Benefits Of Art Therapy In Addiction Treatment

W. Somerset Maugham once said that, “Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul”. Recovery is, if nothing more, an adventure of the soul. Taking off on the exploration of a lifetime is what treatment is like- discovering hidden depths and wonders along the way. Art therapy is a healing modality which helps express that adventure in a creative way.

Relieves Pain

Art therapy can be very pleasing as well as very soothing. During an art therapy session, patients can experience feelings of joy as well as feelings of relaxation. Being able to play and create stimulates the dopamine production in the brain, sending healthy signals of pleasure throughout. In addition, the repetitious behavior of brush strokes, movements, working with clay, or other mediums can be very relaxing. Relaxation can stimulate the opioid receptors in the brain, helping the body to relax and reduce pain.

Reduces Anxiety

Art is a concentration and a focus. When people are given space to create and express themselves authentically, they fall into a state of meditation. Art can be performance, but most often art therapy is not drama therapy or performance therapy. Instead, it is a quiet time to focus on the activity at hand. Anxiety includes a lot of scattered and rapid thinking that is difficult to focus. Art makes time for that, allowing someone with anxiety to experience what it feels like to be focused on one activity which brings them joy.

Regulates Emotions

Using art as a form of expression can be helpful during what is otherwise very clinical treatment. Instead of having to talk, analyze, and process, art therapy gives people the chance to just express and create. Having a few moments of normalcy and privacy helps people to feel more human and like themselves. With art, there is no need to impress or please anyone. People are free to make whatever they want and proclaim it as art. Often this takes a lot of emotional pressure off, allowing people to feel as though they can express whatever they want. Usually this translates back into clinical treatment by helping with emotional regulation and more.

Enlightened Solutions creates a treatment program that helps heal the mind, heart, body, and spirit with traditional treatment methods, 12 step inspiration, creative modalities, and holistic methods. For information on our partial care programs, call us today at 844-234-LIVE.

10 Way To Make The Most Out Of Sober Living

Sober living is a home where residents have to meet certain requirements in order to stay the most important of which is staying sober. During treatment at one of Enlightened Solutions partial care programs, you’ll be living in a local sober living home. Here are our top 10 ways for making the most out of your sober living experience.

1. Choose The Right Home: Choosing the right sober living home is essential to making sure you feel comfortable, safe, supported, and protected. Look for homes which encourage regular meeting attendance, do screen testing once or twice a week, and have group activities. Go with your instinct and choose what feels right for you.

2. Follow The Rules: Sober living is usually the place of residence during partial care treatment, such as intensive outpatient, or after residential treatment. After long hours of treatment programming it can be easy to go home to sober living and not want to do anything. It can feel like a safe space to break the rules, act out, and rebel- what you might call relaxing for someone in early recovery. Support the change in your habits by abiding by the rules.

3. Do Your Chores: Most sober livings assign a weekly chore to each member of the house. You are part of a team working together to stay sober and keep a comfortable home. Not doing your chores will cause you to feel guilt and shame, even if you don’t want to admit it. Your lack of participation won’t be fair to you or your housemates. Do your part and keep your space clean out of respect to yourself and to others.

4. Be Nice To Others: Your sober living housemates don’t have to become your new best friends, but they are likely to become friends you keep for a lifetime. Early recovery can be difficult and emotions often run high. Your learning how to have relationships and friendships again without the presence of drugs and alcohol. You’ll have more fun by learning how to be vulnerable and close to the people you live with.

5. Encourage Group Activities: There’s a lot of sleeping that goes on in sober living. Recovering bodies need sleep to heal. Ongoing symptoms of withdrawal can be exhausting. In between naps and long night’s sleep, encourage your group to come together and participate in an activity. You’ll have fun, make memories, and remember why you got sober: to live again.

6. Make Outside Friends: Going to meetings gives you an opportunity to meet people from other sober living homes or who are new to the recovery community like you. Ask people for their phone numbers and invite them over to hang out. You’ll diversify your group of friends and never be short of someone to call and talk to.

7. Go To Meetings: The only way to meet people at meetings is to go to them. Your sober living will probably have one or two meetings that everyone goes to together. Lookup new meetings in different towns and venture out to find recovery. It is always inspiring to discover that recovery is everywhere and you are never alone.

8. Have Adventures: Another way to combat sober living laziness is to get out and explore. If you don’t have a car, take walks around your neighborhood. If someone has a car, choose a new spot nearby to go and explore.

9. Support One Another: Early recovery is hard. Making it through requires the love and support of peers. Always lend a listening ear, a prayer, or going with someone to a meeting. You’re all there to help each other.

10. Report Relapse: There’s no need to be a tattle-tale, but you are learning to take steps to secure your sobriety. If someone has brought drugs and alcohol into the house, it is your right to report it. If you fear you or your housemates might be at risk for relapse because of someone else’s actions, talk to your house manager immediately.

Enlightened Solutions works with trusted sober living homes and residences to support our clients during their treatment programs. We provide references and can happily connect you with our community. For information on our treatment programs for men and women seeking recovery, call 844-234-LIVE.

