Recovery

How to Host a Faith-Based Intervention

Watching a family member or a loved one struggle with addiction can be tough. For many people, it is hard to know when to get involved and how to bring your loved ones back to their faith and start them on their journey of recovery. A faith-based intervention is often the first step. Here is how to go about hosting one and the key information you should know. 

What is an Intervention?

Living with someone addicted to drugs or alcohol is challenging every single day. Many family members and loved ones find it hard to get through to the person and convince them to choose a different path. That is when an intervention can help. 

An intervention is a carefully planned, structured event that allows family members and friends to offer the person they are concerned about an opportunity to make changes. Most interventions are planned together with a medical professional or a licensed substance abuse counselor. Others are conducted under the guidance of a professional interventionist. 

Interventions involve confronting your loved one about their addiction and showing them a way toward seeking help.

Why is a Faith-Based Intervention Different?

Rather than being led by medical professionals or secular counselors, faith-based interventions are guided by a member of your faith and put the Word of God at the heart of the proceedings. 

During the intervention, family members, friends, and spiritual advisors will confront your loved one with the consequences of their addiction. They will give specific examples of how the addictive and destructive behavior has hurt the family and others in the person’s environment. 

The goal of a faith-based intervention is to convince the addict to accept help by committing to a recovery program. Interventions also show the person at the center what each family member will do if they do not agree to seek help. 

How Can I Prepare for a Faith-Based Intervention?

Start by seeking help from a spiritual counselor or a faith-based recovery program such as S2LRecovery. Our team is deeply experienced in handling difficult situations, and we’re here to help you help your loved ones. 

Preparing an intervention usually involves several steps:

  • Plan the intervention together with a spiritual advisor. This will help you navigate emotional situations without letting things spiral out of control.

  • Get together an intervention team. This could be family members but also others who can help keep the discussion focused on addiction and faith-based recovery. Make notes of what you want to say, and don’t be afraid to rehearse your speech. In fact, it is important to stick to constructive language during the meeting.

  • Decide on the solution you want to offer the person struggling with addiction.

  • Decide on realistic, actionable consequences in case your friend or family member refuses the offer of help. Stand firm on these consequences. 

What Happens After the Intervention? 

Ideally, the intervention ends with a firm commitment to enter a recovery program or seek structured help in another way. Even with this commitment in place, the intervention team should make a plan to follow up on the actual intervention meeting. 

Check if your loved one has made arrangements to enter into rehabilitation and set deadlines. You may also need to consider making changes around the home to make destructive behaviors harder and putting in place some form of recovery support.

Remember, recovery doesn’t end when a person leaves a facility. They are in a better place now, but they will still need love and spiritual support to stay on their new path. 

Where Can I Get More Information? 

Not all approaches to drug and alcohol rehabilitation are the same. Whilst the 12-step program certainly has its place, we found that putting the Word of God at the center of our approach has been tremendously successful. 

Leaning on a hopeful future and a community-based model for immediate aftercare has helped us change addicts’ lives. If that sounds like an approach that could work for your loved one, contact our team today. We’re here to help you from the moment you decide to organize a faith-based intervention all the way through to solid aftercare.

 

Addiction Recovery Made Possible Through a Christian Curriculum

Addiction can seem endless. Those who are struggling with addiction often can’t imagine a way out of the darkness and envision themselves living within it for the rest of their lives. This often leads to a hopelessness that makes it even more difficult to turn your life around.

The good news is that this isn’t true. There can be an end to addiction. Those who are struggling can find their way out of the darkness and have the life they dream about. But it’s not going to be easy. This is a long road that takes dedication and commitment. Many people have found their way out of a cycle of addiction, and so can you.

The assistance of a Christian addiction recovery curriculum aids a person struggling with addiction to acclimate themselves to a life of freedom. Here’s how it can help.

Beyond the Physical

There are a lot of aspects of an addiction to drugs and alcohol. A lot of addiction recovery programs target the physical aspects of addiction. Medication-assisted treatment aims to treat a person struggling with addiction by giving them other drugs to ease their bodies through the withdrawal phase. However, this is only one aspect of healing.

People often use drugs and alcohol to cover up a problem with their mind and spirit. This can only be addressed through the teachings of the Bible. S2L Recovery teaches a Christian addiction recovery curriculum based on 7 principles found in the Bible. These principles address all aspects at the root of a person struggling with addiction.

Visit S2L Recovery to learn more about our Christian addiction recovery curriculum.

