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Young Adult Drug Treatment Program

What is young adulthood?

Young adulthood, also known as “the in-between age”, is a pivotal stage in life. This stage of life includes anyone ranging from the age of eighteen to thirty-five. Young adulthood is described as rapid changes in emotional, cognitive, physiological, sexual and relational development. For most young adults, this chapter includes features like identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling intermediate, and endless possibilities. Individuals in this developmental stage can prosper and thrive or struggle because of the complex transition from adolescence to adulthood.

 

Young adulthood is unique in the sense that people’s lives can vary drastically from one another. For instance, you may find an eighteen-year-old enlisted in the army, or someone may be getting married and having their first child, another traveling the world, perhaps someone else landed a big job and moved across the country, while others may be living at their parent’s house, going to school or working a minimum wage job. Social media like Facebook and Instagram make it easy for young adults to compare themselves to other young adults which can lead to negative emotions. More often than not, this stage leads to isolation, loneliness, shame, low self-esteem, lack of motivation, etc. Social expectations are confusing in this stage and can be extremely overwhelming for some.

 

It is not uncommon for young adults to turn to substances and alcohol to cope with the stress of this transitional period and the negative emotions that can come with it. Many emerging young adults who are struggling in this stage have faced past difficulties such as trauma, lack of resources and previous mental health/ behavioral health issues. In addition to large socio-environmental changes such as moving out of your childhood home, the brain is still developing until about twenty-six years old and. This makes young adults even more vulnerable to struggles and challenges. Further more, many mental illnesses emerge during late adolescence and in the early to mid twenties. Unfortunately, if a mental illness, like anxiety, occurs during adolescence, that individual has a 90% chance of having that same mental illness in adulthood.  

 

Young Adult Drug Treatment Program:

The combination of biology, genetics, past trauma and the big changes that occur during young adulthood can push many young adults into substance abuse and addiction. Treatment programs specifically catered to young adults are common and beneficial to those struggling with substance abuse issues. Young adult treatment programs give individuals the opportunity to relate, connect with other peers in their struggles and create a sense of community. Furthermore, professionals working at young adult treatment centers are experts in understanding and working with young adults struggling with substance abuse and this stage of life. Professionals may focus on a young adult’s fear of independence, their dependence on their parents, and setting goals. An age-specific treatment program provides individuals with the possibility to thrive into adulthood through relating personally to the other members in the program and professionals.   

Check out The Last House for our Young Adult Drug Treatment Program.

Also take a look at Thrive Treatment for IOP services

Young adults are having a harder time moving out their childhood homes and are continuing to live with their parents well after high school and college. Now the average age to move out is 27! In fact, out of the 10 million millennials in the U.S., about 32% live with their parents. This phenomenon is called Failure to Launch.

 

So why is Failure to Launch a big deal you might ask?

 

Besides a negative shift in the economy such as educational debt, low homeowner ship and rent, low wages, etc., there can also be negative emotional affects on the young adult and the family. Negative emotional affects that affect the millennial include, lack of self efficacy, shame, anxiety, boredom, and lack of motivation. Additionally, having a young adult remaining in the parent’s home can cause dysfunction and stress for the rest of the family system. This isn’t to say that anyone between the ages of 18 and 34 should never live or move back in with their parents. In fact, sometimes it is necessary to move back home. But is important to be aware of the multi layered effects this phenomenon has on the economy, families and inviduals.

 

Why do people fail to launch into the “real” world?

 

There are many reasons this phenomenon has taken place. However, it began with the recession. The recession hit which led to higher unemployment rates and tighter credit markets. It was tougher to qualify for a mortgage and millennials instead began to go back to school to receive a higher education. Higher education led to increased school debt, lower wage jobs, higher cost of living, and thus an overall difficulty leaving the nest. Failure to launch can also be enabled by parents by continuing to treat their adults like children which can continue the cycle of this phenomenon.

 

How is failure to launch connected to substance abuse?

 

Some argue that continuing to live with your parents well after high school calls for an extension of adolescence. This stage of life typically leads to more boredom and a curiosity to try new things such as substances and alcohol. The increased availability of substances, particularly opiods, leaves these young adults more at risk for developing substance abuse issues.

What can be done?

It’s important to keep the main focus on the young adult and the secondary focus on the family since it is a systemic problem. Education and an understanding of the issues within a family system are crucial as well.