The Challenge Of Relapse Prevention In Eating Disorders

How do you prevent a relapse for an eating disorder? Food is a choice everyone has to make throughout the day every day. Unlike drugs and alcohol, there is no option to “not pick up no matter what”. Recovering from an eating disorder requires eating differently, thinking differently, and living life in a different way. Through treatment for eating disorders, we learn how to regard our bodies and minds with compassion. Therapy, physical activity, meetings, and meditation are all tools we pick up in order to live a healthy lifestyle without abusing ourselves through harmful behaviors. Like any recovery program, we are prone to slip up on our practice. Cutting a few extra calories from our meal plan might seem innocent when we are struggling with uncomfortable feelings of poor self-esteem. Taking therapy time as “self-care” time and missing an appointment can become an easily repeated pattern. These small changes can seem harmless. Recovery is not meant to be rigid without a margin for error. However, the flexibility can only go so far until it has a negative effect. Eating disorders live in the part of the brain which create habits. Habits are one of the most difficult psychological processes to change. Once a new habit starts leaning toward an old habit, it can quickly change. Old thoughts and voices can come creeping in, encouraging dangerous behaviors, critical observations, and more. Though we live in a world that obsesses about diet, exercise, food and body regularly, it can be life threatening for someone recovering from an eating disorder to go there.

During the early recovery months, it is important to stick to routine, including diet and exercise plans, as well as treatment plans. Stay honest about your experiences with challenging thoughts and moments. We are likely never the only one who is struggling with recovery. If the pressure of an eating disorder comes on too strong, make sure to reach out to someone immediately. We are equipped with a lot of tools to help ourselves, but sometimes the most powerful tool is asking for someone else’s help.

Recovering from eating disorders is absolutely achievable. One day, the voices will get quiet and the choices will become easy. Time, work, and dedication are required. You can find the support and encouragement you need with Enlightened Solutions. Our day treatment programs provide care for eating disorders and co-occurring mental health or substance use disorders. For information on our holistic method of healing, call 844-234-LIVE.

Essential Life Skills For Lifelong Recovery

Empathy and Compassion: Living with compassion and empathy is not something many would call an essential life skill. However, in order to be a good human who does good things on earth, empathy and compassion is a must. We are tasked in recovery to always reach out our hands. As the saying in Alcoholics Anonymous goes, “love and tolerance is our code”. We are inherently self centered human beings. After developing an addiction, we tend to be even more selfish. Empathy and compassion are the ways in which we connect with others and step outside of ourselves in order to connect with someone else. Our relationships and connections with people are made deeper by practicing empathy and compassion.

• Time management: Change is the only constant, it is said, and time is constantly changing. We only have so many waking hours in a day, days in a week, and so on. How we use our time is incredibly important because we’re either wasting it or making the most of it. Learning how to use a calendar, schedule appointments, prioritize activities, and make enough time for self-care in a day are essential life skills.

• Asking for help: People who have had to make the decision to ask for help in finding treatment understand how life saving this life skill can be. We can’t possible know it all. In order to get things done, we often have to ask for help. Help you help yourself by feeling no shame when it comes to asking for assistance with something.

• Active listening: We can go our entire lives without really listening to what someone has to say. From instructions to suggestions to someone's expression of their needs, if we don’t actively and reflectively listen we miss out on what is being said.

• Meditation: Taking time to quiet the mind is more than calming- it helps grow new brain muscle memory, reduces symptoms of stress, reduces intensity of mental health disorders, and radically improves health.

• Financial Management: Some people never learn how to manage their money. Living in chronic debt or without any money can lead to stress and hardship which could eventually cause someone to relapse. Money comes and goes. Learning how to manage finances for the long term and the short term are essential for reducing stress and creating a sense of security.

• Healthy Living: Eating organic, having a balanced diet, staying nutritionally well, and having basic cooking skills are all a part of healthy living. Your long term future depends on your physical health as much as it does your mental wellbeing.

• Communication: communication is a part of everyday life >learning how to communicate honestly, tactfully, and articulately is helpful in every single area of life.

Enlightened Solutions believes that people entering recovery for an addiction are in need of developing or redeveloping essential life skills for life after treatment. If you or a loved one are ready to learn a new way of being, call us today for more information, 844-234-LIVE.

Symptoms And Side Effects Of Alcohol Overdose

Symptoms And Side Effects Of Alcohol Overdose

Alcohol overdose is a life threatening situation, can cause heart failure, and is a sign of alcoholism.

Physical: Alcohol overdose greatly impairs cognitive functioning, therefore interfering with essential motor function. Additionally, alcohol overdose can cause problems in the digestive system or failure of certain organs like the liver. Symptoms and side effects include:

• Loss of equilibrium: difficulty keeping balance, falling over, unable to walk

• Lack of coordination: difficulty walking without stumbling or falling, cannot coordinate limbs to make motion, cannot perform separate physical movements at the same time

• Numbness or lack of feeling in limbs

• Slurring, drooling, or inability to communicate clearly; incoherence

• Head falling down with a loose neck

• Upset stomach including excess vomiting

• Eyes rolling back in the head

• Passing in and out of consciousness

• Seizures

Psychological: Significant amounts of alcohol also impair essential psychological functions, from emotional to mental states. Symptoms and side effects include:

• Aggression

• Violence

• Rage

• Crying or hysteria

• Short Term Memory Loss

• Rapidly Changing Emotional State

• Paranoia

• Confusion

What To Do For An Overdose: If you believe someone is experiencing an overdose on Alcohol it is important not to leave them alone. If they exhibit extreme signs like eyes rolling back in the head, drooling, or a seizure it is important to call an ambulance or get them to an emergency room as soon as possible. Loss of consciousness during an alcohol overdose can result in unconscious vomiting, which could result in choking and death.