An Ongoing Plan

Treatments end. And once a person completes a traditional treatment program they are thrown back into their lives without the necessary tools to navigate their new viewpoint. A Christian addiction recovery curriculum consists of teachings that will follow the service recipient (SR) for the rest of their life.

The lessons they learn will help them live a life of Freedom. Freedom from an addiction to drugs and alcohol leaves a person with a vacuum of free time. How are they going to use it? The presence of Christ in their life will give them a reason to focus and provide them with a lifetime of lessons to study.

Never-ending Support

The fellow SR’s and counselors provide a person struggling with an addiction a reliable support system throughout their treatment. But what happens once the treatment is over? This system of support often dries up, leaving the SR to fend for themselves.

This is a major point of difference between a Christ centered recovery program and a traditional recovery program. Those who attend treatment with organizations like S2L Recovery aren’t left with this absence of support. The teachings of the Bible and continued faith in God means they are never alone in their fight.

A New Life

The goal of any addiction recovery is to come out the other side clean, happy, and healthy. A Christian addiction recovery curriculum will go deeper than that and draw people out of their life of darkness and into the light. The teachings of the Bible provide a road map to a life that once seemed impossible.

The 7 Principles Curriculum addresses those things inside you that might not have had your attention in the past. And it will be much easier to move into your new life without reverting to the way things were before when you have these useful tools, perspectives, and teachings.

Proven Results

S2L Recovery is one of the few State-Licensed Christ Centered recovery facilities. This was achieved by combining their Christ centered drug and alcohol recovery program with the clinical and medical world. This gives S2L Recovery a well-rounded view on addiction recovery and allows us to provide a service that you can’t find anywhere else.

And even more than that, S2L Recovery has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® for Behavioral Health Accreditation. This comes in recognition of our strict adherence to high-quality performance standards.

Our Christian addiction recovery curriculum has received certification because it works. We’ve helped numerous individuals that at one time struggled with an addiction to walk in FREEDOM.

Unique and Helpful Treatment

There is a life after addiction. You don’t have to struggle with these tendencies and desires for the rest of your life. The darkness of addiction can be overtaken by the light of Christ through a Christian addiction recovery curriculum.

S2L Recovery can offer this to you. We’ve helped many people to realign their wants, needs, and goals to a point where they emerge a stronger and healthier person. Our 7 Principles Curriculum can show you the way to the light through the teachings of the Living Word.

Contact S2L Recovery today!

What to Do If a Family Member is Struggling with Addiction

Even if we love our family more than anything, they can be trying. It can be difficult to accept someone for all of their positive attributes as well as their faults. We try, but we occasionally fall short. And that’s okay. Because at the end of the day, we’re all human. We’re doing the best we can and that’s all that can be asked of us.

But what happens when the things being asked of us seem beyond our control? What if these things legitimately are beyond our control?

A family member who is struggling with a drug or alcohol problem can often seem like they are beyond the point of being helped. Or maybe, they act as if help is the last thing they want. It is in these times that we fall back on the teachings of Christ and the love we have for our family. Even though it doesn’t make sense sometimes, life’s hardships can persist, and helping a family member who is struggling with an addiction can be one of those times when it doesn’t make sense.

However, this is manageable. This can be done. With a little information, preparation, and a lot of hard work, these impossible situations can become possible. Christian recovery centers in Tennessee like S2L Recovery are here to help. The first steps in this process can often be the most difficult. It’s like a big ball that is hard to move, but once it rolls just a little, the momentum begins to help.

So, here are our suggestions to get that ball rolling.

Start Slow

We often don’t know the extent of someone’s substance abuse struggles. Many people hide their use because they are ashamed. They know it’s wrong but there’s something inside them that propels them toward harmful behavior. And when this happens, it’s up to those who love them to find out exactly how bad the damage truly is.

The thing to remember throughout this process is you don’t want them to grow defensive. This will happen either way, but you should be aware of how your actions and questions are being interpreted. Defensiveness shuts them down when what you most want is for them to listen to you.

So ask questions. Show them you care. And pay attention to their behavior, mood swings, and habits. If there’s something to find, you will find it.

Contact S2L Recovery to learn about their Christian addiction recovery curriculum today.

Get Support

If possible, find others to help you. These habits are often deeply-rooted and are going to be very hard to quit. Getting more people to help you get the point across to your family member that this behavior is destructive and will no longer be tolerated will help drive your point home.

It also helps to simply have a different perspective. As we said earlier, this behavior is often hidden. Putting together the whole puzzle is much easier when others can help you find the pieces.

Speak with friends and other members of your family. If everyone agrees the family member’s behavior is becoming a problem for everyone involved, it’s time to move to the next step.

