A Calming Environment & Lifestyle
We get it… Everyday life can be stressful… loud noises, constant interruptions, traffic, triggering situations / location and many other elements can add to and exacerbate your personal stress levels. Feeling & dealing with stressful situations are a natural part of life. However, in order for you to find your own unique way of productively dealing with stress, you must find and understand how to manage your center of balance.
At Align Recovery Centers, we strive to provide a calming environment to help you with your recovery. A clean and quiet setting with natural surroundings and soothing scents is important when you are in search of finding your own center of balance. This grounding, along with the tools you will take away from our sessions, will help enable your success in managing the stresses that inevitably come along with life.
After making the choice for sober living, it’s important to understand how to maintain that lifestyle.
It may be difficult to return home after rehab because one may have a spouse or roommate who uses drugs or alcohol, or might return to a completely empty home. Living alone leaves one just as vulnerable since now, no one is keeping you accountable, allowing for previous urges to reemerge. Both examples can lead to relapse which is why the lifestyle choices and your environment plays a major role in recovery.
The places you go, the people you spend time with, and the activities in which you partake, are the most common triggers for relapse. It is best to avoid any of these people or places if it makes you uncomfortable or makes you want to use. It’s criticial that you stay focused on your health, maintaining a diet and exercise routine, and to be mindful of your surroundings. Keeping busy is a great way to avoid relapse by filling your time with positive and meaningful activities.
At Align, the clients are surrounded by others with the same purpose and objectives. We provide a community where healthy relationships form, allowing for encouragement and support amongst one another. With a variety of classes and activities offered, Align is a safe and comfortable environment that prepares and familiarizes people to experience the joy of sober living.
Activities to Feed the Soul
Deriving happiness and fulfillment from healthy and mindful activities is an excellent way to aid yourself in recovery. Join us in a variety of activities that are available onsite, during your stay with us, including the following:
- Yoga Classes
- Deep Breathing Exercises
- How about a game of horseshoes?
- Try out your green thumb in our organic garden
- Watch a movie in the recreation room
- Read a book in the Gazebo
Exercise
One of the key components when dealing with recovery is to focus on ones physical heath. Many people disregard the importance of exercise, not knowing it supports mental growth along with the body. Here at Align, we will help our clients build and restore that balance with the support of our trained staff, creating a unique exercise regimen for each clients physical needs.
Physical activity will not only increase and replenish energy, but also release endorphins, ultimately reducing stress and calming the mind altogether. Exercise helps ward off anxiety and feelings of depression, while strengthening your heart, improving muscle tone and sleep.
Once the body begins to train making exercise a constant in their lives, there is an immediate feeling of positivity and euphoria. Not only will you be fit and healthy, reducing body fat and strengthening bones on the inside, but it will reflect so on the outside. You will have a boost in self-esteem and see yourself and the world in a different light.
Mental Health
When dealing with addiction or substance abuse, it isn’t just your job or relationships that are being affected, but also your mind. Drug and alcohol use begins with a trigger that makes your mind crave, telling yourself it’s time to self medicate to numb or cover up difficult aspects of the person’s life.
The brain prioritizes daily life around the drug and alcohol rather than doing the things that are truly important. It ultimately takes control of their day to day responsibilities where it then becomes a full blown addiction.
At Align, we believe it’s imperative to understand what causes our clients to abuse drugs and alcohol. Therefore, we have professional psychologists who diagnose the clients in a private one on one session. This allows for both the professional and the client to create an open and honest relationship, beginning the healing process by finding out the underlying cause for abuse. When it comes to recovery, it isn’t just about removing the substance from one’s body, but also to be mindful of what it takes to get there.
Nutrition
When using drugs and alcohol, it damages internal organs making it harder for nutrients to become absorbed. As it is a gradual process to recover from abuse, so is the recovery for your body to heal and detoxify. It is common for people to replace food with drugs and alcohol. Therefore, here at Aligns, we want to reverse the damage and begin replenishing the body with healthy nutritious foods that it needs.
Without a proper diet, your body does not produce the chemicals your brain needs. In turn, one becomes off balanced, which creates stress and anxiety. Furthermore, The suffering from lack of proper nutrition can spiral and can lead to something much more severe, such as paranoia and depression. Due to such threats, we have created healthy meals by a professional nutritionist to ensure the quality of the meals provided.
Our meals deliver essential vitamins and minerals, along with the macro nutrients. Designed to replenish and satisfy, the clients will make such gains as immune support, healthy bones, teeth and hair, maintaining proper hydration levels, all aiding in brain and nervous system functions.
Restful Sleep
Scientific studies have shown the tremendous impact that lack of quality sleep can have on our bodies, our cognitive abilities and our mental and emotional well-being. Drug and alcohol abuse can have a profound effect on our ability to adequately sleep, rest and repair. Learning to incorporate the right amount of quality rest into your lifestyle is an important element in your successful recovery program.
While at Align, we teach and practice the art of properly resting and recharging your mind, body and soul. Being well-rested can improve: your overall health, happiness, diet, concentration, productivity, emotional well-being, energy level, athletic performance and many other aspects of your overall performance. We will assist you in achieving this by implementing a consistent schedule, providing comfortable bedding, enforcing quiet hours, encouraging activity during the day and many other elements.
The tools that you learn to implement while with us in Sonoma will also lend themselves well to your continued success after you leave us and move back into your regular cadence of life.
Spirituality
During recovery, there are many stages of change one experiences and needs to adapt to. Even with outside help and support, it can still get to the point where one becomes completely overwhelmed by all the processes and emotions. Although it’s obvious that recovery involves the body and mind, what about the soul?
There is no one definition of what spirituality means when involved with one’s recovery. It differs from person to person and is defined as whatever they believe is what is helping them escape from the controls of drugs and alcohol. Whether one turns to religion, meditation, or nature, one can turn to spirituality to let go of any guilt or pain, re connecting themself to the world, and finding purpose.
When a person discovers spirituality on their journey to sober living, it allows them to discover other meaningful connections. This creates a domino effect, finding a sense of belonging, motivating and giving the person more confidence during recovery, thinking more positively, leading to constructive and productive behavior. This harmonious and spiritual way of living not only manifests inner strength most people didn’t even know they had, but also allows one to experience peace.
Elvis, a seasoned Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Clinical Director at Align Recovery Centers, brings over ten years of expertise in addiction therapy. Skilled in evidence-based therapies like CBT, DBT, and ACT, he specializes in creating personalized treatment plans for addiction and co-occurring mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression. His holistic approach and dedication to his clients’ transformative journeys highlight his significant impact in addiction therapy and mental health care.