Addiction treatment that cares about underlying mental/emotional issues

[dopamimetic]

As far as I see, most addiction treatments - both in and outpatient - seem to be more or less based on that (in)famous 12 steps concept. Maybe I am biased but somehow I rarely heard good things about it from honest, long term struggling people and from what I read in these brochures lying around on AA and NA meetings, again maybe I am biased, it doesn't really fit me.

My primary point of struggle is anxiety, heavy social anxiety. It doesn't help me to accept that I am an addict - I am. Nor does it to say sorry for my past behavior - I am. I would anytime chose a nice sobriety over dependence but as long as that isn't an option, I for myself have found somewhat peace with using drugs, specially dissociatives, to cope with life. They come with a price and will maybe destroy physical health and leave me with nothing but this is like convincing smokers from cancer. Most of them know and most of them don't really care. What I care about is now, and the near future, as long as I don't have these, I won't bother with distant future probably.

Now society is just how it is, and war on drugs is how it is, so I have no chance than to limit my use - probably to live abstinent as they crack down even on DXM in Europe, many pharmacies straight out refuse to sell it to any male below 45 or so (sexism!) and guess the days of K analogues are counted as well. Needless to say, their over-use brought me a psychosis (probably, sleep deprivation was a major factor but dissos & insomnia go hand in hand for me) and some fucked up times where I really regret their use.

Still, they are the only thing that really helps, as long as I maintain moderation.

I've been to rehab twice in Zürich, which is pretty modern but even they pretend to treat underlying traumas and emotional problems but what they offer is 8/10 addiction, problematic drug use, abstinence, coping with craving etc. which really isn't that much of a problem if I could handle the emotions. In some rare times - when DXM still offered me a day to week long afterglow for example - I had next to no craving at all and just lived my life. Think I can separate desperate craving from ... plain craving, and the problem is the former, and it comes from, well, desperation about anxiety, depression, etc.
Psychopharms offer some limited help but they again are an addiction and make me avoid coping with my sober emotions.

Are there concepts that are more based on mental health than on demonizing relapse and substance use? I know it's the wrong place to ask here and I'll look out for a more locally related board but as most of these concepts are used internationally I still ask you guys here. Or am I wrong about the 12 steps and should give them a try?

Somehow, and I'm not proud of this, the fact that attenders of the average 12 step meeting are 90-95% males in or above their mid-40's doesn't really appeal to me either. They are just at a pretty different point in life, maybe. Or I'm biased again. Of course you can learn from older, more experienced people, I see that. Maybe it's just that I had a close friend who went to these meetings for years and finally concluded that the oldtimers are either lying and secretly continuing to use, or in case of AA just avoiding alcohol but living other addictions, or are pretty embittered with sobriety. This are single opinions which aren't representative for sure but probably it's a fact that dogmatic treatments have a low success rate.

 

[Jabberwocky]

i think part of the reason that services aimed at people just starting out in recovery are heavily swayed towards pure addiction therapy is because until you're through the initial period, addressing the underlying issues probably won't work and can be outright dangerous. its not just for drugs, when i had anorexia they wouldn't treat me psychologically until i'd gained a reasonable amount of weight cos my brain was too fucked by starvation to do therapy at the same time.

when i went into recovery i didn't even know i had CPTSD cos the drugs were masking it so well. it took probably a month into rehab before the trauma really started to surface, because i needed time for the initial upheaval of no longer having drugs to settle in. so they literally couldn't have treated at the start. since then i have done specialised trauma therapy, and therapy that has gone deep into my underlying emotional problems. this was offered via rehab and drugs services, but you need to be in a safe place (rehab) or stable to even start. if not, best case scenario i'd have gone and used, worst i'd have killed myself. trauma therapy in particular, if you bring that stuff up for someone who is not stable then let them go to finish their day you are just putting them in danger.

i get what you mean about 12 steps. i go to NA and it helped me immensely in early recovery. i go to a womens meeting, it has a good age range. i think the dogmatism is essential to people who are in the stage of still wanting to use, there needs to be a clear line. once you are further on it becomes tricky. i have the odd single alcoholic drink with people i know i'm safe around and technically that means i lost my clean time, and they put so much onto clean time, rather than recovery (cos one is easy to measure), that now i don't want to admit it in there. it hasn't come up and i don't intend to bring it up. mind you, i did a long time of complete abstinence from all drugs, long enough to know what my intentions are and be able to trust my own judgement. at the start you basically know your own judgement is fucked, otherwise you wouldn't need other peoples judgement so wouldn't go in the first place. i did everything i was told at NA, drugs services, my therapist, for 9 months with only one slip up before i got a job and started building my life again, and don't think i'd have got to the rebuilding stage without listening to and taking advice from people who had experienced what i had and got out the other side.

