Open Door Retreat

If you are struggling with drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, or other challenging issues, you are not alone – there are many women fighting issues just like yours. In fact, the exact number is unknown, as many individuals, women included, are able to hide their problems from those that they know and love. However, just because an individual is able to conceal their problem, it doesn’t mean that they do not need professional help.

To put it simply, if you are struggling with drugs, alcohol, depression, and related issues, you need help - and this post will show you how to get what you need.

Getting Help

Speaking of professional help, women suffering from drug, alcohol, and other challenging problems will find an unlimited number of options right at their fingertips. Many turn to support groups, private counseling sessions, as well as rehab treatment centers. If you or someone that you know needs to seek help through a rehab center, it is important to first evaluate several womens rehab centers.

Although all rehab facilities have the same goals, it is important to remember that no two individuals are the same. That is why it is important for those seeking assistance with drugs, alcohol, or other addictions to receive personalized care.

Why Choose A Womens Rehab?

As previously stated, recovery isn’t exactly the same for all individuals. Women and men face many different issues. For example, a pregnant woman who finds herself battling a drug addiction will not only need assistance overcoming drug abuse, but assistance with a new lifelong change. Not all rehab facilities are equipped to handle more than the addiction at hand; however, most women’s recovery centers are, as they cater to women and many of the issues they face.

Finding A Women’s Rehab Program

It is relatively easy to find and research women’s rehab facilities online. Once you have the contact information for a rehab center, be sure to make contact and even schedule a consultation appointment, as this allows you to better gage your options.

Those who remove mountains begin by carrying away small stones.

That Chinese proverb could have been written for anyone going through the transition from addiction. It’s easy to become intimidated by the enormity of the challenge to remain clean. Many people are able to face the struggle by taking on the task in small increments - one day at a time.

Although completion of a 30-day drug rehabilitation program is a difficult undertaking, sometimes it is easier than what comes later. After completing drug recovery and returning to our lives some of us feel isolated. We feel like no one understands what we are going through. That can lead to despair and relapse.

You Are Not Alone

Many women effectively deal with that isolation by spending time in a women’s extending living facility like The Open Door. There, helped by caring professionals and surrounded by other women on the same journey, you can find the courage to face your obstacles and overcome them.

A few weeks in the peaceful and uplifting surroundings can prepare you to return to your life. Important relapse prevention techniques learned here can be the key to permanent recovery.

When you leave here you are still not alone. You have friends and family waiting to welcome you back to your life, glad to see you are healthy and clean. They are there to provide the support you need through this difficult time. Maybe a better way to view transition from addiction is:

Those who remove mountains begin by asking for help.

Art therapy is a widely used and accepted form of therapy for expressing thoughts, feelings, and emotions that cannot otherwise be expressed through words alone. As part of a recovery and relapse prevention program, art therapy can help participants achieve many things that may have been difficult before they began their recovery journey and art therapy can aid in healing the spirit through creative expression and self-discovery.

Art Therapy Can…

• Help make connections to who we are and what we feel
• Encourage creative thinking and build problem solving skills
• Create an activity-based environment that promotes self-discovery
• Help us tap into parts of our brain that haven’t been used
• Tap into memories and feelings that promote healing
• Reduce stress and relax the mind and body

At Open Door, art therapy is just one of several self-discovery and relapse prevention programs. Women who are working through recovery and feel lost or confused may discover art therapy and creative expression is the outlet they needed to promote healing and transition from addiction. For some, the pieces seem to come together in the mind when they are visualized and expressed through art.

While staying at Open Door, there are a number of opportunities for artistic and creative expression that can help women’s recovery. When used in conjunction with other women’s recovery programs, art therapy is often a most rewarding experience.

Recent studies, including one published in the December 2007 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, indicate that young women and girls may be more susceptible to peer pressure than their male counterparts. Similarly, a 2007 study of college drinking in young men and women showed that, surprisingly, women tended to consume more alcohol than men at parties.