Confront Them

It’s recommended that a professional is brought in to help guide you through this stage of the process. This can either take the form of an advisor, or a direct participant in the conversation with your loved one.

You will need a plan—who is going to talk, what is everyone going to say, and what you are going to ask of the family member who might be struggling with addition. Write out what you want to say. This will help align your thoughts and make sure you don’t leave anything out. The conversation will be difficult. It’s easy to lose your place or simply forget something you wanted to say. Having this written down will help that.

Bring in a group of people that love and care for your family member. Have them write down their thoughts as well. You want to express you love and concern for them, but also let them know how their behavior has affected you.

There needs to be a direct line toward recovery at the end. It’s up to the family member if they will walk that line, but you need to make your intentions clear. Research Christian recovery centers. S2L Recovery guides their students through a Christ-centered curriculum that teaches them the skills they need to heal while being supervised by a medical and clinical staff.

Get Professional Help

The knowledge and guidance of a professional will help at any stage in this process. Recovery centers in Tennessee like S2L Recovery have helped a number of people get their lives back on track.

Pastor Adam Comer, CEO of S2L Recovery encourages loved ones to:

“Make it as hard as possible for your loved one to stay in a life of Addiction, and as easy as possible for them to walk into a place of Recovery”

Contact S2L Recovery to learn more about their Christ-centered curriculum today.

6 Tips to Avoid Holiday Triggers

Holidays can be tough. Family get-togethers can reignite ongoing arguments. Old friends can come back in town and try to pick up right where they left off. The stress of these and other factors can make it difficult to maintain sobriety. These mental triggers as well as old and familiar circumstances that had previously led a person to use aren’t always able to be avoided. In that case, it’s essential to pay attention and navigate these situations in a way that won’t lead you back into old habits.

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How to Choose a Rehab Facility

The success of recovery for you or a loved one is crucial. Many rehab centers exist to help treat specific kinds of intoxicants or to focus on different "methods." Understanding the options and the depth of each treatment on offer will help determine which program will be the most beneficial.

Because so much weighs on the support received from treatment centers, you need to find out which facilities will meet your needs. At S2L Recovery, we're not just helping others lead an addiction-free life; we were addicts as well. We understand how important it is to find a program and facility that will support you throughout your journey. We've put together these recommendations help you in your research.

Looking for a Rehab Facility

Know their definition of “success.”

Each facility has a different mission. When you're searching for a rehab center, you want to ensure their goals align with yours, especially when it comes to identifying success. Some facilities consider treatment "over" after the program. Others want you to continue attending regular meetings. Understand the scope and expectations of the program before enrolling to determine if their definition of success is righteous.

Investigate all program options.

Accessing as much information as you can about the facility’s programs can help identify which one will help you or a loved one lead an addiction-free life. Well-known addiction recovery programs are typically science-based, spiritual-based, and faith-based. Each one provides a unique approach to obtaining sobriety. At S2L Recovery, we offer a Non-12 Step program designed to prioritize growth, healing, and identifying who we are in Him.

Participants receive individual attention.

Group sessions are notorious for supporting others as they overcome addiction. Studies were conducted and found attending group sessions and relying on mutual support while obtaining sobriety reduced the need for intoxicants. However, not everyone moves at the same pace. Every participant is going to find their journey to be different. Programs that allow men to move forward at their own pace helps them stay on their course. At S2L Recovery, we provide detailed evaluations to determine whether or not each man is ready to advance to the next phase of his journey.

The program has established faith in God.

When an addict is ready to start their new journey, the addiction center should offer a program with lasting benefits that impact the participants emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Faith-based rehab programs are statistically better at helping addicts live a life without the need of intoxicants. Faith in God is a powerful force that helps in healing. By focusing on the will of God, addicts are guided into sobriety with higher rates of long-term sobriety.

Participants are offered life skills.

The first three months after leaving rehab is crucial. Facilities that offer assistance as participants transition from rehab back into their life make a lasting impact. Learning a new normal is taxing. Reintegrating back into society requires support. Find out if your facility offers 24/7 support services for not just the participants, but their families as well. Additionally, ask if they teach participants to believe in their sobriety and the changes they've made. Just because you were an addict once, doesn't mean you will be an addict forever.

The facility is a nonprofit.

Working with nonprofits fair better for attendees. They rely on donations and grants, which means the program is reviewed annually. Rest assured that enough people have seen the program and approved the treatment. Nonprofits are often more affordable than other organizations. Because they don't have to hike up their rates, it gives more people access to their treatment.