 

[nznity]

As far as I see, most addiction treatments - both in and outpatient - seem to be more or less based on that (in)famous 12 steps concept. Maybe I am biased but somehow I rarely heard good things about it from honest, long term struggling people and from what I read in these brochures lying around on AA and NA meetings, again maybe I am biased, it doesn't really fit me.

My primary point of struggle is anxiety, heavy social anxiety. It doesn't help me to accept that I am an addict - I am. Nor does it to say sorry for my past behavior - I am. I would anytime chose a nice sobriety over dependence but as long as that isn't an option, I for myself have found somewhat peace with using drugs, specially dissociatives, to cope with life. They come with a price and will maybe destroy physical health and leave me with nothing but this is like convincing smokers from cancer. Most of them know and most of them don't really care. What I care about is now, and the near future, as long as I don't have these, I won't bother with distant future probably.

Now society is just how it is, and war on drugs is how it is, so I have no chance than to limit my use - probably to live abstinent as they crack down even on DXM in Europe, many pharmacies straight out refuse to sell it to any male below 45 or so (sexism!) and guess the days of K analogues are counted as well. Needless to say, their over-use brought me a psychosis (probably, sleep deprivation was a major factor but dissos & insomnia go hand in hand for me) and some fucked up times where I really regret their use.

Still, they are the only thing that really helps, as long as I maintain moderation.

I've been to rehab twice in Zürich, which is pretty modern but even they pretend to treat underlying traumas and emotional problems but what they offer is 8/10 addiction, problematic drug use, abstinence, coping with craving etc. which really isn't that much of a problem if I could handle the emotions. In some rare times - when DXM still offered me a day to week long afterglow for example - I had next to no craving at all and just lived my life. Think I can separate desperate craving from ... plain craving, and the problem is the former, and it comes from, well, desperation about anxiety, depression, etc.
Psychopharms offer some limited help but they again are an addiction and make me avoid coping with my sober emotions.

Are there concepts that are more based on mental health than on demonizing relapse and substance use? I know it's the wrong place to ask here and I'll look out for a more locally related board but as most of these concepts are used internationally I still ask you guys here. Or am I wrong about the 12 steps and should give them a try?

Somehow, and I'm not proud of this, the fact that attenders of the average 12 step meeting are 90-95% males in or above their mid-40's doesn't really appeal to me either. They are just at a pretty different point in life, maybe. Or I'm biased again. Of course you can learn from older, more experienced people, I see that. Maybe it's just that I had a close friend who went to these meetings for years and finally concluded that the oldtimers are either lying and secretly continuing to use, or in case of AA just avoiding alcohol but living other addictions, or are pretty embittered with sobriety. This are single opinions which aren't representative for sure but probably it's a fact that dogmatic treatments have a low success rate.

Do some research on Takiwasi. I think what you Need Is a good dose of Ayahuasca.

 

[geekgrl]

i think part of the reason that services aimed at people just starting out in recovery are heavily swayed towards pure addiction therapy is because until you're through the initial period, addressing the underlying issues probably won't work and can be outright dangerous. its not just for drugs, when i had anorexia they wouldn't treat me psychologically until i'd gained a reasonable amount of weight cos my brain was too fucked by starvation to do therapy at the same time.

when i went into recovery i didn't even know i had CPTSD cos the drugs were masking it so well. it took probably a month into rehab before the trauma really started to surface, because i needed time for the initial upheaval of no longer having drugs to settle in. so they literally couldn't have treated at the start. since then i have done specialised trauma therapy, and therapy that has gone deep into my underlying emotional problems. this was offered via rehab and drugs services, but you need to be in a safe place (rehab) or stable to even start. if not, best case scenario i'd have gone and used, worst i'd have killed myself. trauma therapy in particular, if you bring that stuff up for someone who is not stable then let them go to finish their day you are just putting them in danger.

