Waves of Healing in Addiction

Addiction is multidimensional. As a therapist, when someone greets me in the throws of active addiction, the first piece is to acknowledge their courage and then assess the risk. Tragically, when it comes to substances as opiates, addiction can be life-threatening.

Physical Healing

I met with Eleanor Byrd, a Service Coordinator for StepOne Services. She meets with people in active addiction in need of a safe space to withdraw from opiates. This medically supervised withdrawal is often the person's first step on a long journey of recovery. The opiate epidemic is rampant, and overdose is common.

Medication for assisted therapy and other harm reduction approaches are allowing individuals a greater chance at recovery. Eleanor states "You can't recover if you're dead."

Eleanor's expertise is unique. She carries both a Missouri state credential in harm reduction as well as a lived experience credential. She herself lives in recovery.

Seeking support from the medical system can be a frightful thing. There is often an experience of misunderstanding and mutual distrust between opiate users and medical providers. Eleanor is bridging that gap. She shares, "The people in the macro level making the decisions don't know the clients, but we do. We can advocate for what's needed down here."

Emotions, Relationships, and Meaning

As we speak, Eleanor shares about her role in introducing someone to medical recovery from opiate use disorder. Yet, she acknowledges that often this is just the beginning. It is traditional after detox services for an individual to be linked with longer-term treatment. Once a person is no longer using substances, there is often a shadow of pain, trauma, and untreated mental illness to be faced. It can be overwhelming and place someone at risk of relapse.

This is where the therapy and recovery community come in, in this next wave of healing after medical stability is reached. Psychotherapy for addiction can show up in a million different ways for a million different people. The first focus is on achieving freedom from substance use, but what follows is complex.

Recovery communities can be vital in working through the relational aftermath of addiction. Therapy can complement this work and dive deep into the conditions that led one to use it in the first place. Dual diagnosis of mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder and anxiety along with substance use disorders is common. Treatment of these comorbidities is essential for a complete recovery.

Many also discuss a spiritual aspect of addiction recovery. Within some approaches, addiction itself is viewed through a spiritual lens. Spiritual recovery might or might not include religion. It could also involve rediscovering a sense of meaning.

No two people's recovery journey will look the same. It is an extremely individual journey. A synthesis of 52 studies found that the complex process of rediscovering community, finding meaning, and exploring identity were common in addiction recovery (Kemp, 2019). What that looks like on the ground varies wildly. People often experience multiple waves of healing through dimensions of physical, emotional, social, and sometimes spiritual well-being.

Hope

With support, recovery from addiction is possible. It can come in waves. There is hope.