When left to your own vices, you have no outside accountability, no one to question your motives or reasoning, no one to challenge your regressive thought patterns and no one to provide guidance during those moments where you feel lost or utterly overwhelmed.
This is how addiction takes root and begins to overgrow your being, just like an infectious weed corrupting and destroying a once healthy garden.
The results of this autonomous and unfettered lifestyle can quickly lead to maladaptive behaviors running wild and detrimental personal habits overtaking healthy decision making.
While some can manage in this type of scenario, those struggling with addiction can find this type of anonymity problematic. That is why group addiction therapy can prove so beneficial for those progressing on their recovery journey in addiction treatment.
What is Group Therapy for Addiction?
Understanding the components of group therapy for addiction and why it is an effective and instrumental approach to long-term sobriety is an important first step.
Group therapy for addiction is a form of psychotherapy where a group of individuals meet during their addiction treatment to discuss their common problem: substance addiction.
Much like community-based interventions, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA), these groups typically meet weekly – or multiple times a week throughout addiction treatment – to address all manners of experienced issues relating to their addiction, including:
- Personal issues
- Addictive impulses
- Experienced temptations to relapse
- Personal addiction triggers
- Various other personal issues
However, unlike those community-based interventions, group therapy for addiction is monitored and guided by a licensed clinician trained to direct the conversation and monitor all those participating in the treatment session.
This ensures that the group experience does not devolve into a free-for-all dialogue, but instead remains clinically focused and purposefully driven. This is achieved by the clinician, who establishes treatment goals with all those engaged in the therapeutic intervention. This helps facilitate effective conversation, group connectivity and growth among those individuals participating.
3 Benefits of Group Addiction Therapy
1. Providing an Effective Sounding Board
Group therapy for addiction has a unique knack for providing a recovering addict with a perpetual source or applicable feedback. It creates a situation where the members share very similar paths, so those participating in the groups are constantly confronted with comparable situations and reactions.
This allows those in the group to receive multiple perspectives regarding a problem they may be facing, as well as cautionary tales from those members that may have lived through a similar scenario. Other members of the group often aid in identifying specific ideas for improving a difficult situation and will hold you accountable along the way.
2. Reinforces the Fact that You Are Not Alone
For a majority of recovering addicts, dealing with the daily hardships associated with addiction can be ostracizing. Perhaps the greatest benefit of group therapy for addiction is realizing that you are never alone in your struggles.
The clinical environment associated with group therapy decreases feelings of isolation and alienation by increasing feelings of camaraderie while normalizing the process of recovery.
In the group environment, the other participants around you serve as mirrors that reflect aspects of yourself, encouraging you to address those negative facets of your personality that you have ignored or hidden for too long.
3. Increases Your Social Support Network
While groups provide a healthy manner of improving social skills and methods of communication, they can also prove instrumental in facilitating an improved social support network.
This is achieved organically throughout the therapeutic process, through constant dialogue and supportive responses shared by all those participating in the group sessions.
In normal life, it is difficult to find a scenario where people can point out your faults in a clinically monitored environment. But group treatment does just that – while also establishing social supports that can stand the test of time.
Christian-Based Drug and Alcohol Addiction Treatment at Covenant Hills
With the right support and mentorship, you can get clean. You can stay clean. You can believe in your future again.
If you’re ready to get sober and live your best life yet, discover how Covenant Hills provides non-judgmental, life-changing guidance and meets every addict right where they’re at in their addiction and spiritual journey.
With inpatient, outpatient and gender-specific addiction therapy, there is an addiction treatment program that can be personalized to meet your exact needs and preferences.
Learn more about our Christian-based addiction treatment programs, or contact us for a free and confidential assessment.