After Overdose: Drinking to the extent of alcohol overdose is not a normal manner of drinking. Depending on the situation, for example if a person commits a crime or gets a DUI, they might be forced into an alcohol counseling program. Many judicial circuits mandate attending a certain number of 12 step meetings like alcoholics anonymous or narcotics anonymous.

If you are concerned a loved one has a drinking problem which has now threatened their life, call Enlightened Solutions today. We can refer you to a detox center and set you up to move through our levels of care. Rehabilitation for alcoholism requires therapy, holistic healing, and creating meaning in life. Our program is inspired by the tradition of the twelve step spiritual program while integrating holistic healing modalities and progressive therapeutic methods. For more information on our programs, or for guidance on a loved one suffering from alcoholism, call 844-34-LIVE.

Staying Connected When You Travel

A new year’s resolution for many people in recovery is to travel more. Given the gift of life, they are inspired to set out and see the world. Drug addiction especially tends to isolate people to their locations. For fear of not being able to purchase drugs and having to suffer withdrawals, many don’t travel. While both drugs and alcohol are available worldwide, it can be much more risky to buy drugs internationally. Alcohol is globally celebrated and normalized. In advanced stages of alcoholism, alcoholics are too sick to leave their houses while not intoxicated. As a result, they miss out on experiencing life beyond inebriation.

Traveling Sober

Traveling while sober is a wonderful experience. Not spending money on drugs, alcohol, parties, or other related things gives someone the ability to truly enjoy the world. However, traveling requires responsibility and accountability. Temptation is everywhere! Many people fear that once they get sober they will not be able to have fun anymore because they won’t be able to resist the temptation of drugs or alcohol anywhere they go. This simply is not true. By staying connected and committed to your sobriety, there is little you cannot do and few places you cannot go.

“Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do,” write the authors of The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. “Our experience shows that this is not necessarily so,” the authors assure the readers. “An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status.”

Get Connected

Maintaining that “spiritual status” of sobriety is easy to do when traveling. Alcoholism is a worldwide disease, meaning that recovery is a worldwide solution. Meetings of alcoholics anonymous exist all over the world. You can find information and schedules about them online, or by asking a local when you arrive to your destination. For personal support, make sure you are able to get in touch with your therapist, counselor, or twelve step sponsor as well as your closest recovery peers. Everyone will be supportive of your recovery inspiring you to get out and see the world. Should you run into temptation or difficult times, you know you have a support system back home, and global network of people who also struggle, everywhere you go.

Enlightened Solutions is multilevel treatment program offering residential care, intensive outpatient, partial hospitalization, and more. For information on our programs and how we can help you live the life you’ve been waiting for, call 844-234-LIVE.

Starting The New Year On Step One

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.” This is the text within the list of twelve steps which dictates the infamous “first step” of solving any problem- admitting you have one. Step one is step one for a very important reason. It is impossible to carry on treatment for, or healing from alcoholism if one doesn’t admit that alcohol is a problem. Any attempt to rectify a problem that hasn’t yet been distinguished as a problem would be considered a moot cause.

First Steps First

In the primary text of Alcoholics Anonymous, The Big Book, step one is listed on page 30 in a chapter titled “More About Alcoholism”. The text reads, “We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people or presently may be has to be smashed.”

The delusion of which The Big Book authors Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith speak of does not exclusively apply to alcoholism. Part of the “work” done in recovery is to expose the underlying issues which have contributed to one’s development of alcoholism in their lives. These other issues are commonly called “ism’s” of which many alcoholics suffer. Each day is an opportunity to confront more than the problem of alcohol, but the many problems so many of us face due to our humanity, our struggles, our personalities, our pasts, and more.

Reflection

December is usually a time of year for reflection. We take the time to reflect on the last 12 months of the calendar year. Did we meet our goals? Have we exceeded our expectations? Can we easily see where we could have done better and need to improve? Are there sore spots in our lives which need attention? Taking a look at our year, we can see where we need to fully concede to our innermost selves we are in need of help yet again.

Constantly returning to step one is not an indication of failure, inadequacy, or shame. Rather, it is a mark of courage and determination to stay committed to bettering oneself. Step one holds a hidden secret to resolve this feeling of suspicion or self-consciousness. In both the 12 step text and the text from the book, there is the word “we”. You are not alone in your endeavors to stay sober. Identically, you are not alone in your mission to find where you are weak and resolve to make yourself more strong in that area. Step One is a demonstration of your willingness. After all, you have to get through step one to actually change.

Enlightened Solutions wants to help you make and keep that new year’s resolution to get and stay sober. Our program incorporates 12 step philosophy with holistic healing and traditional, proven therapeutic methods. For more information on our programs of treatment, call 844-234-LIVE.

Sorry, Marijuana Maintenance Is Unrealistic

What Is Marijuana Maintenance

Marijuana maintenance is a term used by those in recovery to describe what some call a “program” of recovery, without having to get fully sober. Choosing the lesser of evils, as many people consider marijuana to be, such individuals give up all other vices, except for marijuana. Like using a drug replacement therapy prescription to treat an opioid addiction, some feel that marijuana is an acceptable alternative to traditional medicine. Stopping the abusive use of drugs, alcohol, or other substances, people who adhere to marijuana maintenance continue to use marijuana.

