When we’re struggling with addiction and other mental health issues, working with a therapist is one of the most widely recommended tools. It is also, however, something many of us have a great deal of resistance towards. Is therapy helpful? Can therapy help us as we recover from addiction?
Many of us come from families and communities where therapy is frowned upon and even ridiculed. We’ve been told that paying a stranger to listen to us won’t help us get better. Others of us have been told that all we need is a prayer to lift us out of addiction or depression. Even the most well-meaning people are quick to offer suggestions and remedies they believe to be more effective than therapy.
For some of us, past experiences with therapy being unhelpful or unproductive have convinced us not to try again. We might have worked with a therapist who wasn’t a good match for us. Sometimes, we simply weren’t ready to undertake the difficult work that therapy entails.
Finding Therapy Helpful for Healing from Trauma
However, many of us in recovery find therapy incredibly helpful for several reasons. Therapy can help us to identify the traumatic experiences and wounds that most need our attention. These parts of our lives need to be healed as part of our work to recover. They are often the things that have been fueling our addictions in the first place. For many of us, these wounds and traumas were the catalysts for our addictions first to develop. To cope with the pain of these experiences, we turned to addictive substances and behaviors.
Finding Therapy Helpful for Learning More About Ourselves
We can find therapy helpful in unearthing these experiences and making sense of them. With a trained professional, we better understand these difficult things we’ve been through. We also find therapy helpful because it teaches us more about our behavioral patterns and how to manage our emotions and behaviors without substances better. Some of these emotional and behavioral patterns are at the root of our addictions, and we need help examining them in order to change them.
We learn so much about ourselves and our addiction journeys through therapy. Sometimes, this recovery work is too overwhelming to do on our own. Many of us find therapy helpful because it gives us the support we need as we work through these painful issues.
Finding Therapy Helpful for Having a Safe, Supportive Space
For so many of us, our therapist is the first person with whom we’ve felt safe enough to be totally honest about what we’ve been through. A trusting relationship with a therapist is often the first relationship we’ve ever had where we’ve been able to examine difficult issues and feel safe and supported in the process. We may have been lying to the people in our lives and to ourselves about the nature of our addictions. Disclosing the painful aspects of our lives can feel impossible.
We find therapy helpful because it is a safe space with someone who has more emotional distance from us. Because we don’t have to worry about hurting, disappointing, or upsetting their feelings, we can be even more honest with them than we might be with loved ones. With our therapist, we don’t have to silence ourselves lest they take things personally, as we often do with family and friends. A therapist can be objective and better able, to be honest with us without all of the emotional complexities of a close relationship. We open up to our therapists more because they are not close friends or family members whose love we fear losing.
Therapy sessions and family therapy are an important part of the treatment programs at Athens Area Commencement Center. When we’re in recovery from addiction, the ongoing work we do is bolstered by having a supportive therapeutic relationship.
Finding Therapy Helpful for Its Ongoing Support
Recovering from addiction and mental health issues requires time and dedication. Without support, many of us falter under enormous pressure. We’re dealing with so many difficult emotions and life experiences while at the same time doing our best to stay sober. Many of us find therapy helpful because it provides the support we need over time. When we are having a hard time staying sober, therapy can actually strengthen our commitment to our sobriety.
Our loved ones may feel like they can no longer support us after years of being there as we struggled. They may have found themselves enabling us in the past. In order to prevent themselves from repeating those patterns, they might feel the need to create distance and even separate themselves from us. Perhaps they need to create stronger boundaries with us for their own well-being. Because a therapist is not a family member or friend, they can provide the ongoing support we need as we continue to do the work to recover.
Choosing therapy is one of the many self-care practices we can prioritize in recovery to help us get well. We can commit to our healing and get the support we need by working with a treatment center like Athens Area Commencement Center, where therapy is an important part of treatment. Making time for our healing, choosing to learn more about ourselves, and doing the work to be the healthiest version of ourselves are all so important to the process of getting and staying sober.
When we come from communities and families that look down on therapy, that can make it even harder to want to give therapy a try; among the many benefits of therapy, however, is having a safe and supportive relationship to work on healing from some of our most painful life experiences. With therapy, we can also learn more about our emotional and behavioral patterns, our wounds, and traumas, many of which are the things that are reinforcing our addictions and/or that contributed to their development in the first place. The work of addiction recovery can be too much to do on our own. Reach out for help and call Athens Area Commencement Center at (706) 546-7355.