The Role of Peer Support in Addiction Recovery

Peer support in addiction recovery can significantly help recovering addicts achieve sobriety. Oftentimes, while family and friends can be a positive support system, they lack understanding/the experience of going through addiction themselves. This is why peer support is so important as it offers you the ability to seek support and advice from someone who knows exactly what you’re going through. Keep reading to learn more about why peer support in recovery is important for your road to recovery. 

At Outpatient LA, we offer leading outpatient treatment in Los Angeles so you can receive top care to best support your recovery journey. We understand that no two recovery journeys are ever the same. That’s why we offer a comprehensive range of treatment services so you can receive the exact care you need to best support your recovery. 

Ready to start your road to recovery? Contact us today! 

Why Is Peer Support in Addiction Recovery Important?

The role of peer support in addiction recovery is important to help guide a recovering addict’s recovery journey. While close friends and family members can be a huge support system for recovering addicts, oftentimes loved ones may not fully understand what you are going through and therefore cannot provide helpful advice to maintain your sobriety. This is where a peer support group or mentor comes in.

Peer support in addiction recovery, whether it be a mentor who has overcome addiction or a peer support group, provides you with a safe space where you can feel supported and be held accountable for maintaining your sobriety. From giving you expert advice to maintain your sobriety to keeping you accountable along your recovery journey, keep reading to learn more about the many benefits of peer support during treatment. 

Benefits of Peer Support During Treatment

The role of peer support in addiction recovery is critical at virtually any stage of your recovery journey from overcoming addiction to maintaining long-term sobriety.  

Someone Who Understands What You’re Going Through

Peer support, whether through a mentor or support group, provides you with an individual(s) who understands what you’re going through. While friends and family members can offer support during your recovery journey, peer support from someone who has overcome addiction themselves is beneficial because they can give you advice based on their personal experiences. 

Feel You Are Not Alone In Your Fight Against Addiction

Although millions of people struggle with addiction, sometimes, addiction and addiction recovery can feel isolating, especially if you are the only person you know out of your friends or family who struggles with addiction. Therefore, peer support helps you feel less alone in your fight against addiction. 

Gain Helpful Advice to Guide Your Recovery Journey

Peer support also provides you with helpful advice from people who have overcome addiction themselves. These individuals can draw from their own experiences with addiction recovery to help guide you along your own road to recovery. 

Gain Hope and Inspiration That You Can Achieve Sobriety

You can also gain hope and inspiration by being able to look up to someone who has successfully overcome addiction and maintained long-term sobriety. Again, it’s very beneficial to have someone you can look up to as inspiration, especially if you don’t have anyone else in your immediate circle who has overcome addiction themselves. 

Keep You Accountable On Your Recovery Journey

Last but not least, the role of peer support in addiction recovery is to keep you accountable on your road to sobriety. Your addiction recovery journey will inevitably have many ups and downs. Having a mentor or support group ensures you are progressing along your road to recovery and not falling back into old unhealthy habits, relationships, or situations that can potentially jeopardize your recovery journey. 

Help Is Available 

Peer support in addiction recovery is highly effective in helping recovering addicts break free of addiction for good. Individuals who have overcome addiction themselves know what it’s like to struggle with the ups and downs of sobriety. Therefore, they can better relate to and support recovering addicts because they have the personal experience to support others along their recovery journey. 

Outpatient Los Angeles is a premier drug rehab that’s helped many safely and effectively achieve long-term sobriety. You should never feel too afraid or ashamed to ask for help in overcoming addiction. Contact us today to learn more about how you can regain control over your life for the better.

The Role of Therapy in Addiction Treatment

Therapy is effective in better managing mental illness symptoms. However, therapy in addiction treatment is also critical to help recovering individuals safely overcome addiction and maintain long-term sobriety. Addiction therapy plays several different roles in helping individuals effectively break free of addiction. Keep reading to learn more about the role of therapy in addiction treatment.

At Outpatient Los Angeles, we are a leading outpatient addiction treatment center that uses an individualized approach to help patients break free of addiction. We understand how debilitating addiction can be. Using a range of addiction treatments, our team is here to help you every step of the way so you can lead a healthier, happier life. Contact us today to start your road to recovery.   

Why Therapy in Addiction Treatment Is Important?

Addiction treatment is not just for safely detoxing and overcoming your addiction. Addiction treatment involves a wide variety of therapy approaches that can help you establish a healthier, happier life after treatment. Maintaining sobriety can be filled with many ups and downs; however, therapy in addiction treatment teaches you critical coping strategies and skills to help you maintain long-term sobriety. Below are several factors that explain the role of therapy in addiction treatment. 