You can speak to past participants.

The success of the program can be identified through those who have lived it. Do your due diligence and ask for testimonials or whether or not you can speak with any of the men who have taken the program. A telltale sign of prosperity will be past participants who join the faculty or staff. It means that not only was the treatment helpful but valuable. So much so, they decided to stay to carry on their mission and share in their good faith.

Faith-Based Rehab with S2L Recovery

S2L Recovery's CEO, Adam Comer, says, “truly, I’ve been set free from the grips of addiction. My passions, pursuits, and purpose revolve around the belief that all who are weary from life-controlling issues and addiction can be led to true freedom through Christ”.

Many of our coaches at S2L understand the anguish of living with addiction and share in our passion for helping others. We are a Christian-based rehab center that focuses on sharing the word of God and assisting others to connect in the strength of His word. For more information about our programs, facility, and recovery coaches, visit our website.

Warning Signs of Relapse

We don't instill in our participants the notion that once an addict always an addict. But, we would be remiss to say that once you find freedom, you are immune to all temptations. Relapse is possible. Statistically, the first 90 to 180 days after leaving an addiction center are the most crucial for individuals. Recognizing the signs of relapse will go far regarding treatment. We are complex humans put on this earth by our Creator. Each response to triggers will be different. But, general awareness is progressive.

The Stages of Relapse

Relapse doesn't come to light over a singular event. It evolves over a series of stages.

Emotional

Maybe the first warning sign would be emotional changes. An emotional change would happen before anyone would start using again. Things to look for are a shift in moods, highly anxious, or more negative responses to everyday situations. When the emotions change so will eating and sleeping habits. Lack of sustenance will alter other states of being. But, a good indicator that someone is under emotional duress is not turning to their support system. Identifying any or some of these traits could have a crucial part to play in preventing relapse.

Mental

Mentally relapsing is the second characteristic change. Mentally relapsing includes an internal struggle. The person might question why they stopped using and ask themselves if going back to that lifestyle is something they want. At S2L, we don’t encourage our participants to believe that once an addict always an addict. In times of mental anguish, we encourage those to pause, reflect, and be reminded of the Freedom found in the Lord.

Physical

The final stage is the actual use of the substance. Whether it is drugs or alcohol, once the person has decided to use, it's only a matter of time before they do. The physical stage of using is what most people associate with "relapse." But, as you can see, there are other indicators that if addressed in time, could help someone.

Common Relapse Triggers

We could break down the triggers into two categories: internal and external. External triggers include people, places, and any activity that could spark a response. Internal triggers are complex. These triggers are emotional responses, feelings, or thoughts.

External Triggers

  • People - From friends to family, even strangers can become a trigger. Ideally, those who are going through treatment won't engage with those they know who are using substances.
  • Places - Somewhere with a strong emotional connection could be considered high risk. It could involve negative experiences while they were growing up or have some connection to them while they were using.
  • Activities - Family gatherings, holidays, or celebrations are challenging for those who are going through recovery. Sometimes these events include substances which make attendance even harder.

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange was happening to you." – 1 Peter 4:12

Internal Triggers

People are complex by design. Our Creator designed us this way. Internal struggles will look differently for everyone. But, some common issues transcend most individuals. Stress from work, relationships, or finances could impact the way a person walks through recovery. Assigning negative thoughts or emotions to our self-worth is another strain. Managing and tolerating negative thoughts and feelings is what faith-based recovery treatment centers, like S2L, are designed to do.

Setting Yourself Up for Success

Becoming aware of your triggers takes time. That's why support from the community at S2L is beneficial for success. External triggers can be managed through the identification of people, places, or events. Here are a few questions to ask yourself or a loved one who might be going through a relapse:

  • Are you currently in a situation that makes you want to use?
  • Did any new situations spark thoughts of using substances?
  • Will an upcoming event or time spent with friends or family cause cravings?

You can approach internal triggers the same way. Since internal responses of emotional connection are a little more nuanced, it's encouraged to spend some time on internal reflection and prayer. At times, when we feel like we are empty, we try to fill that void with a form of idol worship.

"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry." Corinthians 10:13-14

Faith-Based Recovery with S2L

S2L Recovery is a Christ-Centered rehab facility located in Middle Tennessee. We believe your addiction doesn't define you. Our curriculum is based on the idea that you do not have to be an addict for the rest of your life. Getting the help you need is the first step to success. Once you commit to S2L, we will be there with you every step of the way, offering you 24/7 support. Contact us to learn more about our curriculum.