Addiction to drugs or alcohol is a complex disease. It doesn’t just impact the body in the form of cravings and withdrawal symptoms. It also affects you mentally, emotionally and spiritually. There are many forms of treatment that successfully help people with substance abuse disorders to recover and live a full, healthy life. One of the most progressive groupings of these therapies is holistic healing.
Effective rehab treatment doesn’t center entirely around getting you off of a substance. Obviously, that’s a necessary aspect. However, a successful recovery depends on achieving far more. That’s where a holistic therapy program fits in.
What is Holistic Healing?
Because drug abuse and addiction take over every aspect of your life, this therapeutic healing seeks to give you effective ways to mend and feel more like a whole person. It focuses on techniques from nature as well as from cultural traditions around the world.
Examples of holistic healing methods include the following:
Energy Work (Including Reiki)
Energy work is an emerging field of treatment that uses energy practices to help individuals overcome addiction. These energy practices can involve energy healing, tapping, and meditation techniques. Energy work can be used to help individuals reduce cravings and create a better sense of well-being. It can also be used to break the cycle of addiction and aid in developing healthier habits. Energy work for addiction can help individuals gain insight into their own patterns of behavior and uncover underlying issues that may be causing the addiction.
Acupuncture and Acupressure
These are two forms of alternative medicine used to treat addiction. Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medical practice that involves inserting very thin needles into specific points on the body to stimulate healing and reduce pain, while acupressure is a form of massage therapy that uses pressure placed on certain points along the body to relieve pain and tension. Both methods are thought to be effective in treating addiction by helping to decrease cravings, reduce withdrawal symptoms, and improve overall emotional balance.
Massage
Massage therapy can be used to help people who are dealing with addiction in many ways. This type of therapy encourages the release of endorphins, which can reduce feelings of anxiety and depression that often occur when recovering from an addiction. It also helps to relax tight muscles which can result from chronic stress caused by substance abuse.
Yoga and Meditation
Yoga and meditation provide powerful tools for recovering addicts. Practicing yoga or meditation can help those in recovery from addiction to develop better coping strategies, improve physical and mental health, reduce stress levels, and gain control over their addictive behaviors. Through the practice of mindful movements, relaxation techniques, and breathwork, individuals can create a sense of inner peace and greater self-awareness.
Nutritional Therapy
Nutritional therapy is an evidence-based approach to treating addiction that focuses on providing optimal nutrition for the individual. It works by addressing the underlying nutritional deficiencies associated with the substance use disorder and helps restore balance in the body’s chemistry. Nutritional therapy involves dietary changes, supplementations, lifestyle modifications, and other therapeutic techniques to help an individual manage their addiction.
The Goal of Holistic Healing
The underlying goal of holistic healing, as with other addiction treatment methods, is to focus beyond just the behaviors that keep you going back to your substance of choice over and over again. The key is to get to the underlying causes of your addiction as well as what triggers your use so that you can put addiction behind you once and for all. This is the difference between treatment that fails to keep patients from relapsing and treatment that empowers patients to sustain a long-term recovery.
The Five Elements of Holistic Treatment
Healing the whole person via a holistic drug rehab program involves coming at recovery from several angles at the same time. In general, the following components are necessary:
- Helping you to understand and put into perspective the emotions that led to and feed your addiction
- Dealing with physical symptoms
- Finding a healthy way other than drugs to express your spirituality as you see it
- Changing unhealthy eating habits that have resulted in a neurochemical imbalance
- Purifying your body of environmental contaminants and toxins
In most cases, these holistic healing measures work effectively alongside traditional, evidence-based addiction therapies. The idea is that holistic therapy complements evidence-based therapy to give you a more well-rounded recovery process.
When the Time Has Come to Get Help
If addiction is becoming a burden so heavy that you can no longer carry it, Crestview Recovery is here to take it off your shoulders. In our ideal location in beautiful Portland, Oregon, the staff at Crestview Recovery understand the importance of looking beyond the immediate consequences of addiction. Instead, we help you heal as a whole person.
Many rehab centers can claim to have a holistic healing focus, but that isn’t always the case. At Crestview Recovery, we live this philosophy, and it’s reflected in everything we do.
When you come to us as a client in our partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, outpatient, or aftercare programs, you’ll see what we mean. Our residential program boasts the following customizable features leading to optimal healing:
- Complete, comprehensive physical, mental health, and addiction evaluation
- Evidence-based addiction treatment customized to meet your needs
- Individual and group therapy sessions to foster healthy relationships and an understanding of your addiction
- The natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest with outdoor exercise recreational therapy, including white water rafting, skiing, and snowboarding
- Focus on spiritual healing through mindfulness meditation
- Nutritional counseling for physical wellness
Holistic Treatment Could Be Your Key to Recovery
Today can be the moment when you break the chains of addiction and begin your transformation. Call one of our caring professionals at Crestview Recovery today at 866.262.0531. With your courage and commitment and our help, your healing can begin right now.
Since 2016, Dr. Merle Williamson, a graduate of Oregon Health Sciences University, has been the Medical Director at Crestview Recovery, bringing a rich background in addiction medicine from his time at Hazelden Treatment Center. He oversees outpatient drug and alcohol treatments, providing medical care, setting policies, detox protocols, and quality assurance measures. Before specializing in addiction medicine, he spent 25 years in anesthesiology, serving as Chair of Hospital Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and Chief of Anesthesia at Kaiser Permanente. This experience gives him a unique perspective on treating prescription drug addiction.
