ISOLATION AND THE DANGER OF RELAPSE

CONNECTION IS VITAL FOR HUMAN EXISTENCE 

(JZ moved text excerpts from Uniquely RDL/Connection Culture to here.)

Disconnection is the number one issue that inhibits recovery and worsens relapse. This is why our connection with our members extends far beyond the time they are just in inpatient treatment. Plus we are ALL recovering from generational trauma, it is just a matter if we are doing it alone or in community.

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We believe in undoing the aloneness and we create a culture of connection that extends far beyond the physical location of RDL, or your time in residential treatment with us.

All of human life depends on connection.

It is our very beginning.

As we continue to form, our primary connections form the very circuits that become our operating system. Our connections determine our ability to self-soothe and to connect to inner resources (feelings of worth, safety, personal power, boundaries, and a sense of a bright future). Our connections are vital to our ability to self-regulate and to express outwardly into whole, fully developed, healthy, flourishing beings. If there are times in our life, especially during developmental stages when our connections are not secure- if they provide uncertainty or poison rather than stability and vital nutrients- if we are overwhelmed or hurt by our connection to others instead of soothed, we go into disconnection. We disconnect from a sense of belonging and from the instinct to reach out when we are in pain.

We become depressed, anxious, fractured, and dysfunctional in ways that are often pathologized (which only amplifies the issue). Often our sense of being alive is a mélange of non-descript sensory overlays that are too painful to even articulate. We have no ability to know our needs or get them met, we are so embedded in this experience we don't even know it is not what BEING ALIVE is meant to feel like. We are living as our trauma, not our self. In this state of suffering, we turn to destructive substances to cope.

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Group work is one of the many ways we improve positive recovery outcomes. Clients are not as reliant on therapists and learn to trust and bond with those around them. They develop deeper healthy friendships, perhaps for the first time. This restores the innate ability to connect often wounded by trauma and addiction. Often this is an area of life that has not been developed or has been destroyed by substance abuse.

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We can rebuild the template of co-regulation & connection within a safe group and then develop the ability to take that outside the group into our lives, redefining our experience of being with friends, family, and loved ones.

Connection resculpts the traumatized brain as we learn to look beyond our trauma lenses, cognitive distortions, and the often frightening stories we tell ourselves about who we are and our potential. As we hear others' stories, we step out of our suffering and into a sense of being in it together.

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Shame often prevents people from reaching out and asking for help. Aloneness causes detrimental behaviors that are meant to self-soothe. Through group work, we learn to co-regulate in healthy ways. Our groups are a powerful combination of being able to connect with peers and support each other with the added bonus of a trauma-informed specialist to help guide and process whatever may come up in a meaningful and safe way.

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Connection, feeling like there are people who get you and care about you- who are rooting for you- is a key part of recovery. When we can bond and feel the support of connection in safety it eventually becomes our new way of navigating life.