Substance abuse treatment centers, schools and families should emphasize the goals, ambitions and dreams of the young adults. Welcoming these ideas into treatment and daily living can help motivate the individual to find purpose and develop healthy life style choices.

It’s an easy thing to be tough on crime in American politics. “Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time”, “Three-strikes-and-you’re-out”, and other phrases captured the spirit of the time on crime in America, especially in the 1990s. They were not idle words.

An Individual’s Crime, An American Sin

From 1980 to 2013, America’s prison population had tripled, reports The Economist Magazine.[1] You may read this and wonder, what does that mean? It means that the United States, which presently has about 5% of the world’s population, has 25% of the world’s official prison population. A little less than 1% of Americans are imprisoned at any given time. The US has an incarceration rate so high that multiple newspapers have reported problems, including basic questions about how the prison system will care for inmates with Alzheimer’s.[2] More troubling, perhaps, is a substantial for-profit prison system that has evolved to accommodate an escalating political demand for prisons.

An astute reader may ask further, isn’t this old news? It is, but the past is ever with us and The Economist, The Guardian, The New York Times, and others continue to report on the issue because it is not going away and might actually be getting worse. There wonderful piece in The Economist book review on the politics of wrongful convictions and what it’s like inside private prisons in America today.[3] The Guardian also published a riveting excerpt about how prisons in America are effectively being used as alternatives to hospitalization for the mentally ill.[4] The Article notes that:

“The racial inequity of the criminal justice system has been widely noted: it is estimated that one out of every three African American men and one of every six Hispanic men born in 2001 will be arrested in their lifetimes.

“But for Americans with serious mental illness, it is estimated that as many as one in two will be arrested at some point in their lives. It’s not just arrests. One in four of the nearly 1,000 fatal police shootings in 2016 involved a person with mental illness, according to a study by the Washington Post. The Post estimated that mental illness was a factor in a quarter of fatal police shootings in 2017, too.”

 Drugs, African Americans, and Modern Incarceration

Perhaps one of the best books on the War on Drugs and race is The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.[5] Alexander’s argument is essentially that The War on Drugs and Tough on Crime policies devastated African American communities. To put this claim in perspective, African Americans represent roughly 40% of the US prison population and are incarcerated at a rate nearly six times greater than non-Hispanic Whites.[6] This is despite the fact that African Americans are 13% of the total population, according to the 2010 Census.[7]

There are two claims that we will examine by Alexander: that the War on Drugs has dramatically expanded the prison population and that the War on Drugs has disproportionately impacted African Americans.

A report by the Brookings Institute shows that drug offenses constitutes the majority of all incarcerations in U.S. prisons. These can be seen with Federal data in Graph 1, although Drug Crime Admissions were declining in the late 2000s. It should be noted while going through these statistics that there is very little in the way of transparency. These Brookings numbers were published in 2015 but are using 1990s and 2000s data.

Graph 1: State & Federal Prison Incarcerations by Offense Type, 1993-2009Courtesy the Brookings Institute

Having established that most admissions are for drug offenses, why is there any debate? A consequence of lack of transparency is that most people were looking at the left-hand part of the Graph 2. Some experts concluded that since drug offenses comprised only 20% of the prison population at a given time, that the War on Drugs was not an overwhelmingly significant source of incarcerated persons. This is clearly false when one considers the rate at which non-violent drug offenders are processed by the criminal justice system—there are fewer of them in prison at a given time because their sentences are shorter.

 

Graph 2: Percent of Current Inmates by Type of Offense: Stock vs. Flow, 2013 and 2011Courtesy, The Brookings Institute

The second part of the claim is also easy to validate. Using Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) figures, we can clearly see that African Americans are incarcerated at much higher rates than any other racial group. Incidentally, these figures are much higher for Africans Americans aged 18-19 than their peers in other racial groups—11 times as high.[8] It is entirely possible that the decrease in African American incarceration could be attributed to more lenient enforcement and sentencing for minor drug offenses, of which young African American men are hit disproportionately hard.

Graph 3: Prison Admission Rates by Race, 2006-2016Courtesy the Bureau of Justice Statistics

Do Drugs Cause (Violent/Property Related) Crime?

Now that we have talked about some of the biases of the criminal justice system, we ought to ask ourselves: why might drugs cause crime and do they actually cause crime?