Controversy Surrounding Marijuana Maintenance

Numerous medical studies have been released advocating the use of medical marijuana to treat addiction. Less harmful than heroin and alcohol, marijuana has many health benefits including the ability to treat symptoms of mental health disorders. However, the THC found in marijuana still causes people to get “high”. Recovering addicts and alcoholics are susceptible to trouble when it comes to stimulation their reward center and system in their brain. The neuroscience of addiction reveals that an overproduction of dopamine due to high levels of harmful substances is what rewires the whole brain. Marijuana still causes euphoria, even when used in moderation. There is simply no way to “use” marijuana without getting high or altering the brain.

Conservatives in recovery feel that recovery is defined only by abstinence. Continuing to use illicit substances for coping with pain of any kind in life is still relying on external substances for relief. In addition, marijuana is still a mind altering substance. Conservatives also feel that it is necessary to be free of all such substances. Arguable, prescription medications for mental health maintenance can be mind altering. However, the mind is altered in a way which makes it easier to function and continue personal growth with feelings. Marijuana can cause someone to feel numb or detached from recovery.

Marijuana Addiction Is Real

One of the substances listed under Substance Use Disorders is Marijuana. Marijuana can cause chemical dependency, marked by symptoms of withdrawal when the substance is no longer used. Recovery and addiction are on opposite ends of the scale, therefore being chemically dependent on marijuana and claiming to be free from addiction at the same time is oxymoronic.

Enlightened Solutions promotes abstinence in all of its programs. For those in need of medically assisted treatment, Enlightened Solutions is available to make a custom treatment plan, safe for you and for other residents. For more information, call 844-234-LIVE.

Saying “No” Is Easy To Do

No means no. We might mean to say no, but somehow it always turns into a yes. Learning to say no is an important part of addiction recovery. Each day we are saying no to our very impulses and brain chemistry asking us to go back out and drink or use.

Start Small And Work Your Way Up

Empowerment isn’t always comfortable and neither are boundaries. When we are raised in a home without healthy boundaries, we grow up without understanding what they are or how to set them. Learning how to say no and set boundaries can feel awkward at first because of this. Before you start saying no in big situations, try starting off small. You might be surprised to discover the amount of times per day you are given the opportunity to say no.

Learn More About “No” As You Go (And Grow)

Boundaries, or the lack thereof, are not the only reason we have a hard time saying no. How We think and feel about rejecting what we don’t want, don’t need, or can’t do, has been molded over time. Part of the empowerment process is learning about ourselves and what makes us who we are. Investigate how you've been shown “no”throughout your life. You might discover some of the insightful information which helps you release your past attachments and make more no decisions in the future.

Stop Apologizing For Saying No

Part of the framing we have around no often has to do with guilt. We might have been shown that it is wrong or bad to say no to people. In the past, we might have been shamed or even abused, for saying “no” to something. As a result, we experience pains of guilt and remorse when we simply say no. Overtime we learn not to apologize for standing up for ourselves, setting boundaries, and setting healthy limitations on what we are capable of committing to at any point in time.

Make Your No’s Clear And Concise

When we are learning to be empowered and still feel uncomfortable with saying no, we might try to find ways around just saying no. Being unclear in our assertions removes the assertiveness of our statements. It is unfair to ourselves and to the people we are communicating with notto be honest, concise, and clear about the limitation weare setting. No means no, and that’s okay.

Enlightened Solutions seeks to empower men and women to live their best possible lives in recovery, free from the damaging effects of drugs and alcohol. For more information on our dual diagnosis residential treatment programs, call 844-234-LIVE.

Opioid Addiction Is Severe; Treatment Should Be Unique

There’s a problem with claiming to have the solution to addiction. Addiction doesn’t look the same to everyone. That is why Enlightened solutions provides individualized recovery and treatment plans to each resident. Through a series of intensive screenings, diagnostics, and evaluations, the specific diagnoses of each resident is created. From there, our certified and experienced clinical staff is able to work with the patient to suggest and provides the best course of treatment possible. Meeting the needs of each individual client is a necessity to ensure successful treatment and contribute to lifelong sobriety.

Individualized Approach

Individualized treatment methods are important because not everyone comes to their addiction i the same way. Part of the appeal of twelve step recovery is learning that while each person’s story may be different, the generalities of addiction are the same. More often than not, however, treating only the generalities of opioid addiction will not lead to lifelong recovery. Opioid addiction especially needs to be treated with specificity.

Opioids are powerful narcotic substances which are highly addictive. Currently, America is undergoing multiple opioid crises, primarily in the Midwest, New England, and along the East Coast. While typical treatment has helped some up until now, professionals and government officials are calling for more. Recently, the US Surgeon General released a special report on the state of opioid addiction in the United States. The Surgeon General called form more funding for treatment, implementation of harm reduction practices, and more prevention services.

What Are Opioids?

Opioids can include:

• Heroin

• Opium

• Prescription Painkillers

• Synthetic Opioid Drugs

Derived from the opium poppy plant, opioids provide pain relief. Creating morphine in the system, opioid substances work with naturally occurring opioid receptors in the brain. Opioid receptors help to slow down the heart and increase feelings of euphoria to combat the onset of pain. Morphine and morphine based medications are used to treat patients recently out of surgery or having been through a traumatic accident. Synthetic opioids, as well as regular medications, are used for treating chronic pain patients.

