Blog

Addiction fragments families like no other disorder. Many people see their loved ones becoming addicted as a loss of trust and a shattering of expectations. Under the influence of drugs and alcohol, some people may act more impulsively, be prone to depression, anxiety, or rage. These are all signs of serious chemical imbalances caused by Substance Use Disorders (SUDs). We’ve all done and said things we deeply regret under stress or frustration, but addiction can bring out the worst of those vulnerabilities.

Addiction keeps us in a self-conscious, self-loathing mindset, even when surrounded by loved ones who want nothing but the best for us. Even close-knit families can keep an icy distance when the people they love no longer act like themselves, which is why addiction can cause so much damage to a family’s harmony. Sometimes this damage can seem irreparable because of all the history and emotions behind it. Family therapy, however, can be a powerful tool to navigate these hurt emotions, and re-establish trust between spouses or families.

What is Family Therapy?

Family therapy seeks to understand the negative emotions between members of a family and to unpack those emotions healthily and productively. While addiction is ultimately the disorder of focus in rehab and recovery, the family relationships as a whole might be damaged in their own way. Addiction often stems from dysfunction, so it’s just as likely that a toxic family environment could have contributed to addiction, as addiction could have hurt a family’s relationships. There’s even data suggesting that the quality of a family’s relationship can have a greater impact than more socially-accepted explanations like peer pressure.

How Can Family Impact Addiction

“At least 1 in 10 children in the United States is born into a chemically dependent family”. Even when a parent or parents can break free from addiction, it’s not uncommon that the environment, the behaviors, and the mentality that made addiction possible can persist and have a strong influence on the child. Simply quitting a drug “cold-turkey” on your own, without any form of therapy or rehabilitation, can cause the risks of intergenerational dependency to persist.

There are several ways that an unhappy, stressful, restrictive, or downright toxic environment can impact the development of a child, or even an adult. It’s been known for years that happiness has a direct impact on addiction, suicide, and other mental health epidemics. Many Americans are doing their best to create a rich and rewarding home-life for their families, yet still finding that their children, their spouses, and even themselves are not happy. Unfortunately, no one has an instruction manual for life and child-rearing and maintaining healthy relationships, so we can only do our best. Sometimes, it’s just not possible to see where we can improve without someone from the outside looking in and guiding us along.

Why Family Therapy for Addiction

Family therapy is a process that can analyze the underlying tension in a family, and the different personalities, beliefs, and mindsets in the group can lead to different outcomes in health and addiction. Through therapy, many families can learn to not only heal the family as a whole, but to heal their past traumas, insecurities, and unhealthy mindsets. If you, or someone in your family, is suffering from addiction and you feel that family therapy might improve their quality of life, call us at (619) 639-7325 to learn more about our rehab and recovery in San Diego.

“Karoshi” is a Japanese term for “working yourself to death.” Such a culture of self-sacrificing commitment to a career has left the country with high levels of burnout, suicide, and an entire generation putting off childrearing to meet unrealistic work expectations. Here in the US, our San Diego drug and alcohol treatment center is seeing a frighteningly similar pattern of overworked executives pouring every ounce of themselves into their work—leaving their bodies, minds, and homes empty. Practically every scientific study and professional self-help book tell us the same thing— “take care of yourself first!” High stress from overworking can cause issues with metabolism and glucose levels and is a key factor in the forming of addiction. Addiction is not a moral failing, it is a response to trauma, stress, depression, and unhealthy work-life balances. Overcoming addiction often means re-evaluating ambitious definitions of success and finding ways of living that harmonize health and productivity.

The Executive Mindset and Addiction

It’s so easy to let ourselves fall into short-term “effective” habits, like ordering dine-in and eating while we work. We often forget that our brain is a living organ, not a machine, and that organ is responsible for all of our business success. Everything from a healthy diet to exercise to managing addictive behaviors are extremely important to the health of your brain. Millions of us have become addicted to caffeine because it’s a quick and effective replacement for sleep, even when we know that’s just a comfortable lie that will leave us feeling drained and sleepy by 2 PM. What we must focus on is changing our behaviors to make the greatest use out of our brains, bodies, and business potentialStephen R. Covey’s best-selling self-help book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, refers to this as “sharpening the saw.” If you’re tasked with chopping down a forest… does it make sense to charge headfirst, or to spend a few minutes sharpening your saw to reduce the workload for every tree? If you don’t treat your body and brain right, how can you expect it to continue to produce amazing results?

Untangling the Executive Brain in Therapy

Happy hours are not an effective therapy tool. Too often, we see hardworking professionals turning to alcohol to reduce stress. While drinking or smoking seems to calm nerves temporarily, they do so by masking the life factors that stress us rather than treating them. As we bury these cognitive quirks deeper and deeper, they begin to pile up. We grow more agitated towards others, jaded towards our work, depressed, and stressed. Because we’ve numbed and suppressed these root causes, it becomes difficult to locate the source of all these negative emotions in our livesOur San Diego rehab offers executive inpatient treatment options, which focus on improving the functionality of your brain in two major ways.

The first is simple detox and health routines. Your business runs on a schedule, so should your brain. If you ever feel drained halfway through the day, detoxing and fixing your circadian rhythms can help you function longer and more effectively.

Our second way of improving your brain is by untangling the negative thoughts & cognitive distortions from years of stress coping. All of our therapists are doctorate-level specialists and are trained in a variety of approaches to helping you achieve a healthy and successful recovery that will improve your life as a whole. Are you considering treatment or rehab? We encourage you to call us at (888) 977-3402 to learn more about how treatment can benefit you.

