Addiction and mental illness play a part in many peoples’ lives in the United States. Both conditions can improve with behavioral activation therapy and other treatment modalities. To learn more about how behavioral activation therapy can benefit you, call Promises Behavioral Health today.
The Importance of Behavioral Activation Therapy
When someone suffers from depression or an addiction, it can be difficult to focus on hobbies or pastimes. This can be the case even when the hobby or pastime has given the individual joy in the past. As their depression or addiction deepens, the individual will likely spend more and more time alone, or seeking out and using drugs. In a deadly cycle, this behavior naturally allows the individual’s mood to continue to worsen, and their addictive or depressive behavior to worsen.
Some of the most important aspects of rehabilitation and recovery involve getting a person back into their old habits and encouraging them to leave unhealthy behaviors behind. And this is where behavioral activation comes in. With a behavioral activation therapy program at drug addiction treatment centers like Promises Behavioral Health, individuals can escape their isolation and thereby cope with their feelings and improve their mood.
More than 1.9 million people began misusing prescription pain relievers in 2018.
But What Is Behavioral Activation Therapy?
Behavioral activation is based on the simple theory that as people fall deeper into depression or addiction, they tend to disengage from social activities. This increased isolation and social avoidance almost always result in a worsening of the symptoms that accompany addiction and depression, or at the very least, they don’t allow the person’s condition to improve. The aim, then, is to work with the depressed or addicted person to get them more directly involved and engaged in mood-improving, healthy activities. This might include activities that they enjoyed before their condition worsened, but may also be new to them.
Each instance of behavioral activation therapy is, of course, unique to the individual. Not everyone finds the same activities engaging and uplifting. But some activities that have been demonstrated to improve mood and allow for social re-engagement are:
Exercise
This might be as simple as a short job or trip to the gym, but there is a growing body of evidence that exercise affects your mental and physical health in positive ways.
Social engagements
Dinner with a friend, going to the movies or engaging in an activity that you enjoy like a book club or bowling league with like-minded individuals can bring enormous benefits to your mental and emotional health.
Working on your family relationships
When you are depressed or addicted, you tend to push away the people that are closest to you, and part of behavioral activation therapy can involve.
Maintaining personal hygiene and setting household goals
It sounds simple, but small things like showering regularly and keeping your house tidy are essential parts of avoiding isolation and reintegrating into a normal, healthy life.
Eating and sleeping regularly
A majority of people who suffer from major depressive disorder and substance use disorder complain of insomnia or otherwise irregular sleep patterns. And both conditions are also known to affect appetite. Getting back into a healthy routine of sleeping and eating can improve mood dramatically.
Many of these seem obvious or straightforward. But for behavioral activation therapy to help you improve your mood, you must establish or re-establish relationships and develop healthy routines.
Behavioral Activation Therapy Program in Practice
Behavioral activation is a short-term treatment that can quickly change someone’s mood. If an individual feels depressed or anxious, they are less likely to participate in pleasurable activities. This disengagement causes a negative spiral because the individual’s mood becomes worse and worse as they avoid enjoyable activities. Also, isolation makes someone more likely to develop depression or addiction.
A behavioral activation therapy program works by increasing your social contacts through a system of positive rewards. At the start of each week, you establish your own set of specific goals and then spend the rest of the week meeting those goals.
You design your goals according to the type of person you would like to be. If you want to spend time outdoors and hiking, you may join a hiking group. If you would like to help people in your community who are struggling, you may choose to volunteer at a local soup kitchen. And you are not limited to just one method; you are encouraged to try many different kinds of activities in whatever combination works best for you.
It’s time to stop suffering from addiction and mental illness.
Call Promises Behavioral Health for treatment today.
How Behavioral Activation for Addiction Works
When someone has an addiction, they gradually focus more and more on getting drugs or alcohol as the substance takes over their lives. They start to lose interest in the people, hobbies, and events they previously loved. Once someone decides to get treatment, behavioral activation for addiction can help them return to a healthy life.
Behavioral activation helps to fill up the time the individual once spent on getting and using drugs and alcohol. It also helps to boost the individual’s mood and mental state. Through this technique, the individual can undo the negative habits they developed during their addiction and establish new, healthier ones.
How Behavioral Activation for Depression Works
The main theory behind behavioral activation for depression is that someone avoids other people and activities when they have depression. Isolation can worsen the symptoms of depression and be a serious impediment to overcoming the condition. For this reason, individuals need to become engaged in activities like the ones mentioned above.
With a behavioral activation therapy program, individuals take part in activity monitoring. They write down the activities they do each week and rate their mood for each activity. This technique helps the counselor see behavior patterns like engagement and avoidance.
More than 48% of people with a co-occurring substance abuse disorder
and a mental illness did not receive treatment.
Discovering Physical and Mental Wellness
If you want to achieve holistic wellness, you need a behavioral activation therapy program that treats every mental disorder at once. When people only treat their addiction, they are more likely to relapse in the future. Often, people use drugs to cope with symptoms of a mental disorder. Once the individual quits using drugs, the symptoms of their mental disorder returns.
By going to the right drug addiction treatment centers, individuals can treat co-occurring illnesses. And as a result, they can remove one potential cause of relapse. Other than dual diagnosis care, the top institutions offer programs such as:
- Anger management therapy programs
- 12-step support groups
- Couples counseling programs
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy and cognitive processing therapy
- Art therapy
- EMDR therapy programs
Contact Promises Behavioral Health Today
Through an individualized treatment program, clients can get the right care for an addiction or a mental illness. Whether you need a behavioral activation therapy program or alcohol detox, Promises Behavioral Health can help you on your journey. We offer a range of different services and counseling options for our clients.
We offer a variety of addiction therapies,
including:
Art therapy
EMDR therapy
Equine-assisted therapy
Family therapy
Yoga therapy
We treat a variety of addictions,
including:
Heroin addiction
Alcohol addiction
Opioid addiction
Prescription pill addiction
Cocaine addiction
Find out more about our options by reaching out to us today at 844.875.5609.
The time to get treatment for your addiction and your mental illness disorder is now.
Contact Promises Behavioral Health today.