Healing Through Holistic Substance Abuse Treatment

You might have heard of holistic therapy in the field of addiction recovery, but you will not know what holistic therapy is and the benefits of holistic substance abuse treatments. Holistic therapy refers to an approach that treats the whole person, not only symptoms. The types of therapies involve emotional, spiritual, and physical for a person to heal. It integrates medical, social, and psychological approaches, promotes self-discovery, and empowers individuals to live a beautiful and self-discovery life.

An holistic approach to substance abuse treatment

An holistic approach to substance abuse treatment takes into account the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual needs of the individual. This approach uses non-medical things but can include clinical care too. However, these methods use prescription drugs for individuals to overcome substance abuse. The main goal is to treat addiction from all sides of life. It can be physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental, so it provides long-lasting recovery to the person.

According to the National Centre for Complementary and Integrative Health Research, out of 10 adults, 4 adults in the United States use a CAM, which is growing. The main feature of therapy it focuses on the root of treating the whole person rather than focusing on a single element of an individual’s symptoms. With this concept, a holistic approach to the addictive behaviors of a person is not addressed, but the root cause of addiction is identified.

Benefits of Holistic substance abuse treatment

1. Addressing mental health issues: The therapy provides information to the mind about addiction and how to cope with negative thoughts and emotions through mindfulness practice or behavioral therapy programs.

2. Stress management: Stress is one of the emotional issues that leads a person to consume or abuse substances. Holistic substance abuse treatment helps in reducing stress with physical exercise, mindfulness, and relaxation techniques. As stress is managed, therapies can manage a person’s cravings for drugs or alcohol. According to GOQii India Fit Report 2022-2023 indicates that 24% of Indians struggle with stress.

3. Relapse prevention: An holistic approach to substance abuse treatment of the whole person addresses the reasons for the addiction and what type of addiction a person has. The therapies help in balancing the emotions and shift their cravings into positive things.

4. Life skills: An holistic approach to substance abuse treatment includes life skills to manage everyday living. The skills such as creative thinking, problem-solving time management, organizational skills, conflict, and financial management.

5. A better overall well-being: The holistic approach improves the health of body, mind, and spirit. Also, it encourages people to adopt healthy lifestyle habits by eating nutritious food, regularly exercising, and spending quality time with family and friends. Another treatment in holistic medicine depends on addiction symptoms.

 Holistic substance abuse treatment

Holistic substance abuse treatment provides personalized treatment. The treatment is designed to help with various areas, such as emotional disturbances, negative thoughts, nutritional deficiencies, spiritual development, and physical damage. Many approaches to holistic therapy are connected with medical services that treat essential physical and emotional symptoms equally for treatment. Let’s understand some of the holistic treatments are as follows:

1. Nutrition therapy

Exercise is important for your good health, so a nutritious diet is essential. As a result, many treatment providers provide education on nutritional diets. However, there are certain foods you need to avoid, such as sugar; if you get more sugar, then you are addicted to sugar. Avoid harmful foods and eat nutritious food.

2. Yoga

Yoga helps control and relax the body. Also, it is useful while you’re stressed out as it relaxes your mind too. It helps in balancing the enzymes, hormones, and adrenal and mitochondrial activity. These body functions slow down with age, and regular yoga brings us to a state where our body functions are maintained at the same level.

Additionally, incorporating yoga activity into holistic practice provides a 360-degree view of health, as it covers all areas such as mental, physical health, emotional, psychological, and spiritual health. According to research, 95% of participants say that physical fitness is possible because of yoga.

3. Massage therapy And Acupuncture

When you have to release stress and relax the body, massage is the best holistic treatment to provide as it gives physical and emotional relaxation. Also, a massage improves blood circulation in the body which leads to lower blood pressure and heart rates and improves immune function.

Acupuncture is found in traditional Chinese medicine. It is useful to restore the balance of the body after consuming harmful abused substances. As stated in principle, around 2,000 acupuncture points in the body are connected by pathways. These pathways provide an energy flow in the body that affects a person’s health and well-being. According to one of research 5690 patients who take acupuncture treatment have a success rate of 79.7%.

4. Physical Fitness Therapy

When you keep your body fit you feel mentally and emotionally good. To keep your body fit you can participate in sports, dance, or other physical activities that can boost your energy. The exercise helps in releasing endorphins, which relieves pain and reduces stress, as it helps maintain long-term recovery. Also, regular exercise reduces substance abuse.

