Personal Narrative: Thi Rehabs

Upon entering the NA meeting I had mixed feelings. I didn’t know how to come to the meeting knowing my intentions were neither to give nor receive help. I felt like I was an intruder. I didn’t understand why I should betray others or act as if I was an addict who chose not to interact in the healing and recovering process. All of those things pushed me into the door of a meeting and open my mind to the hurt behind the physical appearance of these people. Their stories were heart wrenching. They all wanted help or do be noticed at some point of their lives before they became addicts. Never knowing the decisions they chose to take that first hit would turn their

“The last thing I heard where the sirens. And the last thing I saw where a kaleidoscope of blue and red. And then everything went black, every ounce of air had escaped my lungs and had reached the surface of the lake in the form of little bubbles.” I told Louis Green, possibly the most boring person on earth. I don’t think he wanted to be my therapist anymore then I wanted to be in therapy.

Regardless, it was so inspiring when I did hear some good reports, and I noticed how eager those former clients were to share about what was working for them. In fact, at times it was hard to tell who was more excited about their success, me or the former client. It is sobering to know that this is how working in this field is likely to pan out. What I mean by saying this, is that I must get used to the possibility that most of the clients who pass through whatever facility I am at, are more likely not to succeed (succeed per the agency’s follow-up requirements), than to succeed, and I must not take the client’s shortcomings as a personal failure of sorts. For this reason, I now realize that this is one of the reasons that I hate this disease with such passion, and want to work in my community to improve these statistics, and remove the stigma that has been attached to Substance Use Disorders for far too long.

On Friday, June 5th, Megan Crews and I attended a community support group meeting at New Horizon Church of Christ. This meeting was a for teens and young adults that were experiencing issues of emotional abuse, substance abuse, sexual abuse, depression, co-dependency, and anything else that was causing them struggles. The Landing (what this group is called), is a daughter program of Celebrate Recovery, which has been helping people in different communities for 20 years. This collection of groups is faith based and helps the whole family, not just the individual experiencing the problem. It is set up as a fifty-two week program, based on principles that Jesus shared in the Sermon on the Mount. They use a 12-step program model using Jesus Christ as their focus and not psychological theory. There are over 20,000 programs in churches around the world. The programs have also had great success being used in the prison system. Since the beginning of these programs, many people have found peace and healing from their issues, hurts, and habits.

Has your world ever been flipped upside down overnight? Well, mine has when my Uncle had a bad stroke that causes him to lose the left side of his brain. This event changed my life forever it was like I was blind to being able to see for the very first time. Those horrible days truly made me rethink my life, and it taught me how precious life is and how quickly life can be taken away. The biggest thing that came out of this was the improvement in my work ethic, giving it my all 100% of the time, and not procrastinating on anything in my life. Having my world flipped upside was probably the greatest thing that could have happened and here's why.

I not only looked forward to, but also welcomed it being a tedious program packed with lots of challenges and restrictions. I now knew that the past programs didn't fail me: I failed them. Regardless the task, I believed I had already experienced my last failure. Besides, this rehabilitation program consisted of an immense support system that reached out and provided support around the clock. I'm sure the previous programs did as well; however, I never permitted anyone within close proximity of me to provide such support. I stayed isolated most of my time there, and whenever there were group gatherings, I was present in the physical form only. That is precisely why I departed those programs equally unequipped and unenlightened about

After suffering the past four years from multiple concussions with limited help, you begin to feel that recovering is just about impossible. I have essentially been at the same recovery level the past four years with only small improvements in my well-being. The Doctors I had gone to in the past were very limited in what they could do for me. Until rcently if you asked me if I ever felt I would be able to fully recovery from my concussions the answer would be, no. This answer completely changed after returning from Cerebrum Health Centers in Dallas, Texas. I was very fortunate to have come across Cerebrum when I was looking for information for my website. Shortly after I had found out about the Brain Center I was on a plane to Dallas to go

For my 28-day experiential exercise I was determined to renounce sweets and pastries. I have been trying to lose weight for some time, which I have been successful, however I gave up sweets id loose much more weight. I have been able to lose a substantial amount of weight but it has taken me some time. But, because I love sweets, it had become impossible for me to reach my goal. Before starting this experiment, I would say that I was addicted to sweets such as pastries, macarons, milk-shakes, ice creams, and cake.

Today was quite interesting and a learning experience for me.First, my group members and I was informed about what we would be doing today for clinical, which was interviewing patients on one and one base about their health history. My preceptor then told me I would be interviewing an alcoholic patient, the thought of nervousness started to kick in my head since I know alcohol is a very sensitive topic and the patient may not want to go in-depth or give out too much information about their lifestyle, so I was wondering how I should go about with the interview if the patient is like that.

To better understand individuals with addiction giving up their substance or behavior, I committed myself to running long distance three times a week. Although my experience was likely much less intense than a person with an addiction, I now have some personal insight as to how difficult it can be to change. When tasked with this assignment I contemplated few different options, and I was torn between giving up coffee or to start running. Ultimately, I decided to pick up running, as I believed it would be more of a challenge for me. I also chose running because in high school I ran everyday, and though it was not easy, it made me feel great. In those days running was cathartic for me, and a long run after a bad day always made me feel better.

When I observed Kathy Shaw she was having a conversation with an inmate about what his plan was going to be when he got out of jail, I noticed a few skills that she used to engage him. the first skill was she contextualized the situation. Contextualized is viewing the client’s problem from a society or community perspective to skew clients away from blaming themselves (Birkenmaier & Weger, 2017). The way Kathy used this skill is by asking questions about his environment that he lived in and the kind of people he would hang around. Once she got those answers she worked in the idea to the inmate about how it could be the community that he is in that helped his addiction to drugs. From that point, the inmate asked Kathy what her feelings where

While interviewing Christina I got more than what I bargained for. It turned out that she was a recovering heroin addict herself. She shared with me about her recovery process and what it was like. She started using heroin when she was only fifteen years old. She became clean about five years ago. After years of doing heroin her life was just passing her by, her best friend died due to heroin overdose, she was constantly going back in forth in jail, she also, started selling her body for money. She knew she had to stop when it started to spiral of out of control. She states that she was once was in a very dark place so she understands how it feel’s to be in their situation. “She stated that her patients and her have one thing in common they ruined their life in the past but it doesn’t have to end there change can happen.” That’s the reason she became a mental health counselor to help others the way she has been helped. She states that using her past, as a way to inspire others to positively

The Healing Through Christ program offers support groups to both people in addiction in addition to their family members involved. The population I served in the Healing Through Christ center was primarily women, with ages that ranged from twenty to sixty. I came in contact with many sisters, daughters, wives and mothers in search of healing from the trauma that they had faced, either from a loved ones addiction or from their own personal experiences. The community within each group was vastly different in terms of healing and knowledge about addiction. About half of each class had been going to group meetings for years, while the other had only been present for a couple weeks.

Warren (Psychotherapist) talks to clients often about post treatment, he likes speaking about it in groups more because of the power of groups and many eyes leading to many perspectives, but also speaks to them on an individual level because it’s more personal. He wants to help prepare clients and lead them on the path to figure out “why.” He thinks it’s important for the clients to hear stories from alumni and former clients so they know the power of relapse and also the power within themselves to get back on track, or keep themselves on the right track. He wants the clients to be aware of the serious situations they may face and alter their negative thinking patterns to more positive ones versus having guilt and shame. Warren hopes the clients

Lynnsey Welcome to the class! . I had a work in the rehab place while I was doing my internship it seem like being very interesting, but my heart went out for you, and we also have some women who come to the facility with pain medication that also can be a challenge.