 

We start with the first question because theory better informs facts. In the field of criminology, (spoiler) it is well known that many types of illicit activities are correlated with each other. There are basically two models for thinking about causality: (1) persons who abuse drugs are likely to engage in other crimes to fuel a habit that is costly and (2) the type of person who would abuse drugs will also engage in other crimes because they cannot control themselves.

There is no real consensus as to whether drug abuse causes (non-drug related) crime. The problem is that both theories presented above could be true simultaneously—drugs could be a motivating factor in some crimes but inherent personality traits could be in other crimes. One study suggests that different types of drugs are associated with different crime types: abusers of benzodiazepines and methamphetamines being more likely to commit opportunistic property crime and abusers of alcohol and heroin being more likely to commit violent crimes.[9] In either case, acting under the influence of drugs was noted in over 70% of property and violent crime cases. To top it off, a meta-study found that drug abusers were three to four times more likely to offend than non-drug users.[10]

Conclusions—A Definite Case for Sobriety

Whatever your feelings are on the War on Drugs or substance abuse generally, it is pretty clear that there is a strong case for giving drugs a wide berth in our society. They are strongly associated with large numbers of serious criminal offences even outside the realm of possession. Regardless of causality, if you know or suspect that a friend or loved one is abusing, you should try to intervene as quickly as possible before the situation escalates. The American Criminal Justice System is both massive and often pitiless in the administration of the law, saying nothing of the stigma attached to individuals after release. Should preventative measures fail, your best recourse is to find some sort of alternative sentencing and try to manage your loved one’s dependence.

[1] https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/08/economist-explains-8

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/health/dealing-with-dementia-among-aging-criminals.html

[3] https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21732513-why-criminal-justice-system-so-very-fond-incarceration-problem-prisons

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/31/mental-health-care-crisis-overwhelming-prison-jail

[5] http://newjimcrow.com/about

[6] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html

[7] https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-06.pdf

[8] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p16.pdf

[9] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25705014

[10] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178908000037

Wilderness Treatment for Young Adults And Teens

Explore. Uncover. Change.  

Wilderness treatment for young adults is also known as adventure-based therapy and outdoor behavioral healthcare. This research-based treatment modality has been in existence for the last thirty years and focuses on behavior modification and interpersonal self improvement in a wilderness setting. Exposing individuals, mostly teens and young adults, to the outdoors provides an opportunity to problem solve, unveil existing problems, gain resilience, courage and self esteem.

 

With the right tools and competent professionals, anyone can benefit from wilderness therapy. Physical activity is prominent in wilderness therapy and that alone can improve physical and mental health. Furthermore, encountering challenges and solving problems in a nature setting can help individuals build skills in dealing with real-life problems on their own.

 

Although families, couples and older adults participate in wildness therapy, more often than not teens and young adults partake in this form of treatment. Teens with behavior problems, eating disorders, OCD, substance abuse issues, etc., are usually required to stay for eight to ten weeks. In this setting teens and young adults are placed in an emotionally safe environment and given structure with little distractions. Through self efficacy and peer modeling, individuals become empowered once they see they can survive in the wilderness.

 

Individuals can participate in residential wildness therapy or therapists can even provide sessions for non residential clients in nature settings. Either way folks can learn to defeat unhealthy emotional and psychological patterns while experiencing, camping and exploring nature.

 

Most residential programs are not covered by insurance and can be very costly. However, other treatment programs and residential facilities can provide certain aspects of wilderness therapy. For example, some treatment centers go on field trips to take hikes or group therapy sessions are held outside.

 

Wilderness Treatment is a great place to build a foundation prior to coming into our program.  If you would like to learn more about this, please call our intake line.

 

The Opioid Crisis in Perspective

Tune into any major news network on any given day and its difficult not to hear something about the Opioid Crisis. More people have died from drug overdoses in 2016 year than the total number of Americans in Vietnam.[1] And opioids represented two thirds of those deaths, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).[2] The CDC reports that as of 2014, two million Americans were abusing or dependent on prescription opioids.[3] As one drug rehabilitation expert puts it, “No family has been left untouched by the Opioid Crisis.”

 

Scary numbers but they may leave inquiring minds with basic questions like: What is an opioid? What does an opioid do to you exactly? How can we measure how severe the opioid crisis is? What are major risk factors and signs of use? And what should I do if I suspect a friend or loved one of opioid use? These are questions that we will be exploring this week.

