Staying Sober Through Your Outpatient Alcohol Treatment Florida Program

When you first stop drinking, it’s usually best if you don’t spend any time around other people while they’re drinking at all. In fact, we recommend to the clients in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program that they stop spending time with anyone who isn’t supportive of their recovery. But it’s not fair to ask all your friends and loved ones to stop drinking too just because you’re going through our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program. At some point during your time in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program, you’re going to have to go to an office party or social function where others will be drinking. How will you resist the temptation to drink?

Have a Plan

Resisting the temptation to drink in social situations is easier when you have a plan in place beforehand. You may want to talk to your counselor in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program about your personal relapse prevention plan in social situations where others are drinking around you. Read on to learn more about how you can stay sober in the face of temptation.

The worst thing you can do when you’re still in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program is go into a situation where you know people will be drinking without a plan to keep yourself safe. You should be using your time in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program to learn the coping skills that will keep you sober for the rest of your life. If you’re going into a drinking situation during your time in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program, know what nonalcoholic beverage you’re going to drink, how long you’ll stay, and when and how you’re going to leave.

Focus on Being Present

The reason you’re in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program to begin with is because alcohol has prevented you from being truly present for yourself and others in your life that you care about. Focus on being with your friends and loved ones and co-workers – that’s more important than drinking.

Have Someone to Call

You can’t be successful in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program unless you have support for your recovery goals. Have someone you can call – a 12-Step sponsor, a graduate of our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program, or a counselor from our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program – if you feel like you can no longer resist the urge to take a drink. Having someone to talk you through your craving and remind you why you entered our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program in the first place can be crucial to your long-term outcome.

Learn How to Say No

Knowing how to turn down a drink is one of the hardest parts of being in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program. Should you explain to the person offering the drink that you’re a recovering alcoholic taking part in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program? What will people think if they know you’re going through our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program?

While these are common worries for everyone who goes through our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program, the good news is that you don’t have to volunteer any information about why you’re refusing a drink. In fact, instead of explaining to a co-worker or a stranger at a social event that you’re a recovering alcoholic in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program, it’s often easier to just say, “No thanks, I’m not drinking tonight.”

Qualifying your statement with the word “tonight” might feel like a lie, but it’s not – we encourage people going through our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program to take sobriety one day at a time, after all. It also has the advantage of saving you from having to explain yourself – people will just assume that “I’m not drinking tonight” means you’re on medication, have to get up early tomorrow, or are a designated driver. Unless the person in question is someone close to you, there’s no need for him or her to know you’re in an outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program.

If you’re ready to quit drinking, our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program can help. Call 888-699-5679 to learn more about entering our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program as rehab aftercare or as a primary form of treatment.

September 2013 Delray Pineapple newspaper article

Fix my depression dammit! – by Dr. RodriguezDr. Raul Rodriguez

This sucks.  Everything sucks.  What difference does it make anyways?  These are just some of the thought patterns that are characteristic of an individual suffering from major depression.  Depression does suck.  Depression does make everything seem like it sucks and it makes people not care anymore.  This common disorder can be a silent personal hell for some and a slow, agonizing death for others.  So many people suffer from this yet many of them go untreated.  Many others desperately try to treat themselves by self-medicating with drugs or alcohol.  The outcomes for these poor souls typically are bad, but they do not have to be.  Major depression is a very treatable condition and can carry a favorable prognosis if managed properly.

The first step in treating depression is identification of symptoms and making an accurate diagnosis.  Depression feels bad.  Feeling bad may encompass any combination of a sad or depressed mood, low energy, low self-esteem, poor concentration, increased feelings of guilt, feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, and a general slowing down of physical movement.  A diminished capacity for enjoyment, especially with activities that would normally be pleasurable, is an especially telling sign.  Emotional shifts including tearfulness and irritability are also frequently seen.  This may all be further complicated by the use of alcohol or drugs in a desperate attempt to feel better.  Any combination of these symptoms to any degree that affects happiness or the ability to function would indicate that some form of a mood disorder is present.  A psychiatrist would be the physician specialist most skilled and qualified to make a specific diagnosis and give recommendations for treatment.

Treatment for depression has come a long way.  The holistic approach that treats the patient as a whole has grown in both popularity and effectiveness.  Newer psychotherapies, vitamins, exercise therapy, nutrition, meditation, art, yoga, and acupuncture have all taken on a greater role.  Patients no longer have to rely on just medication and basic psychotherapy.  These elements are not definitive treatments in their own right, but when used in combination can be very powerful.  Much of this benefit is derived from affecting the human mind-body connection.