Opioid addiction treatment requires a multifaceted approach. Enlightened Solutions offers a program combining spiritual practice with evidence based therapy as well as holistic healing. Our residential treatment programs are designed for men and women who are ready to live different lives. For more information, call 844-234-LIVE.

Meditation Better Than Opioids

In an opiate-based world for treating pain, how do you treat pain without opioids? As the opioid overdose epidemic worsens around the world, health practitioners are looking for alternative treatments for pain. For chronic pain patients who rely upon opioid based medications to provide them pain relief, the sudden governmental campaign against opioid use is detrimental. Chronic pain patients are rightfully frightened to lose their sense of security and relief during the day. Not every person who takes opioids will end up abusing them. Even when abused, not everyone who abuses a substance becomes addicted. some doctors argue it is heinous to take opioid medication or limit opioid medication availability to patients who do not abuse the drugs. Others are encouraging the scientific community to more research in an effort to prove opioid medications are not, and never have been, necessary.

Medication Assisted Therapy

The treatment industry for mental health rehabilitation and substance abuse rehabilitation faces the same argument. Medication assisted therapy or drug substitution therapy uses prescription medications which still have trace amounts of morphine- or- cause an opioid-like effect. While some argue that taking a pill is better than, say, shooting up heroin, others argue that the ongoing presence of opioid substance in the body is harmful. Treatment for opioid addiction includes a vast variety of methods and modalities of care. From traditional talk therapy to innovative biofeedback, mental health practitioners and scientists have collaborated to find what works best to end the life threatening chemical dependency on opioids.

Mindfulness Alternative

Mindfulness meditation is one of the alternative methods used to treat addiction. It has even been suggested to show significant results of symptom reduction in chronic pain patients. As the struggle to find opioid-free pain relief treatments carries on, mindfulness meditation poses itself as a considerable candidate. Recent research published in the Journal of Neuroscience discovered that in patients whose opioid receptors were actively being blocked and those whose were not- the daily practice of meditation reduced pain by over 20%. 20% less pain in chronic pain patients is an astonishing accomplishment. Chronic pain patients are not the only population who benefit from this finding. Withdrawal from opioid drugs is painful, causing muscle aches, spasming, weakness, discomfort, and even the feeling of brittle bones. Mindful meditation can support the withdrawal from opioids both on a neuroscientific level and on a basic physiological one.

Enlightened Solutions is a unique treatment center offering a hybrid approach to the rehabilitation of men and women from addiction to drugs and alcohol. Combining holistic healing and spiritual methods with traditional twelve step philosophy and progressive scientifically backed treatment methods, Enlightened Solutions provides an integrative approach to treatment. For more information on our programs, call 844-234-LIVE.

Massage For Addiction Treatment

In 2015, more than 20,000 people suffered from a substance use disorder. Substance use disorder is the general, blanket term given to describe addiction and alcoholism. Addiction to various substances and alcohol use disorder can affect up to 23,000 people per year in the United States. Problematically, only a small percentage of those people are able to receive any kind of treatment.

Multiphase Approach

Treatment for drug and alcohol addiction needs to be multi phased in its approach. Most treatment centers, like Enlightened Solutions, has found that a holistic approach to treatment is the most effective in providing healing, learning, growing, and skillbuilding. Treatment must combine healing the body, healing the mind, and healing the spirit to encourage lifelong recovery. If someone does not physically feel good, is mentally unwell, and spiritually void, they are less likely to find meaning in recovery or feel healthy enough to try and continue staying sober.

Massage Helps

Massage therapy has become a normalized part of addiction treatment. Once considered a luxury accommodation unnecessary for treatment, research as proven the contrary. Massage therapy has a evidential effect on patients undergoing detox, residential inpatient treatment, and other levels of health care for their addictions.

A therapy provided through human touch, massage can help heal negative effects of trauma, abuse, and isolation. Healing touch has been shown to increase feelings of being loved and accepted which in turn promotes confidence in therapeutic work. Massage releases tension in muscles while also releasing toxins stored in them. During the early treatment months of recovery, the body needs support in clearing out the harmful toxins left over from chronic substance abuse. Providing deep relaxation, massage therapy can reduce symptoms of stress and distress which often arise in treatment. Anxiety is common both as a symptom of withdrawal as well as a co-occurring mental health diagnosis with substance abuse. Creating a sense of peace and calm, massage therapy provides numerous benefits to those in need.

Enlightened Solutions incorporates the healing modality of massage as well as other holistic treatment modalities as part of the solution to the problem of addiction and alcoholism. We believe a combination of twelve step philosophy in addition to holistic healing is the answer to lifelong sobriety. For more information on our programs, call 844-234-LIVE.

Preparing For Sober Holidays

From January through December there are many holiday celebrations that take place for different cultures, religions, and nationalities. The end of the year, about October through December, has the highest density of holiday celebrations. Typically, that means plenty of party invites, dinners, and events. Before getting sober, the holidays were some of the best times of the year! Libations flowed freely and everyone had a holly, jolly good time. Now that you’ve completed treatment, or are in the process of completing treatment for drug addiction and/or alcoholism, things might feel a little bit different.

Recovery is not the end of holiday cheer and celebration. Early recovery, the first few months to a year, might make it a little more difficult to get into the holiday spirit. Fear not, like all things in life and sobriety, this too shall pass. You’ll make it through the holidays just fine by understanding why you might be triggered and how to handle holiday parties.