 

What is an opioid and what do opioids do to you?

 

Opioid is a catch all term for opiates, or drugs derived from poppy plants that include morphine, and synthetics opioids that mimic an opiates connection to opioid receptors in your body. Most, if not all, of these drugs have legitimate medical uses, but as the CDC points out there have been problems with dramatic over prescription of these pharmaceuticals across the country.[4] “Providers wrote nearly a quarter of a billion opioid prescriptions in 2013—with wide variation across states. This is enough for every American adult to have their own bottle of pills.”[5] These prescriptions were concentrated in narrow geographic areas, such as West Virginia and Ohio. For our purposes, there are basically three classifications of opioid:

 

• Prescription Drugs: a broad category of prescription medications that are given out primarily for pain management. Includes drugs such as Oxycodone (OxyCotin®), Methadone, and Hydrocodone (Vicadin®).

 

• Heroin: an illegal narcotic that is typically mixed with other drugs and thus puts people at risk for overdose. It is typically injected, but can also be snorted or smoked. Also runs the risk of contracting diseases, such as Hepatitis, through unclean needle sharing.

 

• Fentanyl: a pain medication that is fifty to one hundred times more potent than morphine and is also commonly used in combination with either heroin or cocaine for added effect.

 

These are drugs that connect to Opioid Receptors in your brain, causing a combination of euphoria and sedation. They desensitize these receptors, resulting in an increased tolerance and physical dependency. If left unchecked, these drugs will cause progressively shallower breathing resulting eventually in death from respiratory system distress.

 

How can we measure how severe the Opioid Crisis is?

The commercial value of opioids, both as a medicine and as a narcotic, is well understood. The British, for example, famously fought two wars with China to export the drug into Chinese territories. These wars—essentially state sponsored drug dealing—were creatively called “The Opium Wars”.[6] Recreational use by American servicemen during the Vietnam War is well documented, as we talked about last week. In Central and South Asia, opioids are quite rampant.  U.S. military planners have said that victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan is impossible without first crushing narco-traffickers.[7] Incredibly large numbers of Indians and Pakistanis are addicted to heroin and other opioids.[8] Clearly, it’s big business. Clearly, it’s also destructive.

 

As I just pointed out, the CDC noted that about two thirds of drug deaths in 2016 were attributed to opioids. Below are a map and death counts by region provided by the CDC showing how each category drug is distributed across the country. Do note that there is huge variance by county within a given state—just because your home state has low numbers doesn’t mean there aren’t counties or cities with very high rates of abuse.

Are other, more clinical accountings of the Opioid Crisis: the economic and logistical costs. Most opioid users are in their mid-twenties to mid-fifties. These are people in the prime of life. When they die or are near death, they cost the tax payers in terms of emergency services allocated to attempt to save a life or investigate. They also cost local, state, and national governments in the form of lost tax payer revenue. The epidemic has been so taxing that an Ohio city councilman, trying to contain the damage to his town and its emergency services, proposed a “three strikes” policy for opioid revivals.[9] Economists report that drug overdose deaths have cost the U.S. approximately one trillion dollars since 2001, with a rapidly growing rate of loss.[10] Although it may be painful to examine such an emotional issue this way, it is instructive to see how else the Opioid Crisis impacts communities.

 

What are major risk factors and signs of use?

The CDC has identified major risk factors for both Prescription Opioid and Heroin use. The Risk Factors are as follows:

 

Prescription Opioids

• Obtaining overlapping prescriptions from multiple providers and pharmacies.
• Taking high daily dosages of prescription pain relievers.
• Having mental illness or a history of alcohol or other substance abuse.
• Living in rural areas and having low income.

Prescription Opioids and Medicaid Patients

• Inappropriate prescribing practices and opioid prescribing rates are substantially higher among Medicaid patients than among privately insured patients.
• In one study based on 2010 data, 40% of Medicaid enrollees with prescriptions for pain relievers had at least one indicator of potentially inappropriate use or prescribing:
  • overlapping prescriptions for pain relievers,
  • overlapping pain reliever and benzodiazepine prescriptions,
  • long-acting or extended release prescription pain relievers for acute pain, and
  • high daily doses.

Heroin

• People who are addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers
• People who are addicted to cocaine
• People without insurance or enrolled in Medicaid
• Non-Hispanic whites
• Males
• People who are addicted to marijuana and alcohol
• People living in a large metropolitan area
• 18 to 25 year olds

Major signs of use for non-heroin opioids include, but are not limited to:

 

• Doctor Shopping—frequent changes in doctors, typically for the purpose of receiving new prescriptions.