Risk Factors for Addiction in Women

Early drinking is a risk factor for alcohol addiction as well as drug use. However, research also indicates that young women whose friends, especially those of the opposite sex, drink excessively are at an increased risk. Identifying the early stages of alcoholism and addiction includes noticing changes in behavior and self-esteem, loss of interest and purpose in life. While it may come as no surprise that peer groups can influence behavior, women transitioning from addiction to recovery also need a supportive peer group to facilitate positive influence and reduce the risk of relapse.

Because women tend to form stronger bonds in their relationships than men, it can be difficult to transition and disassociate from friends who may have a negative impact on recovery. By participating in an addiction recovery program such as Open Door, women can build self-esteem, redefine their purpose in life, and explore the development of new friendships in their everyday lives.

Recovery is a Lifetime Journey

Recovery and relapse prevention is a journey that requires change. While it can be difficult to change, a change in friendships and lifestyle is in order when those around you do not impact your life in a positive way. A recovery program for women is one way to facilitate change both internally and externally. Remember, you are worth the journey.

Women’s Addiction Recovery Centers like The Open Door realize that women in recovery have unique needs when it comes to recovery. During the course of our 28-day addiction recovery program, women learn drug and alcohol recovery strategies designed to help the body, mind, and spirit make a successful transition into sobriety.

Women’s Addiction Recovery Programs teach women how to replace the damaging ways that they have been thinking and living with positive and fruitful ways to change their life forever. Women face different challenges than men do and gender specific recovery programs have devised unique ways to overcome substance abuse.

Fostering Self Discovery

The individual programs that we offer give women an opportunity to really get to know their genuine self. Here, she can go deep into their past and discover exactly when and where it was that things went wrong. It is self discovery that is at the very beginning of her journey. Group meetings with other women and at 12 Step Meetings also an essential component in recovery. Here women are able to find comfort and support while listening to other women who have faced similar troubles.

Addiction Recovery Programs

There are many other programs that assist in the recovery process for women such as enjoying cultural activities, 12 step meetings, equine therapy, art therapy and creative expression, stress relief and anxiety reduction, and self discovery exercises. These are all in part of the healing process that changes your mindset and your future forever.

Women will be educated and embrace such issues as relapse prevention, family counseling, individual and group sessions, long term sobriety maintenance, how to utilize all community services and referrals. It is very important during this time to involve the families of these women and to educate them on how to live and understand this new person or how to remember the old person that they lost during the course of her addiction. This is also a time when families need to show strong support of their loved one and put the life that they are leaving at rest.

Last Thursday, VH1 debuted its latest reality television program, “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew”. The show follows nine celebrities, from martial arts fighter Ricco Rodruiguez to actor Daniel Baldwin, through a 21-day drug treatment program.

Like most reality programs, this show is likely to stress entertainment over authenticity in an effort to create “good television”. We applaud any effort to education the public on the serious issue of addiction recovery but we hope the program makes clear that this kind of program is only a first step.

The Importance of an Ongoing Recovery Mindset

Dr. Drew Pinsky, who oversees the clinic on the VH1 program, understands that recovery is a long process. In an article on MSNBC.com he is quoted as saying, “People have a misconception about treatment - you go through it like a car wash and then you’re out. It’s something that takes many months…The longer the treatment, the better the outcome. It takes a long time to get in this shape; it takes a long time to get well.”

A complete drug and alcohol recovery program must include relapse prevention education. Addicts will continue to be tempted. By expecting those crisis moments and knowing how to deal with them, the recovering addict has a much better chance of staying clean.

Mixed Gender Recovery Programs Have Mixed Success

Experts believe that recovery programs that are gender specific are more effective. Men and women are different. Addiction and recovery proceed differently for each group and trying to treat them the same lowers the chance of success.

At The Open Door, we specialize in the unique needs of women’s drug rehab. We provide a caring and supportive environment where women who have been through a 30-day program can take extra time to rest and heal so they can face the road to recovery with greater resolve.

Relapse after recovery is a very real possibility - even for those who have been in recovery for years. In order to prevent relapse, it is essential to be able to recognize common relapse triggers as well as your own personal relapse triggers.

