At first, individual counseling generally focuses on helping you understand the effect drugs and alcohol are having on your life and consider changes you can make. Treatment then shifts to helping you become and stay drug and alcohol-free. The counselor attempts to help the person:
- See the problem and become motivated to change.
- Change his or her behavior.
- Repair damaged relationships with family and friends.
- Build new friendships with people who don’t use alcohol or drugs.
- Create a recovery lifestyle.
Group counseling is different in each program, but group members usually support and try to help one another cope with life without using drugs or alcohol. They share their experiences, talk about their feelings and problems and find out that others have similar problems. Groups also may explore spirituality and its role in recovery.
Individual Assignments
People in treatment may be asked to read certain things (or listen to audiotapes), to complete written assignments (or record them) or to try new behaviors.
Education About Substance Use Disorders
People learn about the symptoms and the effects of alcohol and drug use on their brains and bodies. Education groups use videos or tapes, lectures or activities to help people learn about their illness and how to manage it.
Life Skills Training
This training can include learning and practicing employment skills, leisure activities, social skills, communication skills, anger management, stress management, goal setting, and money and time management.
Testing for Alcohol or Drug Use
If required, program staff members regularly take urine samples from people for drug testing. Some programs are starting to test saliva instead of urine. They also may use a Breathalyzer™ to test people for alcohol use.
Relapse Prevention Training
Relapse prevention training teaches people how to identify their relapse triggers, how to cope with cravings, how to develop plans for handling stressful situations, and what to do if they relapse. A trigger is anything that makes a person crave a drug. Triggers often are connected to the person’s past use, such as a person he or she used drugs with, a time or place, drug use paraphernalia (such as syringes, a pipe, or a bong), or a particular situation or emotion.
Orientation to Self-Help Groups
Participants, not a trained professional counselor, lead these self-help groups. Members support and encourage one another to become or stay drug and alcohol-free. Twelve-step programs are perhaps the best known of the self-help groups. These programs include Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Cocaine Anonymous and Marijuana Anonymous. Other self-help groups include SMART (Self Management and Recovery Training) Recovery® and Women for Sobriety.