 

• Lack of Motivation—becomes disinterested in work or life more broadly. The lack of motivation is most noticeable in the sense that things that once brought joy are now secondary or below notice.

 

• Rapid Depletion of Prescriptions—goes through a month’s worth of prescriptions in a few weeks.

 

• Sickness—often a result from a failure to receive sufficient opioids.

 

• Social Disconnection—becomes withdrawn from family and friends.

 

 

What should I do if I suspect a friend or loved one of opioid use?

Seek help immediately! Time is your enemy and you need to act quickly to become informed. Below are several government agencies that can better inform you and help decide your course of action:

• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA):

877-726-4727

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA):

888-696-4222

If you are in the LA area, please also consider calling one of our intake counselors. They will help you through the process and will also help refer you to a different provider if needed.

 

• The Last House

855-998-LAST (5278)

 

[1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/6/15743986/opioid-epidemic-overdose-deaths-2016

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths.html

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/opioids/prescribed.html

[4] https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/opioids/prescribed.html

[5] IMS Health, National Prescription Audit (NPATM). Cited in internal document: Preliminary Update on Opioid Pain Reliever (OPR) Prescription Rates Nationally and by State: 2010-2013.

[6] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-explains-the-us-uk-failure-in-afghanistan

[8] https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21701163-states-drugs-problem-life-and-film-pushing-poppies-punjab

[9] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/06/28/ohio-councilman-suggests-three-strikes-law-halt-overdose-rescues/434920001/

[10] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/02/13/585199746/cost-of-u-s-opioid-epidemic-since-2001-is-1-trillion-and-climbing

Today’s blog is something of an inaugural post. We will be bringing in strongly empirical (factual) evidence to thoroughly and simply explore and validate the claims of substance abuse experts. Today’s post, we will be exploring the effectiveness of structured sober living arrangements. The claim that structured sober living arrangements are effective has two core assumptions:

 

• The longer one is sober, the more likely they are to remain sober; and

 

• the networks and habits created by structured sober living environments make people more likely to change their behavior and stay sober longer both in and outside of treatment.

 

The Longer You Are Sober, The More Likely You Are to Remain Sober

This first claim makes intuitive sense to most people. It takes a long time to break a habit, particularly when a habit is tied to an addictive activity or substance. Prolonged sober living decreases the brain’s dependence on the substance in question as it becomes more independent in terms of generating and regulating chemicals, such as dopamine. This claim is easy to validate, as empirical research on the matter shows stark drop-offs in attrition as someone recovering approaches the 6-month mark. A meta-analysis from the late 1990s showed that those in long term treatment experienced a 50% reduction in cocaine consumption if in treatment for 6-months or longer.[1] This finding is particularly instructive given the addictive nature and the scale the cocaine and crack cocaine epidemics in the 1990s.[2]

 

Long-Term Care Structured Sober Living Creates Better Outcomes

Having established that duration of soberness is critical to maintaining sobriety (duh), we need to consider a means of extending that soberness: structured care. The idea of structured care is fairly intuitive because it centers around behavioral modification and networks of accountability.  If all your friends are drug users who use regularly, you are more likely to be a drug user. If you engage in risk enhancing behaviors, like smoking when you typically smoke while drinking, you are more likely to abuse a substance. Structured care takes those ideas and works them in reverse to break vicious cycles and create virtuous ones.

 

There are many different factors that put a person at risk for substance abuse and recovery, the most obvious being motivation. By creating a network of like-minded individuals attempting to be sober, everyone’s motivation increases. We all bicycle faster together. Similarly, creating new positive environments to live in reduces dependence on drugs. This has been shown to be empirically true. A famous study with a food and a cocaine dispenser with rats showcased everyone’s worst fear: the rat, when isolated, would continually dispense drugs until starving to death. The second part of the Rat Park Study showed that rats, when allowed to live with other rats, strictly preferred plain drinking water to drug laced water if the drug water was linked to some sort of physical or emotional isolation.[3]

 

This theory, while unpopular at the time, was proven true by the most unlikely of things: the Vietnam War. Soldiers fighting in Vietnam had notoriously high rates of substance abuse, often a form of maladaptive self-care. The fear was that when the G.I.s returned home, there would be massive drug epidemics. The truth, it seems, was that when the soldiers demobilized and returned to less traumatic and more helpful environments, they had levels of drug abuse consistent with the general population.[4] Environment and behavior are extremely important to controlling substance abuse.