What if we told you that the most exciting and spiritually challenging journey of your life could include table tennis, a luxurious pool and spa, and gourmet meals every day at a beautiful San Diego facility? 90% of the people who need drug and alcohol rehab don’t seek help from a rehab provider. There are many reasons we become addicted, from trauma to stress, to chemical dependencies.

Why Luxury Treatment?

Luxury treatment can prepare you for a life of sobriety safely and more effectively than going cold turkey on your own. While the denotation of “luxury” can make it seem easy or pampered, the truth is that addiction is ~~a~~ crucial to overcome and that decades of research went into finding the best techniques and strategies to treat it. Our luxury treatment offers you the comfort of a full-service resort with the highest quality of care providers, but there is still a critical healing process underlying the whole experience. Our treatment specialists are all doctorate-level experts with proven clinical techniques in their arsenal of tools.

Rehab and Recovery

Rehab is an opportunity to focus on the mind, body, and self. The detox process is difficult on its own, made even more challenging with certain addictions like opiates, which pose serious physical harm in detox without professional oversight. One study found that as few as 25% of people going through detox managed to maintain their sobriety. While detox simply focuses on purging yourself of the drug and breaking the chemical hooks of addiction, it doesn’t do anything to prevent relapse. In an inpatient, luxury rehab, you have the unique opportunity to detox and heal while practicing the therapy and skills needed to maintain long-term sobriety.

Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Means a New Life

Detox is a simple, mathematical process. Go sober for a certain amount of time, and you’ve detoxed. Anyone can stop using for a week or two, but few can break the need for drugs and alcohol long-term on their own because the problems in your life that made addiction possible are still unresolved after detox. Eventually, we’ll run into the same or similar circumstances that propelled us to drug use in the first place. We’ll experience heartbreak, boredom, financial troubles, trauma, and stress because we’re still the same person in the same environment. Treatment means changing ourselves to be stronger for the world we have to embrace, or changing the environment that makes us vulnerable.

Addiction takes away something from everyone. Some lose their health, their young and adventurous years, others lose their finances, their family and friends. Drug and alcohol rehabilitation focuses on restoring the lost aspects of your life, to help you live a full and healthy lifestyle, breaking your reliance on drugs and alcohol by empowering you. You will always end up facing challenges in life, but after therapy and rehab, you’ll have a new way to handle those challenges. You will be able to foster a new mindset and adapt to the challenges instead of coping with drugs and alcohol.

If you’re ready to start the recovery journey and want the highest quality of luxury care available, we recommend you call us at (888) 977-3402 to learn more about the process of detox and rehab.

What’s your poison?

Chemical dependence is when your brain and body don’t feel “well,” without certain chemicals in your system. Addiction is when these chemical dependencies begin to have negative consequences on your life, from injuries and blacking out, to strains on finances, family, work, or other aspects of your life. Many develop addictions to a variety of substances, and simply don’t recognize it until it’s pervasive through their daily life.

Polysubstance Dependency – Our Own Mood Cocktails

Many of us rely on a cocktail of substances, products, and manufactured experiences to maintain a sense of well-being. It’s become a simple ritual that snuck its way into becoming our daily life: a morning coffee, a few cigarettes timed throughout the day, alcohol, marijuana, and TV throughout the evening, and an occasional Amazon shopping spree to cope without anxiety or stress. We hardly seek out new and meaningful experiences, but rather rely on simple, easy, repetitive comforts. We are no longer in pursuit of the great exploration of life, but rather obsessed with using substances to keep ourselves feeling “content” and “normal.” Through this lifestyle, polysubstance addictions can become a habit without us even noticing.

Detecting a Polysubstance Addiction

Polysubstance addiction can be tricky to diagnose, and challenging to overcome. Most people are aware that using illicit drugs like heroin can be dangerous, but they might not realize that regularly smoking a joint “to fall asleep” can be another sign of addiction and dependence. Likewise, they may realize that they need help after a DUI with alcohol, but don’t consider that their drinking and nicotine addiction may be rooted in the same internal causes and conflicts. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and other illnesses are often tied with polysubstance addictions because addiction is a coping mechanism for other negative life factors. Healing through these addictions often means diagnosing the underlying trauma and buildings the skills and network you need to cope.

Risks of Addiction to Multiple Substances

Because polysubstance addiction often deals with drugs with similar side-effects, it can be a particularly dangerous situation. A common means of accidental overdose happens when two depressant or “downer” drugs, or two stimulants are combined. Depressants can lower blood pressure, breathing, and other body functions, leading to death by suffocation or heart failure. Combining depressants can exponentially increase this risk, especially with street drugs where the quantity of active ingredients isn’t clearly labeled. Likewise, double-doses of stimulants have the opposite effect, increasing the risk of high blood pressure, stroke, and heart attack. Treating these addictions means understanding the risks and side-effects of these drugs, and being able to counter the withdrawal symptoms that come with detox.

Trained facilities like our San Diego rehab and detox can provide proven medication, therapy, and guidance to ease the detox symptoms and prepare you to resist cravings and avoid relapse. Relapse is a pivotal concern in the recovery of polysubstance abuse. Cutting down on a substance without learning techniques to maintain that sobriety has a low rate of success. However, detoxing flushes the chemical dependencies out of your body, and with it, the tolerances. Someone using a strong opiate at a full dose for years, and suddenly going sober, can risk overdose if they relapse because their body is no longer prepared for such a heavy dose of the chemical. This is a vital reason why we always recommend professional detox and rehab, to help monitor your health, teach you coping techniques, and warn you about the expectations of a life free from addiction. If you or someone you know is seeking a sober life, please call us directly at (619) 639-7325.