Private Rehab: The 10 Commandments

When choosing a rehab for your recovery services, you want to know what is the standard, so you can make your choice with an informed perspective. The following are a list of 10 key components that should be present in a quality rehab experience:

#1 Thou shalt be engaging with each potential client.
The quality rehab puts resources and high level staff up front in their call center. Each caller is a potential client. A client of either your rehab, or another rehab. We make sure you get the help you need. Hopefully with Paradise Recovery. If not, then with another quality facility.

#2 Thou shalt be respectful, yet frank with the client.
It is the responsibility of the rehab to inform you what they've found what works! You are not an expert in addiction recovery. They are. However, the staff should have a respectful and professional manner. For many clients it is a matter of life or death, so the work is critical. The message needs to be clear and consistent. Our message is: "Recuperatio Primoris (Recovery above all else)!"

#3 Thou shalt not be over accommodating.
When choosing a private rehab primarily whether the facility has a "private flat screen television" or "total use of your cell phone" or "days for shopping sprees" works against you and a sustainable recovery. All these things have NOTHING to do with your recovery. The quality rehabs know what their mission is: To help you transform from an addicted person to a person in recovery. They do this by providing you with a structured, practice-based environment with consistency. You can watch all the television shows, cell phone conversations and shopping sprees after you leave your treatment experience.

#4 Thou shalt offer quality individual recovery-focused psychotherapy.
Most addicts are dealing with not only the substance addiction, but also an emotional instability or even a major mental illness. Therefore, individual therapy is crucial to discover the family or origin issues, childhood traumas, personal belief systems, practice expression of feelings/emotions.

#5 Thou shalt not advertise non-scientific rates of success..
Some facilities are bold enough to say they have "the cure" of addiction. This is just not true. Be careful not to be sold a twenty-first century "hair growing tonic". Scientifically, there is NO cure for addiction. In fact, relapse is often inevitable, but the difference is how you manage the relapse makes all the difference.

#6 Thou shalt offer traditional and complimentary medical interventions.
Many facilities accept you for admission during the detox phase of recovery. It is critical that you are care for by medical professionals that monitor and intervene with the best supports possible to make your detox as comfortable as possible. Working with a registered dietican during this phase of your treatment is critical to provide the necessary vitamins and nurtrients needed to get you through the detox.

#7 Thou shalt not cater to laziness and sloth during the first ninety days of treatment.
Your primary treatment program (rehab) should be a rigorous, scheduled program filled with individual, group, family and community groups that attempt to transform you away from addiction and self-desctruction to a life of healthy, right ordered living. Choosing a program that permits you to be lazy and not work their program is not doing you any good. They're just taking your money.

#8 Thou shalt use the 12-Steps as a foundation and offer alternatives to those needing another path towards recovery.
It has been proven time and time again that the 12-Steps and 12-Traditions of AA have worked for millions of women and men for over 50 years. Of course, some people, for ligitimate reasons, do not wish to engage in the 12-Steps. However, a program needs to assess WHY the person is not willing to engage in a process that has proven to work. If they insist, then other options are open to them: Christian-based/Scripture recovery, Intensive therapies (individual, group and family) along with acupuncture, neurofeedback, EMDR, etc.

#9 Thou shalt work on an optimal aftercare and monitoring program after discharge from the program.
It has been said, that a program is only as good as its aftercare approach. A quality program understands they cannot sustain your recovery without establishing the scaffolding needed for you to rest upon during moments of relapse. Monitoring is seens as an optimal way for an individual to stay clean and sober after they complete at least 60 days of primary treatment and have a sponsor to call in difficult times.

#10 Thou shalt have follow-up contact with the client after they complete the program.
The therapist making contact with you after you leave the program is an important offering. You have done good work with this therapist and hopefully, if you completed the program, have established a healthy relationship (maybe for the first time in your life) with someone. That they call you reguarly for up to one year, is critical in maintaining that trust and hopefully a sustained recovery from alcohol, drugs or whatvever your addiction may have been.

These commandments are designed to assist you when choosing your private rehab. Paradise Recovery obeys all the above commandments and subscribes to best-practice principles with each and every client that comes through our beachfront home in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Call us today and speak with one of our recovery counselors at (866) 478-9898 24-hours a day.
Recuperratio Primoris!

Meditation and Recovery

On of the most difficult aspects of developing a program of long term sobriety is to develop a practice of meditation. Despite this meditation is integral to most addiction treatment and certainly to a meaningful 12-step program. The purpose of mediation is quite clear--the alcoholic/addict in early (and sustained recovery) has a tricky and ever active mind. The discipline of meditation (and it is a discipline)allows for the addict mind to be still, quiet, and contemplative. And it is this stillness that some relief can be obtained--perhaps some peace.

And what addict wants to know some sense of peace--isn't that what the galloping after a substance is all about?