Why The Holidays Are Hard

There are a few reasons why the holidays are especially challenging in the first year of recovery. First, is your brain. While the drugs and alcohol have left your system, your brain has not yet fully recovered. Addictive substances induce a sensation of euphoria when they are abused. Euphoria is caused by a production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is a messenger for pleasure in the brain. Part of the neuroscience of addiction, or how addiction occurs in the brain, is when the brain is unable to produce dopamine, or pleasure, on its own. Being dopamine deficient means it’s actually chemically challenging for you to feel that holiday cheer.

Second, holiday parties usually include alcohol. There’s a seasonal drink (or three) for every seasonal holiday.  At the root of your core you know that you do not want to drink. You’ve worked so hard to come as far as you have in your sobriety. Yet, somewhere in the back of your mind is a nagging thought about it. Cravings are uncomfortable and can be overwhelming at times. It isn’t that you want to participate and it isn’t that you don’t. As you work through the emotions of your attachment to addiction and alcoholism, more will be revealed about you miss it sometimes.

Most importantly, remember that holidays are just another day. We take recovery one day at a time!

Enlightened Solutions provides a unique and holistic approach to treating drug addiction, alcoholism, and co-occurring disorders. Combining twelve step philosophy with evidence based treatment and holistic healing modalities, Enlightened Solutions creates a deeply healing recovery program for each patient. For more information on our services, call 844-234-LIVE

Identifying Traits Of Addiction Might Mean Identifying An Addict Early On

Temperament is defined as your nature and natural behavioral patterns. A new anti drug program being tested in different parts of the world is looking at helping children understand their temperament. The philosophy is that understanding one’s unique character traits can help children understand the different ways they might be at risk for drug use and addiction. Individualizing prevention, education, and awareness regarding drug addiction makes sense. One of the essential traits of choosing a treatment center for a loved one needing recovery from addiction is individualized programming. Snowflakes falling from the sky all look to be snowflakes. Put under a microscope, every single snowflake has an intricate design that is exclusively theirs. Addiction, as well as treatment for addiction, is not just snow falling from the sky. So to say, though there are many similarities, each person’s journey of addiction and recovery are completely different. Not every person is genetically predisposed for addiction, grew up in an abusive home, has a co-occurring mental health disorder, or experienced trauma in their lifetime. A most beneficial programming component for all who enter treatment for recovery from addiction is learning about the self and what underlying issues brought the self to become addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Four traits are highlighted by the program as being what makes a young person most at risk for experimenting with drug use and potentially developing addiction: Sensation-Seeking, Impulsiveness, Anxiety Sensitivity, Hopelessness. Author, journalist, addiction specialist, and recovering addict Maia Szalavtiz points out that each of these traits are connected to mental illness. Impulsiveness is a trait of ADHD, hopelessness is a trait of depression, anxiety sensitivity, is linked to panic disorder. Sensation-seeking, while not connected to its own diagnosis, is for many a form of escapism which could indicate social personality disorders.

Interestingly, divorcing the disease model of addiction from the negative associations of personality and character is the agenda for many addiction recovery advocates. Addiction is not an illness of immorality but of mental illness. Personality testing can identify the traits of both addiction and mental illness before the development of problematic drug use or experimentation.

Prevention and early intervention are two key approaches to fighting a new generation of young people addicted to drugs.

Enlightened Solutions works closely with each patient who comes through our doors to design a highly individualized treatment plan to address each unique part of their addiction. As a licensed dual-diagnosis treatment facility, we have the distinguished ability to treat both addiction and co-occurring mental health disorders. For more information on our levels of care and programs of treatment, call 844-234-LIVE.

I Can't Even

“I can’t even” is in your mind

“I can’t even”. It’s a popular term in the internet world. As a culture we have decided to attach ourselves to a certain exhaustion. Much of the world today is exhausting. Conflict reigns everywhere. Yet somehow, we persist in our beliefs that we simply cannot. We can’t deal, we can’t cope, we can’t even pretend to muster the enthusiasm to pretend that we might have the motivation to make it seem like we can. Though it is probably we could, we just aren’t going to. Whatever it is we aren’t doing, we aren’t doing it because we really believe we couldn’t, even if we tried.

For recovery from drug and alcohol addiction this is an essentially interesting mindset during treatment. Considering the extreme that comes with, quite actually, one who cannot stop drinking or using drugs, it is interesting when they cannot participate in treatment. Learning to deal with reality, or “life on life’s terms” as it is called in recovery, is critical. Coping skills, emotional regulation skills, and mindfulness skills are necessary to be able to let go of the need to control life. When we “can’t” we’re really trying to control. Going into a default mode of resistance or exhaustion is in itself a coping mechanism, a way to try and avoid life. We may not always have to, but there will be times when we need to. It is important to our recovery to try and be as present as possible in our lives. Being is much different from doing. Can or cannot is a matter of doing. Being able to do or do not is a different situation entirely.

Recent research has discovered that the brain decides it is tired long before the body itself is tired. Alcoholism is a disease of the body, mind, and spirit. Though the spirit is torn and the brain is off track, the body persists in pursuing more and more alcohol. Most fatigue is a perception. Alcoholism skews that perception. According to the research, there’s no reason physically that we can’t. However, the mental exhaustion is what makes us feel that way. When we are new to sober life, we are really new to life sober. Trying to keep up with the constant influx of emotions and stimuli can be exhausting, leading us to feel like we can’t even.