i get what you mean about 12 steps. i go to NA and it helped me immensely in early recovery. i go to a womens meeting, it has a good age range. i think the dogmatism is essential to people who are in the stage of still wanting to use, there needs to be a clear line. once you are further on it becomes tricky. i have the odd single alcoholic drink with people i know i'm safe around and technically that means i lost my clean time, and they put so much onto clean time, rather than recovery (cos one is easy to measure), that now i don't want to admit it in there. it hasn't come up and i don't intend to bring it up. mind you, i did a long time of complete abstinence from all drugs, long enough to know what my intentions are and be able to trust my own judgement. at the start you basically know your own judgement is fucked, otherwise you wouldn't need other peoples judgement so wouldn't go in the first place. i did everything i was told at NA, drugs services, my therapist, for 9 months with only one slip up before i got a job and started building my life again, and don't think i'd have got to the rebuilding stage without listening to and taking advice from people who had experienced what i had and got out the other side.

Do you still go to NA now? I really should go but it scares me to death going somewhere like that for the first time, I'm such a wimp! I guess there won't be any now though will there Perhaps I should go to an online one instead, that might be a bit easier for me to access. Drugs have been such a huge part of my life, in a good way as well as bad, I've always steered clear of anyone telling me not to do them, but I realise now how bad I was on diazepam for s good while and then the last 2 years on the hard stuff. My judgement actually worries me, because you're right, it's fucked, messed up by chemical and reinforced habits.

Thanks for sharing, as always

 

[dopamimetic]

@chinup I agree with you that one needs to address acute addiction first but all the institutions I know about draw a strict line between people without any addiction history, and the rest. They don't allow them to mix, at no time, independent of how well you do, you'll always end up among the addict folks and while I don't see myself as any better than others, I stay away from scene drug users and experience showed me that this isn't the worst thing for me to do. In fact rehab made me to relapse quite early, it was an open inpatient setting where I wasn't the only one to smuggle drugs in by far (K in my case, others probably coke, the docs caught me by accident because they saw others doing coke and I happened to be not-quite-sober but after I told them it was a dissociative and that I didn't do it in the clinic they didn't even bother to make me fill out the relapse questionnaire lol. Sympathy points for that.)

I've been to both NA as well as AA meetings, not many enough to really make a judgement and while there are certainly worse groups around, it doesn't fit me. Don't like that you should only share and not talk with each other even when I think to get the point about that. It's problematic for me too that everything is centered around the days of abstinence, my target isn't abstinence but controlled use (even when I probably will need to remain abstinent as alcohol just doesn't work for me and the other things are illegal, unfortunately) and my interest in the topic isn't only or primarily attributed to my addictive use but it's a general interest and if possible I wouldn't refuse to make it to a profession somehow but then again it's probably an illusion and I lack the self control for doing so. Also I've heard or read now multiple times, some first hand reports, that more people there are cheating than you'd believe -by nature I guess- and if I don't like something when it comes to therapy is lying and cheating. Then better tolerate some use and relapse.

From what I've seen in rehab, most were much deeper into compulsory use and self destructive behavior, I have been there too but it was me being suicidal not the drugs taking me over completely and loosing my life cause of them. Life was gone before.

Yeah @nznity I'd love to do ibogain, or maybe ayahuasca, in a good, therapeutic set & setting but I can't afford them by any means. I've talked to a major vendor in my region on FB, they do sell the pure bark too but even that is overly expensive and no way that I could or would do a flood dose without counseling or supervision. And I don't even have buddies to trip with. I'm a completely lone stranger freak, which is why I need rehab and/or therapy as the guy I am, suffering from the social anxiety I do, I'll remain lonely and don't want suicidality to take over again now as dissociatives are out of react for me..

 

[Jabberwocky]

its quite normal for treatments to be specialised to one type of problem. if you don't want to have to mix with drug addicts when getting addiction treatment in any sort of group setting than i'm afraid you are stuck. even though there is a lot of crossover, it wouldn't make sense to be giving say, people with eating disorders and drug addicts, the same treatment. i have never met someone who, having been in recovery for a long period, has been denied treatment for other issues- i know plenty of people though NA who have received treatment years into recovery, for things like trauma and anxiety, via mental health services. their previous addiction histories have not presented a barrier to accessing this care.

have you, following discharge from drugs services due to continued progress in your recovery, then been denied treatment for a non drug-related issue via mental health services and advised to seek addiction treatment? this seems to be what you're suggesting. i think i might be misunderstanding your complaint, or it may be something very particular to the way treatment is offered in Switzerland.