Constant self evaluation and education is the most important tool that anyone can have along with the ability to identify trigger. Specialized women’s relapse prevention programs such as those at The Open Door teach women how to identify the triggers and the warning signs that can lead to relapse.

Women also learn how to stay away from high risk situations and how to develop non chemical ways to deal with stress.While many relapse triggers are quite common, each woman has her own stresses that can quickly trigger a relapse. It is through holistic drug and alcohol recovery programsthat women women are able to learn more about themselves and focus on making them better.

The skills that they will walk away with are actually life saving skills that they will utilize throughout the rest of their lives. There are programs that are not gender specific but there seems to be a much better success rate when women who seek relapse prevention are working with an all female staff and groups. It also helps to reduce any factors that can enable them to lose focus for just one minute.

Women must learn how to embrace and enjoy life for all of its beautiful inconsistencies and often need a support system around the clock in the early days of recovery. The discoveries made during the time spent at a quality relapse prevention center are what a woman can rely on after the dust has settled and they can spot a ray of hope.

We are pleased to bring you an incredibly honest and revealing interview with Judith Hillard about her battle with cocaine addiction. Judith’s story sheds light on the fact that addiction knows no boundaries when it comes to race, class, education, or background.

Judith was the eldest child of a Protestant minister, a straight-A student, student body president of her high school, homecoming queen of a large university, and the girl everyone wanted their son to marry. The recipient of several advanced degrees, she taught English, public speaking, educational research, and leadership for many years. When she became a cocaine addict, she nearly lost it all.

Judith now runs a non profit organization called Addiction Overcome that exists to offer hope and resources to addicts. In this amazing interview, Judith speaks openly about her battle with cocaine addiction, how she managed to stop using for good, and the strategies she uses today to stay strong in her recovery.

When did you know it was time to get serious and quit… was there a certain event or realization?

To tell you the truth, the motivating factor came after my father had “suggested” I write my story for the past 12 years or so was a book my friend and board member gave me to read. It was called A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (you know, the guy who duped Oprah and therein sullied the reputation and good name of addicts everywhere).

I read it, though finishing it was a chore, and this rarely happens to a gal who cranks out at least a book a day — reading, not writing one, that is. I finally called Sheryl and asked her if ever she began to care about this guy. She answered quite truthfully that No, she never had. I was put off by his language, his profanity, his abuse of every rule of grammar and punctuation I was ever paid to teach, and his apparent asthmatic reaction to capital letters.

This guy was no e.e. cummings and therefore had not earned the right in my rather arrogant opinion to bastardize the English language and its parameters in a first and not very good first book at that. Lying in my bed that very last night of laboring through it, I said to myself, “I could do better than this in a first draft.”

I got up, tied a robe around my waste, and started writing. I finished the rough draft in two and a half weeks, and though it needed several read throughs and some corrections, and admittedly I had not set a very high bar for myself, I believe I was right about besting his paperback copy, then in its fourth printing or something insane like that because Oprah endorsed it and a huge publishing house accepted it.

What was the most difficult part of recovery?

Staying stopped. I stopped so many times, but then the thought would cross my mind that hey, I could pick it up again and control it rather than the other way around. It was like a fresh thought, one I’d never had before. Then I would buy a new load, never knowing if it was clean or not, too deeply cut to give one much of a charge through the hours ahead.

When the “fresh” craving hit for more cocaine, quantity and quickness were the motivators, not quality. If a dealer had said, give me until noon tomorrow and I’ll have some perfect product even a bit cheaper… I would have laughed in his face and told him to move it over to my place right then…. not even stopping for red lights.

You see, I wanted to return to life and family, friends and norm… so I would make plans and maybe even rough out a menu, guest list, etc…. but it never turned out as I hoped. I would have no stamps an no energy to procure any. I would decide no one would come anyway. I would forget how to plan a meal or cook it. In those moments, the ONLY thing that mattered was getting and readying and using more cocaine. No phone call, obligation, appointment, person, plan, lack of funds on hand, NOTHING counted for more than that baggie, or folded shiny magazine page of powder. I didn’t even care if I got shorted, so of course I did.