You can. You will. Getting yourself into treatment to start the journey of recovery means you already are. Sobriety is one giant can. By staying sober everyday you are doing and being the sober miracle of recovery.

Enlightened Solutions is committed to helping you learn how to live a fully fulfilled life again. We offer multiple levels of care in a compassionate and comfortable environment. Fusing evidence based treatment with holistic healthcare and 12 step philosophy, Enlightened focuses on curing body mind and soul. Please call 844-234-LIVE for more information.

High Functioning Depression Is More Than Meets The Eye

Everything May Look Great, But…

Just like high functioning addiction or alcoholism, high functioning depression looks one way but feels completely different to the person suffering. Depression, though it can be managed and coped with, has persistent symptoms that can be unruly. Showing up to a job, to a marriage, to a family and to a life is possible with depression. Facing the challenges of having depression while doing so is incredibly challenging. Depression, along with many other mental illnesses, is quickly dismissed when everything on the outside appears to be fine. Outside the sun may be shining. Inside is a dark storm, forever brewing.

Sometimes, showing up and doing well is part of the way one copes with depression. It might be surprising to learn someone has depression when they do their job so well or function so seemingly normally in life. Just because you can’t see the way someone’s depression affects them doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Telling an alcoholic you don’t think they’re an alcoholic because you don’t see them as one is making a statement according to social guidelines. Projecting social expectations onto someone suffering from mental illness only heightens their sense that they are different. More troublingly, it tells them that their authentic and individual experience in life is unimportant.

Supporting a loved one with high functioning depression should include many activities or gestures to help them remember just how important they are. Their life and place in this world has a great impact on everyone involved. Losing them would be a significant loss to the world around them. Remove the stigma and blanket generalizations of depression by creating an individualized world for your loved one. What activities do they enjoy the most? What small actions can you commit to each day to help remind them that they are loved? Of course, none of this is meant out of codependency, but instead compassion.

Compassion is the ability to recognize someone’s suffering. Sometimes, suffering is hard to notice when it is so adequately masked by high functioning behavior. As the family and friends of a loved one suffering from mental health disorders we learn to question what we see. A spiritual practice to engage in this contemplation can include a conversation with yourself, with friends, etc, to ask, “At what cost does this person’s life come?”. What we see on the outside is only sometimes an indication of what’s inside. We can never know what someone is going through until we stop to ask.

Enlightened Solutions wants to know if you are suffering from mental health issues like anxiety. A certified and licensed dual diagnosis center, Enlightened offers the best in integrative treatment. For more information call 844-234-LIVE

From Hopeless to Hopeful

You’re in the hospital, again. You’ve been arrested, again. You woke up somewhere without knowing where you are or how you got there, again. How does this keep happening? Didn’t you only mean to have just one drink? After so many times, it has stopped being a spectacle of entertainment. Nobody seems to be laughing anymore or considering your ‘crazy’ stories to be anything less than definitively insane. You find yourself with some startling thoughts. Thoughts which, once you start mindfully paying attention to them, feel familiar, as though you’ve considered their meaning many times; yet, at the same time, they feel incredibly foreign like a dress in a closet full of pant suits. These thoughts question whether or not you might have some kind of “problem”, if there is any chance for you to get help with this problem, or if there is any hope. When you touch on that word hope you feel your heart race, your stomach drop, and you can practically feel your pupils dilate as fear sets in.

What if there’s no hope for me?

The honest truth is this. There are likely many people in your life who are starting to have the same fear. Time after time, hope after hope, all dreams have fallen short of you finding recovery and getting sober. Learning that life can be lived without drugs or alcohol seems to be a lesson you just can’t pick up. Things are looking hopeless.

However, there is an even more honest truth to be told.

You are not hopeless.

In fact, your life is hopeful.

Indeed, there are many problems that come with being an addict or an alcoholic. Messes have been created and messes will have to be cleaned up both inside and outside. The fact that you are still here means hope for you has not been lost. Self-remorse, self-pity, shame, guilt, and all around self-centeredness are par for the course with addiction and alcoholism. Likely in this broken moment you are experiencing, you can’t see how you might be an exception to divine detention. You are. You really are.

Enlightened Solutions know that there is hope for you and great things ahead when you choose to get sober. We are here to help you every step of the way. It starts with you. So start with us. Call Enlightened Solutions today for more information on our treatment programs for addiction, alcoholism, and dual diagnosis issues. 844-234-LIVE.

Eating Disorders Come From A Deeper Place Than Magazines

There’s no question about it. The way body, food, eating, and body image are represented in mainstream media is harmful. Societal standards of beauty are created for profit. By making people believe they are less than, ugly, unwanted, or in need, corporations can sell their products which will rectify these problems. Women’s bodies are photoshopped to be more thin. Men’s bodies are photoshopped to be more sculpted. If one were to make a list of all of society’s demands for having the perfect body, one would find a consistently contradictory list. Expectations lead to disappointments. The expectations set forth by societal pressures and demands regarding body image are impossible to meet, therefore many are left feeling disappointed in how they look. Most unfortunately, many don’t realize that the happiness or feelings of adequacy they seek cannot come from the way they see themselves in the mirror. It is an entirely inside job.

