Trauma is an incredibly formative experience that impacts your thoughts, feelings, and coping mechanisms. It is often linked with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and can affect mental, physical, social, and spiritual health. Browse the Best info about Life After Alcohol Rehab.
Traumatic events include anything that overwhelms your ability to cope. These include child abuse, sexual assault, battling life-threatening illnesses, military combat, and natural disasters.
People who have experienced traumatic experiences are highly susceptible to developing substance use disorders and addictions. This is because trauma evokes intense fear, pain, and distress.
In some cases, addictions can also arise to escape from or distract from the underlying trauma. This is especially true for those with chronic PTSD and other forms of trauma.
Those who have experienced trauma must be treated for their underlying causes so that they can overcome their addictions. Without treating these issues, patients will struggle to find long-term recovery from addictions and other co-occurring disorders.
Addictions and trauma are both cyclical behaviors that are intertwined. The cycle can be a challenging one to break.
Fortunately, there are proven methods of treatment that can help you deal with trauma and addiction in recovery. These approaches can help you move from dependence to a healthy, happy life not driven by trauma.
1. Taking a trauma-informed approach to recovery
In addition to addiction medications, behavioral rehab can help individuals address their addictions’ underlying causes and sustaining factors. Through techniques like group therapy, individualized counseling, and supplemental therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), motivational interviewing, and eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), a patient can begin to process their trauma, heal from it and move on to living a more fulfilling life.
2. Developing powerful coping skills and tools to manage stress, anxiety, and other triggers
Many people who use drugs or alcohol do so to numb or evade their traumatic experiences. This is a normal reaction to experiencing overwhelming, unpleasant emotions that can’t be managed by relying on traditional coping strategies.
3. Using a trauma-informed approach to addiction rehabilitation can help you develop strong coping skills and tools to manage stress, fear, and other triggers that can lead you back to your substance.
4. Using these coping skills and tools to stay sober can be essential to recovering from your addictions and other co-occurring conditions.
5. Overcoming trauma is a long and painful process, but it can be done!
As a therapist, I have witnessed numerous clients who have overcome their trauma through effective, individualized treatment. As a result, I have developed a method to help you achieve lasting sobriety by tackling the underlying issues that may be driving your addiction. This method called “Breaking the Cycle,” involves combining trauma-informed care with the latest research-based treatments.
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