Over the course of the last decades, a wide variety of meditation practices have become westernized and are readily available to those that seek. The most common method is to simply sit still and attend to one's breath. This form of mindfulness--focusing only on the air coming into one's lungs and then attending to each exhale is a simple method of centering one's attention, focusing one's mind, and increasing awareness of a simple bodily function.

If you're so inclined, try a few simple breaths right now. Go ahead, close your eyes and simply feel your breath. It's easy to start, but hard to sustain.

With practice, most can expand this practice to more than a few breaths, some can do it for minutes, even large portions of an hour.

At Paradise Recovery, we work to help the addict learn simple tools that can help them in recovery. Mindful breathing is simply one method of meditation we strive to impart to the newly sober. It's one way we try to help the undisciplined addict learn discipline

Watch here for further discussion of other methods.

Alcoholism and Drug Addiction: Lessons Learned

Most people have difficulty taking a meta-perspective to their addictions and figuring out what and why they are doing while addicted. However, I've treated both women and men in recovery who often say "I thank my addiction. I wouldn't be the person I am today without it!" It sounds strange. Why would you want to thank your addiction? It causes much pain and isolation. It appears that when a person can discern meaning in their life's narrative, they are more likely not to return to these behaviors, since they have learned what they needed to learn and moving on to the next phase of their lives.

What can a person "learn" from their addiction? Well, the learning usually occurs in contrast to the recovery they practice secondary to their addiction. For example, a client recently shared with me "without my addiction I would not have learned to have empathy for those struggling with addiction and other dark forces in their lives". This person is a physician who travels the world assisting poor countries with outbreaks of epidemics and their health care needs. He has become empathic secondary to his addiction to alcohol and pain medications. He came to understand the "meaning" of his addiction and replaced it (with the help of professionals and the 12-Steps)with a life of giving kindness without counting the cost!

Addiction is not to be glorified. However, once you begin the contemplative journey towards recovery, don't necessarily reject your experiences as an addict, but bring them along with you into your recovery. If you, or a loved one is struggling with addiction and trying desperately to be sober, please call our 24-Hour HelpLine at (866)478-9898.
"There is no coming to consciousness without pain"
Carl Jung

Recuperatio Primoris! (Recovery above all else)

Dr. Bill Heran

Addiction Recovery from the Ocean?

Well, yes. The ocean can be part of your recovery. The ocean waves are powerful, yet can be gentle and calming. The ocean represents a force outside of yourself. A force that you can't control, but you can accept. Your environment is part of your recovery. The location of the drug rehab or alcohol rehab. Is it located in a spiritual place, a place of healing? Is it a peaceful environment that is conducive to internal change? Can you hear the ocean waves as you drift off to sleep at night?

At Paradise Recovery, you can hear the waves gently lapping against the white sand beach, just steps away from your bedroom, as you drift off to sleep. The program is located in a very spiritual place regarded by the ancient Hawaiians as a powerful place of healing. You feel the healing power as you walk in the front doors. You also feel the sense of calm and peace.

Environment. It is part of the healing process going from the outside in. It is the easiest part of treatment because you don't have to do anything except experience it.

How important is spirituality in addiction recovery?

The decision to confront an addiction, whether alcohol, drugs, sex, or gambling requires a great deal of personal inventory, discovery, and/or re-discovery. In most addicts lives, running from core issues in our lives (e.g. feelings of worthlessness, childhood trauma, grief/loss, mood swings, etc.)helps to maintain the addiction and the numbing effects of the drug or process addiction.

Recovery requires nothing less than transformation! I often say this as a "mantra" when greeting new clients to Paradise Recovery. For certain, the addiction required your full and undivided attention, so recovery will ask for nothing less.

Spirituality is a key component to recovery. Notice, I'm not saying, "religion". Spirituality means having to do with your inner world and how your inner world connects with the inner world of another or some other thing. Often the aim of spirituality is peace and inner serenity. However, spirituality has aided many women and men through rough times and when life appears hopeless. Spirituality is both the container and the items in the container. You partner with spirituality to become the most authentic and happy person you can become...you thrive!

The self-help movement of alcoholics anonymous (AA)and more recently narcotics anonymous (NA) has been described as the most powerful spiritual movement of our time. The authentic connections, sharings, tears, laughter, coffee, etc. are all ingredients to a spirituality that works for many people who buy-in to the transformation concept.

Each person needs to find out for themselves what and how spirituality will bring them to the inner peace and serenity, while not running anymore from the "black pains" in our lives. Obviously, spirituality is very important. It is the ongoing relationship with yourself. You becoming YOU!

If you or a loved one is struggling with an addiction, please do not hesitate to seek help. The transformation required cannot be accomplished alone! Call our HelpLine at (866) 478-9898.

Recuperatio Primoris.