5. Art therapy

Art is a multimedia approach, which offers time and space for contacting picture media like painting, drawing, and natural materials and the performing media like theatre, poetry, drama, photography, etc. It helps people to open their hearts, which is essential for their recovery from substance abuse. Additionally, it is useful when a person is uncomfortable to share their feelings.

6. Wilderness therapy

An holistic approach to substance abuse treatment includes wilderness therapy. Wilderness therapy uses nature and provides education to improve behavioral health. It helps people who are struggling with mood disorders, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation. Also, this adventure therapy treated alcohol and drug addiction. Additionally, this therapy is not limited to groups and individuals, it helps in developing important life skills such as exercise, leadership training, and nutritious meals.

This therapy is beneficial for people who face problems in expressing themselves verbally. When a person is doing these activities the therapist observes a person and gets to know their behavior patterns that the therapist is not able to see in an office setting.

7. Sand tray therapy

This holistic substance abuse treatment is useful for analyzing the psychology of a person and helps in interpreting the unconscious thoughts of a person. This form of interpretation relies on behavior rather than direct verbal communication. The goal of sand tray therapy is to provide development of the individual self, help in understanding their inner thought processes, and discuss it with a therapist to solve the problems.

In this therapy, people use mini figurines to tell about their inner world. The person makes figures in the sandbox, which helps therapists to analyze what is there in the mind of patients with the observation of the figure for their addictive behaviors.

8. Solutions focused therapy

Solutions-focused therapy is holistic substance abuse treatment. The therapy uses acknowledgment, compliments, scaling, goal negotiation, gratitude, and validation to help patients identify their strengths and resources to achieve their goals and live a beautiful life.

• Acknowledge – “For You” to acknowledge a person’s feelings for the situation.
• Compliments – People who suffer from substance abuse have low self-esteem so complement helps in building self-esteem. During therapy, the therapists pay attention to the client’s strengths and resources and point them out in the patients.
• Scaling – Therapists rank the patient’s priorities on a scale of 1-10. For example, questions like how much you are satisfied with goal achievement? Which goal is important for you?
• Goal negotiations – In goal negotiation, the therapist learns about the patient’s motivation for drug use with questions.
• Gratitude – In solutions therapy loved ones appreciate each other’s good things.
• Identify and highlight victories – When counselors point out the victories of clients’ progress, it motivates them to stay in addiction treatment. The victories can be emotionally transparent, reflecting upon consequences, successfully achieving goals, etc.

How do Holistic Addiction Centres Work?

When you enter the holistic addiction recovery centres, the first step is a detox program. In detox, instead of medication, herbal supplements are used, and diet changes.The concept of detox is clearing your body of toxins and making you feel free of abuse. After that, you can focus on addressing the cause of your addiction with therapy and find a way to reduce stress by doing meditation, yoga, or other holistic practices. The purpose is to heal the body, mind, and soul. Also, with these therapies, you will live a healthy lifestyle that provides you with a beautiful everyday life. This way, holistic substance abuse treatment takes place in the centres.

FAQs: Holistic Substance Abuse Treatment

1. Is holistic substance abuse treatment Evidence-Based?

There are treatments based on evidence, such as cognitive behavioral therapy and medication assistance. Holistic substance abuse treatment is a growing therapy in the addiction recovery field. The benefits of therapy are increased well-being, knowing oneself, and helping with depression or anxiety. Moreover, these therapies that are constantly used have no harmful effects.

2. What type of addiction treatment does Holistic Therapy do?

Addiction treatment such as Alcohol addiction, Drug addiction, Gaming, Gambling, food, porn, and Cryptocurrency addiction.

3. How is a holistic approach to substance abuse treatment practical in rehab?

There is not much research based on holistic therapy. But this therapy makes people feel at ease and productive and helps them cope with the challenges of life with detox and rehab. For these reasons, holistic substance abuse treatment is a positive complement to evidence-based therapy.

Conclusion

A holistic substance abuse treatment approach offers various methods for addressing the issues of human life.  The various treatment methods such as nutritional support, yoga, fitness, art, massage and acupuncture, wildness, sand tray, and solutions-focused therapy. This therapy helps in achieving lasting recovery. This holistic approach to substance abuse treatment recognizes the interconnection between mind and body, which fulfills your life and provides a drug-free life.

Relevance is a drug addiction and mental health treatment center in New Jersey. At Relevance Recovery, we take a broad spectrum approach to treatment that includes many treatment options you won’t find just anywhere, including treatment for mental health and holistic treatments. At Relevance, we provide a robust detox routine with medical supervision to counter the effects of withdrawal and any medical complications that can occur during the detox process and treatment.