Relapse Prevention for American Indians In Utah
Today I was honored to present to the American Indian Section at the University of Utah’s School on Alcoholism and Other Drug Dependencies. This tract is planned for individuals who are involved with American Indians and alcoholic rehabilitation programs and those who are interested in expanding their knowledge in substance abuse, group counseling, program evaluation and community organization.
The primary objective of this section is to provide students with an understanding of the unique alcoholism and drug problems of American Indians with an accompanying knowledge of methods to treat their problems. Many of the participants of my presentation on Relapse Prevention reported that one of the troubling problems they experienced was a flood of chronic relapse clients. Some of their clients had been through their programs two or three times and still relapsed. Some of my objectives for my presentation were for the participants to better understand the progressive nature of relapse.
I endeavored to help the participants learn how to explain to their clients the concepts of relapse warning signs and high risk situations and how not recognizing and dealing with them can lead to relapse. By the end of our session participants reported they felt better able to assist their clients in developing simple high risk situation and warning sign relapse prevention plans.
I explained that many programs took chronic relapse clients back into their programs and put them through an identical treatment protocol. I explained that doing so was a waste of time, energy and money as well as keeping the client in a no-win position. I then explained the several possible reasons for their problems with chronic relapse clients.
(1) Many of the people labeled as “chronic relapsers” did not relapse at all because in order to relapse someone must be fully engaged in recovery first. I then explained that to be in recovery people need to meet four basic criteria:
(a) Admit and accept that they really do have an addictive disorder and be able to articulate this in no uncertain terms.
(b) Have hope and belief that not only is recovery possible for them but it is preferable/
(c) Be able to demonstrate recovery foot work biologically, psychologically, socially, and spiritually.
(d) Build a track record of at least 90-120 days of abstinence. Many of the participants saw that many of their repeat clients probably didn’t meet theses prerequisites. Many of them would need to have Denial Management Counseling treatment to help minimize treatment resistance and eliminate denial of their addictive disorder.
(2) Some of their clients did meet all of those four areas above but they ended up drinking and/or using other drugs do to hitting high risk situations involving trigger people, places, and things (situations) that led them to using again despite their honest commitment to be abstinent. These people need Relapse Prevention Counseling which is designed to help clients identify and manage future high risk situation thus lowering significantly their risk of relapse.
(3) Another reason that some recovering people go back to alcohol and other drug use after coming out of denial and learning how to manage high risk situations is due to the presence of pre-existing core personality and life-style problems that usually pre-dated the addictive disorder. These people need Relapse Prevention Therapy which is designed to help clients identify and manage the warning signs that eventually lead to high risk situation and alcohol and other drug use.
To learn more about relapse prevention and how to get training in the Gorski-CENAPS® Model of Relapse Prevention please go to the CENAPS consultation and training website. You can also go to our Addiction-Free Pain Management® website to see how I’ve adapted this model for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders.
To learn more about chronic pain management and denial please check out my article From Denial to Effective Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page. You can also check out my article Managing Pain Medication in Recovery.
To check out my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.
You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people in chronic pain or are living with chronic pain and have any resistance or denial and want to learn how to develop a plan for helping to identify and manage denial please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Denial Management Counseling for Effective Pain Management Workbook. To purchase this book please Click Here.
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