 

Conclusions

The efficacy or cost effectiveness of long term treatment for heavy drug users is not exactly news, either. The RAND Corporation, a policy research and analysis firm that typically does work for the Pentagon, released a study for the war on drugs in the 1990s. In its study, RAND found that treatment was more effective and less costly than higher mandatory sentences and other law enforcement measures. The study is so thorough and convincing in its analysis that it is used as a case study for students of public policy across the country to this day.[5] Alas, these demand style approaches have not gained traction for political reasons, to the detriment of everyone from government agents to taxpayers and drug users themselves.[6] The topic of incarceration and treatment is something that we will talk about in greater depth next week.

 

[1] http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1997-43757-005

[2] http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/crackcocaine/a-short-history.html

[3] https://www.summitbehavioralhealth.com/blog/overview-rat-park-addiction-study/

[4] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/01/02/144431794/what-vietnam-taught-us-about-breaking-bad-habits

[5] https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Policy-Analysis-Eightfold/dp/1568029233

[6] https://www.rand.org/pubs/periodicals/rand-review/issues/RRR-spring95-crime/treatment.html

You’ve probably heard or been asked many time as a child, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”  I remember some of my classmates were able to answer right away with things like, “a teacher, a race care driver, a doctor, a professional soccer player”, the list goes on.  I, on the other hand never really had a definite answer. At first I wanted to be a chicken (that was when I was really little), and then an artist, a pop star, a cop, a forensic psychologist, you name it. Although I have a career now in social work, I realize that careers change throughout life.  It’s expected of us to go to college at some point and are then expected to pick a major, and somehow know what we want to pursue and do right out of high school. Many times, college majors don’t even lead to that specific job. A lot of us “grow up” and still don’t know what we want to be.

Some have a career but are ready for a change and want to explore other fields.

This is where career counseling can be a great tool.

What is career counseling?

Not having a job or having a job that is unenjoyable can lead to or exasperate depression, anxiety and stress. Most Americans will spend around a third of their life at work, making career choices extremely important for over health and well being.

Looking for a career can be extremely demanding and many feel hopeless in their search However, career counseling can help alleviate some of these struggles. Career counseling is a process that helps individuals understand and know themselves and the world of work, and is designed to help someone in choosing, changing or leaving a career.

 

Who uses it?

 

Anyone can use career counseling! Youth, adults, male and female, disadvantaged, minorities, incarcerated, dropouts, single parents, displaced homemakers, teachers, administrators, parents and employers use career counseling services in various ways. The earlier you get started on your career development the more prepared you will be! Career counseling is highly encouraged in colleges, especially for freshman so that they can chose a major wisely.

 

What does a career counseling session look like and how much does it cost?

 

Career counselors have a master’s in career development and are experts in career development theory, counseling techniques, administration and interpretation of assessments, and career information resources. They may work in a private practice or at a university or college. Social workers, psychologists, life coaches and recruiters can also provide career counseling.

 

If you are seeing a career counselor at a private practice, the pricing may be high and varies depending on the counselor. The average cost can range from $70-$100 per hour with additional costs for resumes and cover letters, which can be very costly for many. That is one of the reasons why social workers and school counselors might be more common to use for career guidance. Package deals or group sessions can help reduce some of the costs of career coaching/counseling.

 

Sessions with a career counselor/coach will vary depending on what the client needs. However, a general first session may start out with a thorough history of the employment, education, skills, personality and interests which is usually gained through an interviewing process. The information is then applied to job searches and categories through innovative technology.

 

Why is it beneficial?

 

There are a number of benefits that career counseling offers. Career counselors help individual’s competencies in self-knowledge, educational and occupational exploration, and career planning.

It also helps clients explore and resolve conflicts when deciding a major in college. Career counseling can also resolve internal conflicts that pertain to feeling adequate and confident when looking for a job.

 

When in career counseling, you can expect to learn more about yourself, gain educational and occupational information, learn about decision making and career planning, conduct a job search, apply to graduate and professional schools if needed, cope with career challenges, and learn to transition smoothly from one career to another.

 

When to see one?

