Sunday, October 20th, 2019
What Demi Lovato Teaches Us About Addiction and Recovery
Singer Demi Lovato has been in the public eye since she appeared on Barney & Friends at 10 years of age. After rocketing to fame with the movie Camp...
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Here at Foundations Wellness Center, we really focus on individualized care.
When you start considering what an addiction is, the stigma associated with it, where the industry is going, and what the individual struggles with, it’s not an easy thing to, number one, come to terms with or admit to anyone…including yourself.
If you’re considering treatment, usually life has progressed to that point where you never imagined it was possible to go.
There are many different factors beside just the progression of tolerance and using and experimenting with different substances. It’s when you start seeing consequences in your social life, you start seeing tension and conflict with your family members, you start experiencing occupational and educational problems – the addiction really starts impacting all areas of your life and functioning.
We as human beings like to believe that we are unique and special and that “I can manage this, this is not something that’s going to be impacting me!” But I like to consider part of what we do here as an education process. We really meet the individuals where they’re at, and what they’ve been through, we take into account.
Collectively, the treatment center staff that works here has well over 150 years of personal and professional experience dealing with and managing addiction and recovery. I’m pretty proud of the team we’ve put together here, everybody has a collective approach. No one on the team has a similar style to the other, but, together as a team, we really do use a collaborative approach to understand the disease model of addiction.
There’s a lot of debate, and some people still have the thought process that addiction is a choice.
It’s definitely not a choice.
It’s a combination of genetic and environmental factors that come together, and throughout the course of time, it progresses. There are biological factors. There are neurotransmitters and chemical makeups and neuropathways that are created.
I like to describe it as: Once you learn how to ride a bike, that pathway is with you for the rest of your life. It’s kind of the same thing. Once you learn how to ride a bike, you remember it. Well, once that addiction pathway is formed, it’s also there for the remainder of your life as well.
The key of what we do here is to let you know how not to engage that pathway.
You have maybe experienced throughout the times that, if you’ve tried stopping in the past, then you’ve had difficulties. Each time you go along, you tend to learn something more, but that same end result of not being able to abstain from the use of mood- or mind-altering substances lets you know that “hey, this is something you might want to take a look at.”
Here, we use a collection of different clinical interventions. We have experiential therapy, where we go offsite. We do activities, but ultimately, again, it’s a learning experience through the activity. We’ve done everything from kayaking, snorkeling, paddle boarding, and surfing to the core curriculum to provide you with emotional regulation, anger management, and coping skills.
Every single staff member, I can guarantee you, is personally invested in you as an individual, and will be involved in your treatment process at one time or another, if not on a daily basis. So, if you are considering coming into treatment, know that you and many others struggle with that decision, but you will have a one-on-one focus that can build a foundation for you to live a healthier, happier life.