Develop Coping Strategies to Maintain Your Sobriety

As briefly discussed above, therapy in addiction treatment helps individuals develop healthy coping strategies to maintain their sobriety long-term. Just because you detox and overcome your addiction doesn’t mean you’ll not experience old triggers and cravings to relapse. About 40-60% of recovering addicts relapse after receiving substance use disorder treatment. Therefore, addiction treatment therapies, both traditional and holistic, teach you healthy strategies to recognize triggers and reduce your risk of relapsing. 

Better Understand the Root Causes Of Your Addiction

While there aren’t sometimes clear causes to explain addiction or why someone has a more addictive tendency, therapy allows individuals time to better understand how or why they fell victim to addiction. And, as a result, work on those root causes to prevent them from relapsing. For example, if an individual was abusing drugs or alcohol to help relieve mental illness symptoms, that individual should seek mental health treatment to better manage those symptoms so they don’t fall back into abusing drugs to relieve their mental disorder symptoms. 

Develop Healthy Habits to Lead a Healthier Life

Therapy in addiction treatment can also consist of a range of holistic therapies like art therapy, music therapy, or outdoor-based therapies. Holistic therapies are not only helpful for progressing along your recovery journey but they can also be used when you transition back into your normal everyday life to help maintain your sobriety while practicing healthy habits. 

Rebuild Your Confidence and Sense of Identity

Therapy in addiction treatment also helps you rebuild your self-confidence and sense of identity that may have been fractured due to your addiction. Therapy gives you the ability to reflect on who you are and who you want to be once you become sober. Also, therapy gives you time to forgive yourself and apologize to others for your past, which gives you room to forge a new identity and better life for yourself and your loved ones as you progress on your road to recovery. 

Help Rebuild Relationships with Loved Ones

Finally, the role of therapy in addiction treatment is to also help rebuild relationships with loved ones that may have been fractured because of your addiction. Many addiction treatment centers have family therapy options where you can work towards meeting with your family and close friends and rebuilding those relationships. This is also critical in your sobriety journey as you can then lean on your loved ones for support as you progress along your road to recovery. 

Premier Los Angeles Addiction Treatment Center

Therapy in addiction treatment plays an important role in helping patients not just overcome addiction, but learn healthy coping strategies to achieve long-term sobriety. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, it’s critical you seek professional addiction treatment to help you achieve sobriety. 

Our team at Outpatient Los Angeles is here to help you every step of the way so you can take back control of your life. You should never feel too afraid to ask for help when it comes to leading a healthier life. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you regain control of your life.

Effective Communication Skills in Rebuilding Relationships

A man and a woman talk on the sofa.

According to a Pew Research survey, almost 50% of Americans said they had a family member or close friend who’s struggled with addiction. Addiction can not only hurt the individual, but it can also fracture relationships with loved ones. However, just because addiction may have strained your relationships with loved ones doesn’t mean you cannot heal those relationships. Keep reading to learn about effective communication skills in rebuilding relationships you can use during your own path to recovery.


At Outpatient LA, we provide premier outpatient addiction treatment in LA to help as many patients as possible safely and effectively overcome addiction. We understand how debilitating a disease addiction can be. That’s why we offer a wide range of addiction treatment options to ensure you receive the best care to support you along your recovery journey. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you achieve long-term sobriety. 

Why Rebuilding Relationships Is Important During Addiction Recovery

Unfortunately, addiction is not only harmful to your health and well-being, but it can also cause a significant strain between you and your friends and family. However, during your addiction recovery journey, you can effectively rebuild relationships with your loved ones. It’s important to rebuild these relationships with loved ones during your recovery journey because you can lean on your loved ones for support and accountability along your path to sobriety. Although overcoming addiction may involve many ups and downs, having a strong support system behind you that you can trust can significantly help you maintain your sobriety. 

5 Effective Communication Skills to Help Rebuild Relationships 

Now that you know more about the importance of rebuilding relationships, keep reading to learn about the communication skills in rebuilding relationships you can use in your own recovery journey.

  • Be Open & Honest to Rebuild Trust

First, it’s important to understand that honesty and openness are critical in relationship communication so your friends and family members can start to trust you again. This is because likely as you struggled with your drug addiction, you may have broken their trust in some form (ie. lying about your addiction). Therefore, be honest about where you are at in your recovery journey and be patient as you build back trust in your relationships. 

  • Take Accountability/ Don’t Be Defensive

Next, it’s also important to not be defensive and take accountability for your actions in the past. Although addiction is a debilitating disease that can make you do hurtful and unhealthy things, at the end of the day, rather than blaming your addiction, take ownership that you are working toward achieving sobriety.