What was the biggest lesson learned during your recovery process?

Probably to humble myself enough to listen. I was well educated, employed, clever…. and most people I found fault with either immediately or fairly quickly when they let me down. And believe me, my expectations were not very high. I just didn’t give people much room for error. I was hardest on those I cared about the most as well. So learning to listen to those wiser, more grounded in recovery or spirituality or the craft and art of writing — those have been significant moments for me.

Which of the 12 steps really impacted your recovery the most?

Ironically, the one before any of the twelve…. the word ADMITTED. I couldn’t admit anything in the full throes of my addiction; so admitting that my life was unmanageable and that I was not in control was impossible. I couldn’t admit that my job was in danger, my health was thready at best, my apartment was filthy and not fit for the animals I kept there with me for companionship or comfort or out of habit, I’m not sure. I couldn’t even admit that I should go down to the basement and move the laundry out of the washer and into the dryer.

Later, I would say that step 12 could have been the one that made the biggest impact, but nobody wants a newish person to get involved in a twelve step call. I think that is a mistake. Because no matter how bad you are, there are people out there who are in worse shape by far. A sponsor or concerned person with time should have been taking me along to AIDS wards and dialysis centers and hospice houses to sit and talk with people who were literally days and hours from death because of this disease. That might have spoken to my self-centered, attitudinal self in a way no book or meeting or person still surviving could have.

What are your relapse triggers?

Well, I cleaned them so far from my life that I don’t accidently or on purpose stumble upon them anymore because I came to a place so low and so close to the bone, that I knew I didn’t any longer have a margin for error. A trigger might be enough to blow my head off. So I had a friend from church whom I trusted and asked her to help me clean the rest of the physical filth out of my home with me while my child was in school.

From old torn and stained t-shirts I thought would make good rags to syringes unopened to bottles of Ocean to the antique Raisinette tin I carried drugs and paraphernalia in, to pill crushers, to the legal syringe red box I had for my MS drugs, to bottles of hydrogen peroxide which is a great remover of blood stains, to any prescription bottle I did not immediately recognize as mine and necessary to my healthy life, to phone numbers in my cell or squirreled away somewhere.

We tossed it all in bags and my friend hauled them away without me knowing where she went. I also had to tell my drs (new ones) to always lock up their needles and syringes and saline bottles and sodium chloride bottles away in cabinets preferably never alone in the rooms where patients wait. And I had to tell the dentist the same thing, I’ve known him since I was in college, so that was hard. I don’t allow triggers in my mind or doors any longer.

How has your life changed now that you are sober?

I didn’t have a life when I wasn’t. I didn’t sleep or eat or go out or call anyone or write Christmas cards or remember why I love musicals and It’s A Wonderful Life and Christmas and children and new shoes. I love every detail of my life today. There is no comparison. It’s like comparing oranges to used cat litter.

What do you do now to prevent relapse?

I have a long and deep phone list of people I’ve known a long, long time and a few years and some I’ve just recently met. Depending on what is troubling me, I choose someone from the long or medium list and call one of them. If that person is not at home, I try another and so on until I find someone.

If I can find none of them and it calls for experience with either me or the disease, I’ll call one of my parents or my sister closest in age to me. I know I will hard truth from any of those people — or one of my dear friends who gets it and gets me and is not afraid to tell me the truth and give me an assignment or something to read or write if the situation calls for it (someone like Lauren for example).

I can be sort of intimidating to some, so I hone it to those I really trust and whose honesty doesn’t over-reach or offend me. If I am just feeling sorry for myself and in the blues, I call someone with no time or very little and ask about them. I become a sounding board for a person who is suffering far more than me in that moment and that always helps me get out of my own way and turn my twiddly problems into something selfless and hopefully meaningful for someone else.

I might even go to a book on addiction and read a chapter or two. That generally gets me into the groove of writing my own thoughts and reflecting on helping myself through the rough spots. Often it is the tiniest nuisances that cause the steamiest reactions from me; which is perhaps why my daughter tells me to chill out so often.

Tell me a little about your book!

