Often people come to treatment at AToN Center who are also parents. This is a gut wrenching, guilt provoking experience for many parents seeking treatment. The shame and guilt is so intense that it sometimes prevents people from seeking the help they so desperately need. We at AToN Center understand the difficulty that this predicament entails and counsel with the proper amount of empathy and understanding necessary to normalize the experience.
We provide specific types of therapy to address this guilt and shame as well as teach how to develop healthy family boundaries to ensure that the recovering person is adequately supported upon return home. The use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavior Therapy specifically reframe the issues of shame and guilt. Through the use of these therapeutic skill sets, we help to cognitively reframe the negative emotions to see them in a more positive light. It takes a serious act of love and devotion for a parent to come to treatment to arrest maladaptive coping mechanisms such as alcohol or drug abuse.
Although we encourage people to get sober for themselves, when children are involved, they are the first to feel the difference that recovery from substance use disorders can make in a household.
At AToN Center we address parental guilt in early recovery in the following Recovery Studies and Psychology Groups:
Codependency, The Cycle of Addiction, The Role of Values, Building Sober Support, Honesty in Recovery, Frustration Tolerance, Healing Toxic Shame, Cognitive Distortions, Core Beliefs, Rational Responses, Boundaries and Coping Skills, Optimal Weekly Schedules, Assertiveness Techniques, Locus of Control and Conflict Resolution.
Kate Judd MS, CADC II
AToN Center 888-535-1516
