As part of her academic training as a clinician, a university student once interviewed me concerning my background and common practices in the addictions field. While this was used as part of her coursework in school, I thought it might be helpful to share these answers to some common questions for anyone interested in learning more about the topic.
Given that substance abuse has reached epidemic levels in America, I feel it is good for all of us to gain a basic understanding of this disease and how to approach it. If you’d like to learn more, or have more detailed questions, please feel free to reach out to me and I’d be glad to assist. The original interview questions and my responses are found below.
Q: What different types of methods are used when handling drug addicted clients?
A: All of them. There’s a very high co-occurrence of mental health issues in substance abuse populations, meaning that you are treating psychiatric issues along with addictive ones, which brings models like CBT, REBT, Psychoanalytic, and Solution-Focused into play. Plus, addiction is a family disease, so Group and Family Therapies are a must along with Existential therapy for value/spiritual/identity problems and Psychoeducation for learning relapse prevention skills.
Q: What is the process for referral regarding clients that need counseling with drug addiction?
A: Usually a legal intervention. Sometimes a family intervention. Rarely do clients seek treatment on their own. Addictive Disease resists treatment, so it often requires a client be referred to treatment by judges, social workers/DCBS, or other organizations capable of enforcing compliance with a court order or similar mechanism and can leverage consequences for noncompliance.
Q: What drew you to focus on addiction counseling?
A: Addicts aren’t bad people. It’s just a horrible disease that consumes them. But they’re still there, needing to be pulled back to the surface, back to wholeness. It’s my honor to be able to serve in that capacity.
Q: What are some common ways addiction starts?
A: The most common way is an injury and the prescription of narcotics to people by physicians, on the order of 75% for general opioids and 80% for heroin abusers. Beyond this, there is usually poverty, emotional or other abuse, and trauma that precipitates self-medication of emotional symptoms. Believe it or not, recreational use isn’t the primary precipitator, though it is a factor.
Q: Does the feeling of addiction ever go away?
A: No. The Acute Stage of withdrawal does, and the Post-Acute stage does for most clients, but the difference between physiological cravings and psychological urges is that, even when the body has healed, the mind always remembers, subjecting both it and the brain to triggers that, if left unaddressed, could lead to relapse.
Q: What does it look like when clients are using healthy coping skills?
A: Less recidivism, greater treatment engagement and compliance, reduced co-occurring mental health issues, and increasingly positive support system development.
Q: What is the best part about the work you do?
A: The reward of seeing a client engage recovery, maintain sobriety, and begin reaping the joys of a rebuilt life and restored family.
Q: What is something you wish people knew about addiction?
A: No one is immune.
Until next time, don’t just be transformed: be Kinged.
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