Trauma Resolution

Trauma Resolution Therapy at alcohol and drug treatment centers can include any number of holistic and/or subliminal approaches that can ease the mind and restore harmony within the spirit of the addict. Trauma, by definition, is anything overwhelming to the central nervous system. It could be an injury, a frightening experience, drugs, etc. The brain treats all trauma with equal gravity. Many alcohol treatment centers and drug treatment centers encourage the use of alternative therapies like yoga in order to still and calm the mind that has been traumatized by an event that it is unable to process in a healthy manner. What yoga can provide to the addict or alcoholic in recovery can be valued in terms of mind, body, and spirit.

Yoga is an ancient art form that eastern cultures have used for thousands of years to clear the mind, improve the health, and focus the spirit. It is both a physical activity requiring discipline, and a tool to promote mental awareness and understanding. Many addicts in recovery have comorbid disorders that create a self-perpetuating cycle of alcohol or substance abuse. The event that has fissured the mind of the addict still exists within him or her, sometimes in a manner in which the brain is unable to comprehend that the event is in the past and forces the addict to relive the experience over and over again. Drugs and alcohol become a means for the individual to self-medicate and separate himself or herself from the event. Yoga demands that the practitioner exist in the present, drawing away the focus on outside or internal events. By focusing on a pose or breathing, yoga enables the addict to forget for a moment that they have an addiction, or even a past. Yoga is all about the present.

Drug and alcohol treatment centers are beginning to use yoga more and more because of its ability to keep the addict focused upon a single task. The thoughts of an addict or alcoholic are notoriously scattered. Yoga allows him or her to rein in their thoughts and exist in a disciplined stillness. This can be of great relief to the troubled mind that both wants and fears dwelling on whatever trauma or events that unleashed their spiral into darkness. Through the discipline of poses and deep breathing, the addict finds they are unable to focus equally on the task at hand (yoga) and allowing their mind to drift to something unpleasant.

Because yoga is also a disciplined form of physical exertion, many addicts feel a great sense of pride and accomplishment in being able to achieve the poses and stances required of them by yoga. Drug treatment centers will often have yoga as part of the recovery process that addicts undergo before graduating into out-patient programs.

Somatic Trauma Resolution Therapy         

Conventional alcohol treatment centers and drug treatment centers are catching on to more holistic approaches to dealing with drug addiction and alcoholism. When recovery therapists and addiction research scientists began to see the correlations between alcoholism and drug addiction to disorders such as bi-polar disorder, borderline personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorders, etc. the manner and method of addiction treatment began to change. Drug treatment professionals began to realize that to treat an addiction in someone suffering comorbid disorders meant treating the underlying problem first. As more and more evidence-based medicine arrived to support theories of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in addicts, addiction specialists began to look outside their community for answers. Trauma Resolution Therapy (TRT) has been highly successful in helping “wounded warriors” with their disorder and in healing the trauma-abused mind, trauma resolution also helps heal the compulsion for addictive behavior. There are many different types of trauma resolution therapies in practice: guided subconscious sessions, yoga, and even somatic trauma resolution therapy (STR). Somatic TRT uses the tools of acupuncture in order to release the trauma bound energy in the patient.

Holistic treatment centers began using trauma resolution therapies like yoga from the beginning without ever truly calling it “trauma resolution”. It was just a realization on their part that addicts responded to the self-discipline and “stillness” of yoga. Once more information developed on the brain’s capacity to suppress and store trauma, “trauma resolution” became a practice area.

As more alternative approaches to drug treatment began to make their way into holistic treatment centers with success, conventional alcohol treatment centers and drug treatment centers began to use them. Somatic therapy (STR) utilizes the technique of acupuncture to release tension caused by trauma from the body. It is based upon a theory that the body holds memories of injury or trauma, almost like a spring. The more “weight” or tension added to it is like a spring trap waiting to be sprung. The brain holds onto these memories in areas of the subconscious untouched by rational thought. Through careful facilitation and alternative interventions, the trauma can be discharged safely allowing addicts to release and give up that catalyst of addiction that threatens their recovery.   The acupuncture techniques work on the central nervous system to safely release the trauma-related energy and restore the central nervous system’s natural resiliency. 

Drug treatment centers use acupuncture for both TRT and to promote the body’s own capacity to self-heal. The ravages of drug abuse take a toll upon the body, as well as, the mind. Acupuncture and the structured verbal guidance of somatic therapy have been shown to improve recovery in addicts whose drug addiction is tied to an event(s) that they cannot move past.