Eating disorders are less about the eating and more about the disorder. Disordered thinking about self, control, body, and image, are what leads to an unhealthy relationship with food. Since the conversation about societal standards through media and body image are so closely tied, many confuse the cause of an eating disorder to be those societal standards. As reported by The State Press, the opposite is true.

Genetics can and do play a large part in the development of eating disorders. While there are specific genes which contribute to eating disorders, they can also develop out of other mental illnesses. Mental illness has been found to be largely genetic, passing on from one generation to the next. Eating disorders are a way to cope with life- similar to the way drugs and alcohol are abused. In fact, there is a high percentage of eating disorders co-occurring with substance abuse. When mental illness goes untreated, it yearns for comfort in whatever way it can. Practices of restriction and starvation, common in anorexia nervosa, or binging and puring, common in bulimia, bring people comfort.

Recovery from an eating disorder will require an understanding of how the mainstream media influences ideals of body image. Digging deep into the psychological underlying causes for eating disorders will help to separate the practice from the perceived cause.

Enlightened Solutions proudly offers dual diagnosis treatment for eating disorders and substance abuse, as well as other co-occurring mental health disorders. We have a carefully curated eating plan complete with nutritional courses and cooking lessons for life skills development. Using twelve step philosophy with evidence based treatment our approach to recovery is integrative and comprehensive. For more information on our programs of treatment, call 844-234-LIVE.

Does Stress Cancel Out The Benefits Of Healthy Eating?

New research reported on by NPR’s blog “the salt” indicates that while healthy eating is beneficial, stress can essentially cancel out all of those benefits. The study examined women who ate different types of diets each day and reported their levels of stress. One meal was a highly saturated fat meal and the other was plant based. Researchers studied the women’s bodies and how they responded in inflammation. Inflammation can be caused by an array of foods, but is especially consequential of foods with high amounts of saturated fat. Without the presence of stress, women’s inflammation went down when they ate the plant based meal and went up when they ate the high saturated fat one. However, when women were stressed and ate the healthy meal, the reading on her body revealed inflammation almost identical to eating the meal high in saturated fat. Stress, more than food choice, increased inflammation. Despite the anti-inflammatory meal, the women’s body still responded to inflammation because of the stress. Notably, the stress women were reporting on wasn’t drastic. Instead, it was the everyday stress of life which is due to come up.

Worryingly, as stress can be a daily occurrence, even with a healthy diet, it can still do damage to the body. Stress can decrease the body’s response time to trauma or wounds, taking longer to heal, the article points out.

Combating Stress

Diet and exercise are the not-so-secret recipe for good health. Though the study found that diet might have little influence over stress, exercise has been proven tenfold to do so. In addition to diet and exercise, frequent social interaction is recommended to combat stress. Isolation can cause depression which can slow the metabolism as well as reduce energy, willingness, and motivation. Continuing to eat a healthy diet while incorporating enjoyable exercise and social activities will help combat the harmful side effects of stress while greatly enhancing overall wellbeing.

Enlightened Solutions offers a completely organic diet as well as educational sessions on nutrition, cooking skills, and stress management- all as part of our integrative programming for treating addiction and dual-diagnosis disorders. We believe in the healing power of living a holistically healthy lifestyle. Changing lives from the inside out, Enlightened Solutions offers men and women a compassionate, comfortable, caring environment for healing. For more information call 844-234-LIVE.

Recovery Has To Mean Something

You have to do it for you. That’s what old timers in recovery will tell you. Stick around the rooms of twelve step meetings like alcoholics anonymous long enough and you will hear similar sayings. Mothers couldn’t stay sober for the babies, husbands couldn’t stay sober for their wives, doctors couldn’t stay sober for their patients, CEO’s couldn’t stay sober for their companies. No matter the circumstance, condition, social class, economic level, or race, unless a person is getting sober for themselves, they’ve hardly a chance.

Getting sober has to mean something. The meaningless life of drugs and alcohol has to be outmatched by the promises of recovery. Sitting comfortably in the numbness of active addiction is easy to do. For many different reasons, drugs and alcohol became our meaning. Some of us found identities we never had, abilities we never had, or escape we had never experienced before we tried drugs or alcohol. After some time the original meaning we found in using was replaced by the bottomless search for meaning in addiction. High, low, drunk, wasted, unconscious, psychedelically conscious- that once satisfying discovery becomes a long lost and distant memory. Therefore, when we choose to get sober, we have to create meaning. There must be a reason for us to recover. Discovering that reason is part of recovery itself.

Four out of every ten people in America feel that they have not yet discovered their meaning in life or found an answer to their life purpose, according to the Center for Disease Control. Through the twelve steps we are given a simple distinguished purpose: to carry the message. By overcoming the grips of addiction and learning to live a sober lifestyle, we inherently create a new purpose for ourselves in letting other addicts, new and doubtful like we once were, know they have a chance. Living by example, we let other people who may be silently suffering see that living without drugs and alcohol is a real possibility for them.

What will recovery mean to you? As we often say, “More will be revealed.” While in the midst of withdrawals or detox, the early weeks of recovery make meaning hard to come by unless its sheer survival. Give yourself enough time and you will find that the meaning is indeed revealed, one day at a time. Make it matter. Make it yours.

This is your time. Recovery is a meaningful decision that leads to magnificent life transformation. It starts with you. If you or a loved one are in need of treatment for addiction, alcoholism, or dual-diagnosis mental health issues call Enlightened Solutions today for more information. 844-234-LIVE.