When attending addiction treatment, it’s important to make connections with addiction treatment professionals, therapists, and fellow patients. This is because individuals overcoming addiction need to learn how to start a support group if they plan on maintaining sobriety.
It’s often easier to build a support group during addiction treatment. This is because while in rehab, people are surrounded by addiction treatment specialists, therapists, and other people that are recovering from addiction. Unfortunately, though, addiction is a lifelong illness that people need to proactively battle even after rehab is over. Hence why it’s important to learn how to start a support gorup after addiction treatment is over.
What Is a Support Group for Addiction Treatment and Recovery?
A person’s support group is a group of people that individuals in addiction treatment and recovery can lean on whenever they need extra help. Support groups can assist individuals struggling with addiction by helping them manage addiction triggers. Support groups for individuals in addiction treatment and recovery may even intervene and convince the people that they’re supporting to go to rehab if they relapse.
It’s best for the people within a support network to be people that the person in recovery trusts and can be his or her complete self around. It’s also best if the people in an addiction recovery support network have a good understanding of what addiction is. Addiction support group members should also understand the struggles that the person that they are supporting went through as it pertains to addiction. That way, they can provide accurate advice and assistance.
Individuals that are within a support group for a person in recovery from addiction also need to be people that don’t misuse substances and are a good influence. Finally, people in a support group for a person in recovery from addiction need to be people that can empathize with the person that they are supporting. That’s why it’s often best to include addiction treatment specialists, therapists, and other people in recovery in a support network.
What Is the Purpose of Having a Support Group During Addiction Treatment and Recovery?
The purpose of having a support group during addiction treatment and recovery is to assist individuals with addiction so they don’t relapse. No one achieves success in life alone, whether that be professional success or personal success.
Therefore, individuals that are overcoming addiction and maintaining sobriety shouldn’t expect to accomplish those achievements on their own. It takes a village to achieve lifelong sobriety. That village is the support network of the person in recovery from addiction.
How to Start a Support Group for Addiction
It’s important to know how to start a support group for addiction. To start a support group for addiction, people simply need to make connections with others that are empathetic, a good influence, and knowledgeable about addiction. Hence why building a support group often starts with connecting with the addiction treatment specialists, therapists, and fellow individuals in recovery from addiction while in rehab.
Not only do these people deeply understand addiction, but they can also empathize with a person that’s in recovery from addiction. Furthermore, such individuals take addiction seriously and don’t misuse substances. After individuals start their support groups while in addiction treatment, they can grow them while in recovery.
Ways To Grow Your Support Group After Addiction Treatment Is Over?
As mentioned earlier, it’s easier to build a support network while in addiction treatment than in addiction recovery. This is because people in addiction treatment are always surrounded by addiction treatment specialists, therapists, and other people in recovery. Therefore, people in addiction recovery need to be proactive if they want their support networks to grow.
Sober Living Homes
Sober living homes are apartment-style communities in which all the complex’s residents are recovering from addiction. Individuals that live in sober living homes after addiction treatment can easily build upon their support network. This is because the people that live in sober living homes are essentially the same people that are in addiction treatment, except further along in their recovery. Therefore, such people will often make even better support group members than the people that are met while in rehab.
Addiction Support Group Meetings
Where else to build a support group while in recovery than in addiction support group meetings. Addiction support group meetings are casual meetings that are specialized for people based on substance addiction. During these meetings, people talk about where they are in their addiction recovery journey and any obstacles that they’re currently trying to overcome as it pertains to their addictions.
People also learn different tactics that they can use to help them stay sober and in a healthy place while in addiction recovery. Examples of addiction support group meetings include 12-step meetings such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.
People in addiction support group meetings make great individual support group members. This is because people in addiction support groups are already in addiction recovery and seeking to make connections. There is no better place than an actual addiction support group to grow your support group.
Friends and Family
It’s great to have people within a support group for addiction that a person can trust and feel comfortable around. The people in life that people trust most and feel most comfortable around are typically their families and friends.
Not only that, but close family members and friends of a person in addiction recovery likely know him or her and what that person has gone through the best. Therefore, these close family and friends will be able to more easily advise and assist the person in addiction recovery whenever he or she needs them to.
This all goes to say that close family and friends are people that can be a part of a support group for addiction. Just make sure that the family members and friends that are chosen to be a part of a support group for addiction are ones that are a good influence and that the person in addiction recovery truly trusts.
Ongoing Addiction Therapy
Addiction therapy doesn’t have to stop once rehab is complete. In fact, it’s best if it doesn’t. Individuals that are in addiction recovery still benefit from attending therapy.
How often a person in addiction recovery should attend ongoing addiction therapy depends on his or her personal needs. Regardless, the therapist from ongoing addiction therapy is a great person to add to a support group for addiction. This is because the therapist already has a wealth of knowledge about the history of the person with addiction recovery and his or her addiction triggers due to everything that’s been said during the therapy sessions.
If a person attends ongoing group addiction therapy, some of the fellow group therapy members can also become part of a support group for addiction. This is because, like the group therapy members during addiction treatment or in 12-step meetings, such individuals understand what it’s like to suffer from addiction. Therefore, they understand the supportive needs of a person in addiction recovery.
Addiction Treatment Alumni Groups
Some addiction treatment centers contain alumni associations that are made out of people that have completed treatment at their facility. During these alumni association meetings, past rehab members meet up, reminisce, and socialize with one another. Addiction treatment alumni groups are perfect places to build connections with other people that are in recovery and understand addiction.
Volunteer Organizations
Believe it or not, volunteer groups and organizations are great places to meet people that can be a part of a support group for addiction. This is because individuals that volunteer tend to be responsible and empathetic. Therefore, they’ll likely be good support group members.
All volunteer organization members need is knowledge about addiction and a close bond with the person in addiction recovery. Those things will come once the person in addiction recovery builds a connection with the volunteer organization members. All that’s left to happen is to join a group that volunteers for an organization.
Church
Similar to people that volunteer, people that are active in the church tend to be responsible and empathetic. Therefore, individuals in addiction recovery that go to church may be able to connect with people that would make perfect candidates for their support groups.
Online Support Groups
Individuals in addiction recovery that are actively looking for people to join their support groups can search online. With technology apps and tools such as Facetime, Zoom, and Skype, interacting with people online is personal. Therefore, if you join a group online that’s made to support people in addiction recovery, over time you’ll build a connection with people that’s strong enough for them to join your personal support group.
Grow Your Support Groups With Grace Land Recovery While in Addiction Treatment or Recovery
Here at Grace Land Recovery, we understand the importance of building a support group while in addiction treatment and recovery. That’s why we offer a wide variety of addiction and mental health treatment programs and therapies that people can make connections in. For example, we offer various types of group therapy for addiction where people can connect with others.
To learn more about Grace Land Recovery, and the different ways that rehab members can use our addiction treatment programs, therapies, and services to grow their support groups, contact us! We would love to hear from you!