What is done to the body will directly affect the human brain.  Movement in the form of resistance training, yoga, and other forms of exercise have a significant positive effect on brain chemicals.  Dopamine, Serotonin, Norepinephrine, and Endorphins, among other brain chemicals, are all released in response to exercise.  This gets a depressed brain moving in a way that is not easily replicated by other means.  This can be one of the fastest first steps to a recovery from depression.  When physical activity becomes a permanent part of a person’s life, it helps resist a depressive recurrence.  Nutritional and vitamin therapies provide the fuel for exercise as well as the nutrients for optimal brain functioning.  When the benefits that can be derived from the body are optimized, the conditions are much more favorable for the human brain to derive benefit from antidepressants and advanced psychotherapy.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, often referred to as “DBT”, is an advanced form of cognitive behavioral therapy that has changed the face of modern depression treatment.  DBT teaches highly effective coping skills that help individuals deal with some of the most stressful elements of human existence.  DBT skills are organized into 4 categories:  Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotional Regulation, and Distress Tolerance.  Mindfulness skills allow members learn to observe, describe and participate in thoughts, sensations, emotions and external phenomenon without judging these experiences as “good” or “bad.” Interpersonal effectiveness skills help participants successfully assert their needs and manage conflict in their relationships.  Emotional regulation skills help participants identify and manage emotional reactions in healthy and adaptive ways, reducing the negative emotional surge that may result from an adverse event.  Distress tolerance skills allow members to accept and tolerate distress without resorting to negative or destructive behaviors.   DBT has proven clinical effectiveness and has helped thousands. These tools are efficiently taught and practiced in DBT skills groups.  DBT skills group participation requires ongoing individual therapy, which another fundamental part of treatment.  Individual therapy reinforces the learned skills and addresses the underlying issues.

The combination of individual psychotherapy, DBT skills training, medications, and the holistic modalities of depression treatment help individuals achieve stronger clinical responses than just medications or basic therapy alone.  These forms of treatment are best delivered in a cohesive manner in a structured program.  A depressed life is at best a sad existence and at worst intolerable.  Effective treatment for depression is available and the veil of sadness can be lifted.  The depressed person needs only to ask for help.

Dr Rodriguez is the founder, CEO and Medical Director of the Delray Center For Healing, which offers a comprehensive depression treatment program that consists advanced medical treatment, DBT therapy and skills training, and holistic treatments.


How Yoga Can Help You Break Free of Addiction

At our outpatient detox Delray Beach programs, we use a wide range of combined therapies to free our clients from addiction. The therapies we use at our outpatient detox Delray include cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy, nutritional therapy, acupuncture, massage, biofeedback, and fitness therapy. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of yoga for addiction treatment, so you can better understand why we make it a part of our outpatient detox Delray Beach program.

When practiced as part of our outpatient detox Delray Beach program, yoga can help you overcome the negative emotional state that you may be feeling as a result of your addictive behaviors, or that led to your addictive behaviors in the first place. People who struggle with addiction have often spent years or decades trying to hide from unpleasant feelings, memories and circumstances. By practicing yoga in our outpatient detox Delray Beach program, you’ll learn to accept unpleasant emotions and come to terms with your personal limitations.

Yoga teaches the members of our outpatient detox Delray Beach program how to cope with difficult thoughts and feelings. Through yoga, you’ll learn how to use breathing techniques to get control of thoughts and feelings that trouble you.

People in our outpatient detox Delray Beach program also learn self-discipline and self-control through yoga. This is a vital lesson for addicts, who have often struggle with impulsivity issues and a need for instant gratification. Yoga can help you replace harmful reactions with positive, helpful actions.

Yoga also emphasizes the importance of spirituality, which many recovering addicts in the past have found helpful. Part of recovering from addiction is acknowledging the many things you can’t control, and letting go of those things. The spiritual component of yoga helps the people in our outpatient detox Delray Beach program do that.

The Delray Center for Healing uses an holistic approach to treat addiction, stress, mental illness and eating disorders. Call us today at 1-888-699-5679 to learn more.


How to Tell the Difference Between Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder have some symptoms in common, but are two very different diseases. It’s important to understand the difference between borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder, in order to help yourself or someone you love get the right treatment. Each of these two mental disorders is often misdiagnosed as the other, because the difference between borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder, in terms of symptoms, can be so subtle.

Bipolar disorder causes its victims to cycle through mania, a mental state characterized by feelings of invulnerability, euphoria, and impulsivity, often followed by periods of severe depression marked by anxiety, aggression, irritability, suicide attempts or self-harming episodes. The person is able to function normally in between mood cycles.

The difference between borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder becomes hard to discern when we consider that borderline personality disorder also causes symptoms similar to those found in both phases of the bipolar mood cycle. The biggest difference between borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder is that the person with bipolar disorder does and says destructive, risky or hurtful things because of a chemical imbalance in the brain; with medication, or between episodes, the bipolar person’s symptoms disappear.

You can more easily understand the difference between borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder when you consider that symptoms in a person with BPD are chronic; the person does destructive, risky or hurtful things to avoid rejection or perceived rejection and stave off possible emotional pain. While a person with borderline personality disorder might have mood swings, there’s a big difference between borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder mood swings, namely, that BPD mood swings occur much more rapidly, often every few minutes or hours. For the most part, bipolar disorder mood changes occur every few months or years, with periods of normalcy in between.

Another key difference between borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder is that people with BPD have mood swings and lash out in response to events, or perceived events, going on in their lives – especially when they feel the threat of abandonment. This doesn’t happen with people suffering bipolar disorder because their mood changes are due to changes in the brain.

Borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder often appear very similar; generally, only a trained psychiatrist can tell the difference between the two. For more information or to seek help, call The Delray Center for Healing at 1-888-699-5679.


Thank You

“Thank you for believing in me and providing me with the support and treatment I need. You helped save my life and gave me a chance to live a different life You are a gift to everyones life you touch. I am so grateful to you” – Carey