I think I just did. The God shaped and sized hole we all carry in our souls can ONLY be filled by God. Anything that mimics Him or makes us feel like him for a few seconds trembles at the sight and sound and mystery around so much love for someone so flawed and imperfect who had so many gifts right from the start…. someone arrogant and selfish and always ready to feel different.

Now I love the way I feel, even if I’m exhausted. It’s honest exhaustion. I love my people more and everywhere I go, I talk to folks and my circle of “my” people grows exponentially. It’s funny, but when I tried so hard to look perfect and not make mistakes and have the most gorgeous man on my arm at parties and weddings, I was boring. I was plastic and about as conversant as a Barbie doll. Now that I stopped caring what people think of me in all situations, I am real and people find me approachable and therefore much more lovable.

Today, I am more lovable. I make mistakes and shrug them off. I tell my child when I’m wrong, which is often. My parents never told me they were wrong. And often they weren’t. But sometimes they were and would NEVER admit it to people who weren’t really people yet because we were just children. I think the littler they are when I meet them, the more important I’m supposed to be in their lives. For them I try extra hard to be me and to be real.

According to research on women’s addiction done by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, women get addicted to alcohol and drugs more as compared to men. Not only this, in comparatively less time they develop substance related diseases such as brain damage, cirrhosis, hypertension, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.

Women who drink moderately or are heavy drinkers are more prone to breast cancer and adolescents girls who get into smoking also risk having breast cancer. For older women continuous alcohol drinking results in memory loss and deterioration of the mental condition as compared to older men. The risk of heart disease among women using oral contraceptives is also more. As per study 32 million women are into smoking cigarettes and about six million are into alcohol abuse.

Reasons Why Women Become Addicted Faster than Men

• Prime reason why women become addicted sooner then men is their body composition. Bodies of women contain more fat tissues and less water due to which the activity of ADH enzyme that plays a role in breaking down alcohol slows down. This slowing down of ADH enzyme action makes the effect of one drink as strong as two drinks for women.

• Also, it has been observed that women are more likely to get into drugs and alcohol addiction as they are the ones who get into depression more than men. A woman has to play many roles at home and has also has to prove herself at work. Home chores can be tiring and at times no appreciation makes her feel unwanted and depressed.

• Furthermore, since women use sedatives and other anti-anxiety drugs more than men, the probability of their becoming addicted is twice as compared to men.

• The likelihood of a woman been sexually abused in young age is more than men. Trauma is also one key reason why women get into drugs which becomes an addiction later. Other reasons of women resorting to substance abuse are unsuccessful relationships, miscarriage, death of a loved one, problems at work or home.

Women’s Addiction Recovery

Since women become dependent on drugs and alcohol even at lower levels of use, it soon takes the form of addiction. Regardless of the reason of women’s addiction, addiction recovery is critical for the addict to learn to live a healthy, happy and more fulfilling life. Women often avoid recovery programs due to the social stigma attached to it. But it is each woman’s responsibility to herself and her family to take action to happy, fulfilling life free of addiction.

A halfway house is a place where people are provided support and care to start life afresh by being part of the society as a whole. It is a place where drug-abusers, mentally ill people, or convicts, etc. are sent after they are released from a rehab center, hospital or a prison.

Unlike a halfway house, The Open Door drug and alcohol recovery center is a program packed, spiritual addiction recovery journey. The addiction recovery programs are designed to help women find joy and abundance in sobriety, not simply to provide a drug-free environment.

The Open Door Offers a 4-Week Spiritual Journey for Women

Women who come to the Open Door follow a disciplined routine of soul-seeking and relapse prevention programs that are designed to help them in addiction recovery such as:

• Personalized and group counseling sessions
• 12 Step Meetings
• Equine Therapy
• Meditation and Yoga classes
• Art Therapy and Creative Expression
• Dream Interpretation sessions
• Cultural Activities

If you or a special woman in your life needs to free themselves of drug or alcohol addiction, contact The Open Door. We offer a safe environment where women can discover themselves as they during their drug and alcohol recovery program. Through our holistic approach to alcohol and drug recovery, we help women to find a healthy and happy way of life.