  • Improve Your Listening Skills

It’s also important to actively listen to what your family members and friends have to say to fully understand what they are going through. Plus, to understand how your addiction may have hurt them and their lives. While your loved ones are there to support you on your recovery journey, it’s important to acknowledge you have likely hurt them through your addiction. 

  • Maintain a Balanced Conversation

Similar to the above point, maintaining a balanced conversation is another one of the communication skills in rebuilding relationships you must master. In other words, make sure the conversation isn’t one-sided. Open the conversation up so your friends and family members have the opportunity to contribute.

  • Positive Nonverbal Cues 

Last but not least, positive nonverbal cues are an oftentimes overlooked skill when it comes to communicating with others. Positive nonverbal cues include making eye contact and being open and receptive to the people you are conversing with, rather than looking distracted and uninterested (i.e. looking at your phone when someone is talking to you).

Top-Rated Los Angeles Outpatient Addiction Treatment 

Rebuilding relationships with loved ones is a critical part of your road to recovery. While it may take some time and patience to start rebuilding those relationships, the above communication skills in rebuilding relationships can go a long way in mending relationships you may have fractured due to your drug addiction.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, help is available. At Outpatient Los Angeles, we’ve helped many patients break free of addiction once and for all. We offer a comprehensive variety of treatments so you can get the right care you need to best support you on your road to recovery. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you progress on your recovery journey.

Finding Support Groups: AA, NA, SMART Recovery

People talk in a support group.

Millions of people struggle with substance use disorders and mental illness each year. Unfortunately, many people suffer in silence with their condition. Support groups offer a safe space for individuals struggling with addiction (or another condition) to find support and people who can hold them accountable along their recovery journey. Keep reading to learn more about the importance of finding support groups, different types of support groups, and more.

 

At Outpatient LA, we offer premier outpatient treatment in Los Angeles to help individuals safely overcome addiction and lead healthier, happier lives. We understand how isolating drug addiction can be. That’s why our caring staff of addiction specialists are here to help you break free of addiction once and for all. With a range of treatment programs, we offer several treatment options to support you on your road to recovery.

 

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, help is available! Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you take back your life. 

What Are Support Groups?

Before diving into what different types of support groups are, it’s first critical to understand what support groups are and why they can be so beneficial in the recovery process. Support groups are a safe space where individuals share experiences to gain a sense of support and accountability to overcome whatever they may be going through in their lives.

 

There are several benefits of attending support groups, which include:

  • Being surrounded by people who can relate to what you’re going through
  • Opening up in a safe space what you are struggling with
  • Seeking advice and guidance with struggles you’re going through
  • Keeping you accountable to achieve a certain “goal” (i.e. maintain sobriety)
  • Build a community of friends who will support you in this new season of life

 

Finding support groups that align with your recovery needs can be especially helpful as you transition into your everyday life from addiction treatment. This is because support groups provide that additional support system to keep you accountable and maintain your sobriety long-term. 

Different Types of Support Groups

Although support groups can be extremely beneficial to help you maintain your sobriety, it’s important you prioritize attending a support group that fits your needs. This is because there are different types of support groups which inevitably offer variability. Below are 3 popular types of support groups.

What is AA (Alcoholics Anonymous)?

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a 12-step support group program specifically for individuals recovering from alcoholic abuse and addiction. During AA meetings, the goal is to help alcoholics overcome their alcohol addiction and maintain long-term sobriety. Here, you’ll not only face your drinking problem, but you’ll gain a sense of community with other alcoholics striving to achieve sobriety. 

What is NA (Narcotics Anonymous)?

Narcotics Anonymous (NA) is another popular 12-step support group program; however, unlike AA which is specifically for alcoholics, NA is more open to any individuals struggling with drug addiction (including alcohol addiction). Like AA, you’ll not only gain a sense of community and accountability to help overcome your addiction and maintain your sobriety, but you’ll also be able to feel less alone in your pursuit of beating addiction. 

What is SMART (Self-Management and Recovery Training)?

SMART Recovery is another type of support group that helps recovering addicts overcome their addiction once and for all. Unlike AA and NA which use a 12-step process, SMART is not a 12-step program, but rather a process of shifting members’ mindsets from negative to positive so they can resist urges to abuse drugs, thus lowering your risk of relapsing. 

Ready to Start Your Road to Recovery 

Finding support groups right for your unique recovery needs is important. As you can see, there are several different types of support groups available; however, they are not all the same. It’s critical you research support groups near you so you can find the best support group that most aligns with your recovery needs.


At Outpatient Los Angeles, we offer premier outpatient addiction treatment in LA to help as many patients as possible achieve life-long sobriety. Using an individualized approach, we’re here to help guide you along your recovery journey so you can lead a happier, healthier life.

Contact us today to learn how you can break free of your addiction once and for all.