About Addiction Counseling
Addiction counseling addresses the symptoms of drug addiction and related areas of dysfunction and the content and structure of the client's ongoing recovery program. Addiction counseling focuses on behavioral change, 12-step ideology and tools for recovery, and self-help participation.
The primary goal of addiction counseling is to help the client achieve and maintain abstinence from addictive chemicals and behaviors. The secondary goal is to help the client recover from the damage the addiction has done to the client's life. Addiction counseling works by first helping the client recognize the existence of a problem and the associated irrational thinking. Next, the client is encouraged to achieve and maintain abstinence and then develop the necessary psychosocial skills and spiritual development to continue in recovery lifelong.
Within this addiction counseling model, the agent of change is the client. The client must take responsibility for working a program of recovery. However, although recovery is ultimately the client's task, he or she is encouraged to get a great deal of support from others such as the client's counselor, sponsor, drug-free or recovering peers, and family members.
Addiction is thought to be a multi-determined, maladaptive way of coping with life problems that often becomes habitual and leads to a progressive worsening in life circumstance. Combined with detoxification, initial medical and psychosocial assessments, and ongoing participation in a self-help program, individual and group addiction counseling can make a complete treatment package. However, these treatments may also be used in conjunction with pharmacotherapy, other medical therapies (e.g., acupuncture), family or couples therapy, or professional psychotherapy.
Participation in a self-help program is considered an extremely valuable aid to recovery. It helps recovering individuals develop a social support network outside of their treatment program, teaches the skills needed to recover, and helps clients take responsibility for their own recovery. In addition to encouraging clients to attend self-help groups frequently and to locate a sponsor, the addiction counselor educates clients about the 12-step program and incorporates many of its concepts into the content of the counseling. Breaking through denial; staying away from negative people, places, and things; taking a personal inventory; working on character defects; and spirituality in recovery are among the concepts discussed within the content of the counseling sessions.
As to 12-step versus other programs, participation in any legitimate self-help program the client gravitates toward, such as Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families, Rational Recovery, Women for Sobriety, Life Ring, and 12 Fold Recovery Path are supported. However, because the 12-step approach to recovery is well known, more widely available, and has been an integral part of many addicts' recovery programs, it is this approach in addiction counseling that is drawn on.
See my page on 12 Step Education for links to meetings in the Denver metropolitan area.