their life.
