Struggling with a substance abuse disorder or addiction can leave your life in ruins. Addiction alters your thinking, emotions, and behaviors, which can lead to devastating consequences. Even though 10% of Americans will experience a substance abuse disorder in their lifetime, only 25% will reach out for help. Treatment, like addiction counseling through psychodrama, can greatly improve your chances of fully recovering from an addiction.
Since addiction is a chronic and progressive disease, symptoms continue to get worse until you receive help. Addiction can impact your career, family life, and relationships, especially as you place increasingly higher importance on drugs and alcohol. Even when you deal with troubling consequences as a result of your drug use, addiction makes it hard to stop using. The help from a drug and alcohol rehab center helps you create a foundation for recovery, so you can build a life beyond your wildest dreams.
What is Addiction?
Addiction is a chronic mental health disease that causes you to compulsively abuse drugs despite wanting to stop or dealing with severe negative consequences as a result of your use. Even if you recognize your drug use is damaging, irrational, and dangerous, changes to your pleasure and reward center can make it hard to stop.
Drugs are neurotransmitter inhibitors, meaning that they compel your brain to release more neurotransmitters than it should anytime you use. Your brain then associates your drug of choice with pleasure, rewarding your drug use and punishing your abstinence by controlling the release of neurotransmitters. The longer you abuse drugs, the more severe this neurotransmitter imbalance becomes and the harder it is to recover.
Addiction can also negatively impact your physical health. When you abuse drugs, your liver has to overwork itself in order to filter impurities. Abusing drugs like heroin or benzodiazepines can lead to liver damage. Intravenous drug users are also prone to contracting infections like Hepatitis C, MRSA, and AIDS. If you are abusing illicit narcotics, like cocaine or heroin, you also risk your freedom.
What is Addiction Counseling Through Psychodrama?
So, what is a psychodrama therapy program and how does it help treat substance abuse disorders? Addiction counseling through psychodrama is a type of evidence-based therapy that includes things like:
- Role-playing and role reversal
- Acting out certain emotions
- Sharing your thoughts through activities
- Expressing feelings through drama exercises
Addiction counseling through psychodrama combines theater with therapy and provides you with a fun and creative way to participate in treatment. Since certain thoughts and feelings can be difficult to verbalize during group or individual therapy, addiction counseling through psychodrama offers an alternative approach to talking-based therapy.
Psychodrama can be used in combination with other evidence-based addiction treatment programs and holistic therapies and has very few side effects. Psychodrama uses a variety of techniques to help improve your self-awareness and communication skills. During an addiction counseling through psychodrama session, you can engage in activities like role-playing or skits.
Psychodrama can also provide a way to learn how to deal with potential conflicts. For example, you could be asked to create a skit about how to deal with triggers during a psychodrama therapy session. The activity helps you use problem-solving skills to address how you can handle potential risks to your sobriety following treatment. Another benefit of psychodrama is that it can offer you a new hobby or coping strategy. This can decrease your risk of relapsing and strengthen your recovery skills.
Finding Help Today
When you are struggling with addiction, your life can feel overwhelming, frustrating and hopeless. The longer you wait to get help, the more likely you are to experience severe consequences, like a fatal overdose. Treatment offers therapies like addiction counseling through psychodrama that can help you learn how to overcome addiction. To find out more about our addiction counseling through psychodrama program or to discuss your treatment options, call us today at 1.844.768.1161.
