We don’t waste much time mucking around in your past.

A lot of therapists, counselors, and programs spend a lot of time digging around in your past history. That’s all a nice exercise, but it doesn’t actually fix anything.

The other problem is that your history is constantly being rewritten by the present. What looked like good or bad luck years ago may look just the opposite from today’s vantage point.

But perseverating on old hurts and slights is sure a good way to fill sessions and avoid actually doing anything about your current situation.

We, on the other hand, spend just enough time to sort out what your patterns are and what they indicate about the conditions you are self-medicating.

Really, we’re much more interested, and you should be too, about defining where you are now and where you want to be in six months or a year. That’s how you get a grip on current realities and future possibilities. That lets us help you get from here to there.

Your past? When you have the time, it may be interesting to revisit, but it’ll look a lot different without the alcohol fog or the victim mentality.

It’s really much more interesting to see how a bit of CBT, motivational enhancement, and assertiveness training can alter all of your views on your life – and when anxiety, depression, boredom, and loneliness have ceased to be consuming preoccupations.

As a client noted years ago, it’s all about “getting a grip and getting a life” and you won’t find either on the slippery slope of old miseries, no matter how comfortable they may be.

Follow-up?

About 30% of the work we do with you is follow-up. How does that compare with other programs?

To date we haven’t found one that actually does any.

  • A few offer to “let” you call one time after you’re discharged;
  • At least one uses our Newsletter as their follow-up;
  • Most simply advise you, “Don’t drink. Go to AA;”
  • Others direct you to outpatient programs that are really just more AA meetings disguised as follow-up.

Traditional rehab is all about selling you AA, which is cheap, ineffective, and pretty much guaranteed to fail. From a business perspective, what’s not to like about that?

Additionally, doing actual follow-up is expensive, time consuming, and is an integral part of our clients’ success. Again, there is nothing in that for the treatment mills.

But there is a lot in that for you to like, and for us as well. For example:

  • Ending your alcohol abuse happens in your day-to-day life, not on a Malibu estate, Utah mountainside, or Minnesota country club;
  • That means you can use all of the help, motivation, and consultation you can get where the work really happens and that’s after you leave formal “treatment”;
  • We, working with you here, create the foundation for your complete recovery;
  • When you go home, we continue building on that with you, adjusting and adapting and supporting until we’re no longer needed because you’ve recovered;
  • Finally, we have a vested interest, as you do, in your success – which is exactly the opposite outcome of other programs.