 

Anytime is a good time to see a career counselor, however it is an even better time if you are noticing that you are stressed, overwhelmed and stuck in your career/job hunt.

 

Thrive and career counseling:

 

Thrive Treatment prides itself on keeping members connected to community during and long after the completion of treatment and are invested in helping individuals find purpose beyond sobriety. Helping members gain community involvement and purpose through a career is important and the professionals at Thrive work with individuals to help them find careers or career counselors.

Art Therapy and Substance Abuse

 

Have you ever noticed how much listening to music on a drive home relaxes you after a long day?

Maybe you’ve even felt the sensation of being taken to another place when drawing!

It’s possible you’ve experienced the therapeutic benefits of art.  

 

What is art therapy?

There are many types of therapy modules used by mental health professionals in treating individuals with mental illness and substance abuse disorders. Art therapy is one of them and is used as a means of expression through creativity to improve a person’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being.  The American Art Therapy Association defines it as the therapeutic use of art making within a professional relationship, by people who experience illness, trauma or challenges in living and by people who seek personal development.

 

Art can be used in various therapeutic ways. Creating art in itself can be therapeutic and it can additionally be used as a tool in “art psychotherapy”. Art Psychotherapy uses the creative process to find symbolism and understanding of emotions and experiences.

 

Art therapy does necessarily mean just painting and drawing. It can include other mediums of art like music, dance, drama and play, ceramics, sculpting, writing, etc.

 

History of art therapy: who started it, when and how

Art has been used since the beginning of human history as a medium for communicating and a tool to connect with others. It has been used by virtue of group interactions, conflict resolution, diagnosis and self expression.  Art therapy can be traced back to the 1800’s however in the 1940’s it was defined as a therapeutic discipline.

 

Where does art therapy take place?

Creating art can be done anywhere and anytime however art psychotherapy usually takes place in hospitals, psychiatric and rehabilitation facilities, wellness centers, forensic institutions, schools, crisis centers, senior communities, private practices, and other clinical and community settings.

What is art therapy used for and how is it used in substance abuse disorder treatment?

 

Although art therapy is generally used as treatment for something- i.e. negative emotional state/ mental well-being- it can also be used for general stress, tension and self discovery.  Even coloring has many benefits!

 

Because creating art is often times a nonverbal process, it can not only help individuals explore emotions but is also help communicate feelings or experiences that one may not feel comfortable talking about in regular conversation.

 

Other benefits include personal development, increased coping skills, enhanced cognitive functioning, exploration and understanding of feelings, reconciliation of emotional conflicts, increased self esteem, and improvement in reality orientation.

 

Art therapy is specifically very beneficial to those in treatment for substance abuse disorder. It can help individuals work through the experiences, emotions and issues that have led to or worsened addiction. Art therapy has been used in substance abuse treatment since the 1950’s. There are many studies that show that using art therapy in substance abuse treatment centers enhance recovery. One study even showed that art therapy can help overcome ambivalence about recovery from substance abuse disorder. Art therapy can contribute to substance abuse recovery by decreasing the client’s denial of addiction, increasing the client’s motivation to change, providing a safe outlet for emotions and lessening the shame of addiction.

 

Substance abuse disorder is most successful when combined in addition to art therapy with other recovery services, such as detox, individual therapy, support groups, and family counseling.

 

What does an art therapy session look like?

 

The first thing to understand when participating in art therapy is that you do not need to be a good artist. You don’t need to make something pretty or nice, in fact, more meaningful things arise from some of the ugliest pieces.

 

For beginners, an art therapist may start out by having the individual or group create a magazine photo collage. The art therapist may give you a specific prompt when deciding on which images to pick. For example, you may be picking images that remind you of a certain relationship and as you are doing that the art therapist is helping if needed, offering their full attention to the clients, asking open ended questions and sharing their own observations. While discussing and viewing the finished piece, you may develop a different perspective on your problem. For example, you may find yourself focusing on a specific memory or event when talking about your piece or perhaps your made a different facial expression when looking at one of the images; this may lead you and the art therapist into another conversation and maybe to the root of the problem.

Professionals at Thrive Treatment Centers, understand the benefits that art therapy has to offer when in recovery for substance abuse. In addition to other therapy modules, Thrive Treatment Centers provide art therapy for clients on a regular basis.

The Last House Sober Living can provide a safe and sober living environment while attending Thrive Treatment.