Mindfulness for Addiction Recovery
The newest buzzword in addiction recovery is “mindfulness”. Addiction recovery specialists are finally noticing what people have known for centuries, that the practice of mindfulness is helpful to everyone, but particularly people recovering from an addiction.
Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention is more than just a buzzword, however, it is a scientifically studied treatment approach that requires practitioners to be educated in the psychology of addiction, mindfulness, attention, and habits. If you’re considering treatment at a recovery center that says it offers a “mindfulness” program, ask what credentials their practitioners have and what program they are using. Some recovery centers will use whatever word is popular in treatment to entice clients without having any real concept of what it means.
Science Supports Mindfulness
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, drug abuse and addiction costs the U.S. more than $740 billion annually in health care, wasted productivity, and crime. Abuse of illegal narcotics accounts for $193 billion of that total, and abuse of prescription opioids accounts for another $78.5 billion. In a recent article published in Psychology Today, Applying Mindfulness in Relapse Prevention, the author discusses the merits of mindfulness in recovery and how people can recognize the feelings or urges that have become a signal to them to drink or use drugs, food, sex, etc to try to stop or avoid that feeling.
Urge Surfing Mindfulness Tool
From the article: “Urge surfing is a mindfulness practice developed by G. Alan Marlatt, PhD, as part of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention. Urges, cravings, or impulses to engage in the use of substances or activities, like waves at the ocean’s edge, follow a natural progression—they rise in intensity, reach a crest, crash, and then recede.”
Centered Recovery Programs, located in Roswell, just north of Atlanta, is delighted to announce a real-time recovery program based on scientifically valid methods using Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention clinicians and facilitators. If you’re interested in more information, call 800-556-2966 to speak with Reed for more details.
