Jaywalker Lodge is proud to utilize many treatment methods for the men who stay with us. The particular methodologies we employ are chosen for good reason. It’s no mistake that we do things this way. We believe it is in everyone’s best interest for the most helpful, healing, educational, and effective treatments to be used to their highest efficacy. We believe in combining treatments that improve the benefits of one another.
The men who come to Jaywalker Lodge suffer from alcoholism and addiction, potentially in conjunction with mental and emotional health issues. Most of our men have struggled to achieve or maintain recovery in the past as well. This needs to be addressed head-on and that’s exactly what we do here. We utilize our particular mixture of treatments because we aim to implement a program designed to heal these issues holistically.
Working the 12-Steps
Alcoholism and addiction are best dealt with using the 12-Step program of recovery. Working the 12-Steps with a sponsor is of paramount importance. Beyond providing the opportunity to acquire sponsorship, our men have ready and frequent access to the recovery community of Jaywalker Lodge. This also helps them hear and see the results of working the 12-Steps.
Aside from 12-Step work, we also stand firmly behind education. The men who stay here are well-served by being educated about the disease of alcoholism and addiction. Knowing what their condition is and what it really means for their lives can be life-altering. This education also helps improve their desire to work the 12-Steps as the solution to their newly understood disease. Perhaps most importantly, we believe that a full and deeply personal understanding of the disease is one of the keys to reducing or exiting the chronic relapse cycle. Education can often make a huge difference.
Incorporating Therapy
Mental and emotional health issues are best treated with personalized therapy over a period of time. What method of therapy is most helpful differs from person to person. But across the board, with or without mental and emotional health issues, individualized therapy is beneficial to the vast majority of alcoholics and addicts. The coping skills, uncovering of issues, self-discovery, healing of trauma, and growth through therapy are nearly indispensable to holistic and lasting recovery for many people.
The 12-Step program is perfectly accented by therapy. Both of these things should be undertaken indefinitely, as both are increasingly effective the more they are persisted in. It’s unlikely that short experiences with either will be very effective in producing long-term recovery for anyone, whereas committing to both indefinitely can help produce recovery in most. Getting people to see the value in engaging in healing processes for an extended duration is a crucial goal. Finding ways to make such a commitment appeal to people is a challenge we take seriously.
Finding Solutions
Each man must understand the true nature of his conditions and the solutions to his problems. He must be allowed to see how the solutions have helped others and begin to feel the solutions working in himself. Additionally, the solutions must be made into appealing exercises that can easily become habits with a little help and a bit of persistence.
On a consistent basis, our men engage with individualized and personalized therapy, group therapy, recovery meetings, alumni activities, 12-Step education workshops and discussions, 12-Step work, physical activity, and outdoor excursions. Every day, we practice things like cleaning our personal and communal spaces, cooking, self-care, physical education, life skills, and relationship skills. This curriculum is designed for effective positive impact. Each day is planned and timed out, with free time built in to help ingrain these activities in each individual. Repetition and regularity go far in helping to build habits, but they are not always enough. These activities and treatments can become habits beyond their time at Jaywalker Lodge, especially if their value is explored while they are being taught and practiced.
Exploring the Reasons Why
The core principle behind the treatments is the knowledge that we do not hide. In fact, we highly encourage people to understand why things are the way they are. It does little good to be told to see a therapist in treatment without discovering why therapy beyond initial treatment would be beneficial. To put it more simply, it doesn’t mean much if you are forced to make your bed every morning just because. But it can become a welcome victory to make your bed every morning if you have seen and learned that discipline and consistency in even the smallest things can change — perhaps even save — your life. Such practices are more likely to become habits when the reasons behind them are exposed.
When principles like discipline, intimacy, honesty, and open-mindedness are explored in active, transparent ways, the rote activities of treatment can potentially blossom into enthusiastic exercises in participation with their own healing. Understanding the true scope and value of an activity in treatment, and then being shown how to incorporate that activity into daily life beyond treatment, is absolutely important to the lives of these men. The overarching goal is to help them find, achieve, and then maintain active and meaningful recovery for the long term. It’s a fairly simple recipe, and perhaps a little more heartfelt than typical styles of treatment. It boils down to this — here’s what we’re doing, here’s how it can benefit you, here’s how you can do it in your everyday life, and here’s how you can keep growing and healing.
Alcoholism and addiction are a chaotic, disruptive disease. They can upturn lives in terrible and terrific ways. Regularity and routine often go out the window, except for things that help feed the addiction. Luckily, there is a solution. For it to work best, the participant must be willing and honest, and the solution must be made a part of their everyday lives. Once work begins in the 12-Step program of recovery, new habits, practices, and routines are easily accessible within the program itself. This course of action is uniquely designed to produce the vital spiritual experience and necessary psychic change in the individual that will result in recovery from alcoholism and addiction. The old life is traded for the new one, and the life is saved. Even if you have struggled with recovery in the past, this solution is still available to you. It can work, even when nothing else has. At Jaywalker Lodge, we understand the unique difficulties of those who experience chronic relapse. We are here to help. Call us now at (866) 529-9255.
As Chief Executive Officer Bill provides leadership and manage all day-to-day operations of Jaywalker Lodge, an extended care residential addiction treatment program for adult men.
