Staying Clean After Teen Drug Rehab

Sometimes being clean is painful. I got clean really young in an adolescent drug treatment program, and have stayed clean since. My life has grown and I have a wonderful existence thanks to being sober. I have all kinds of opportunities that I never had when I was using, like going to college or keeping a job. It gets painful when you stay clean and other people don’t. It gets really painful when some people don’t make it.
My friend died of an overdose this week. When I got sent away to treatment, I had to cut myself off from my using friends. It was really hard, and they didn’t understand why I couldn’t talk to them anymore. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t be around people when they were using. It was too hard for me. After I had been clean awhile, some of my friends checked out some AA or NA meetings with me. I got really excited that we would all be clean together and have fun. A few of my friends stayed clean for a bit, and then would go back to using. I had had such a strong foundation in teen drug treatment that I knew I couldn’t “dabble” in using again. I think that if I use again, I will die.
My friend died this week. She overdosed and died. She was 18. Sometimes I wonder why I stay clean and others don’t. I wonder how I didn’t die when I was using and why others do. I wonder what I could have done to help my friend and I know that I did what I could. I just feel really sad. I feel really angry with drug addiction. I know that I don’t have to use over the feelings I’m having, and that the only thing I can do is to stay clean and try to help other teens see that they can stay clean too. I’m really going to miss my friend. She was an amazing person who really struggled with addiction. I know her death was an accident, and that she didn’t believe she might die from this. I wish addiction didn’t exist, and that this wouldn’t happen to people, but it does. So I just stay clean, and stay close to my support group in Hartford Connecticut like I learned in treatment. I just feel really sad today. Please contact us for teen drug and alcohol rehab if you or a loved one needs help.

12 Step Program for adolescents

A recently published article in the journal, Addiction, reports on 12-step affiliation and recovery outcomes for adolescents. As little is known about adolescents and 12-step affiliation, the study sought to observe the recovery outcomes of 357 13-18 year olds who attended substance abuse treatment in Northern California and San Francisco. The study measured the teens’ success based on drug and alcohol use, 12-step meeting attendance, and other forms of social or religious support. The study concluded that at one year past treatment, 12-step meeting attendance was marginally significant, and that at three years, the relationship between continued sobriety and 12-step affiliation was strong. The study concluded that 12-step affiliation was important in maintaining long term sobriety.

In treatment I was introduced to 12-step programs such as AA and NA. We used the 12-steps to address issues inside of treatment and I also began to work the steps with my sponsor. I soon learned that there was a difference between treatment and recovery, and that the responsibility of my sobriety fell on my shoulders when I left treatment. In treatment, I learned that I have a choice in what I choose to do with my sobriety. I have chosen to remain actively vigilant in preserving and developing the recovery that I have worked so hard on. 12-step meeting attendance has greatly enhanced my life, as I have found a group of like-minded individuals who support me and who are trying to become better people themselves. I am accountable to my support group and an example to those newer than me. It is a great feeling, to be a part of something that saved my life, and to have a chance to help someone else. I never thought about helping other people when I was using, and being an active member of the 12-step community has led me to think of others and to consider how my actions affect other people. Treatment helped me deal with the acute problem that was my active addiction, and provided me with tools so that I was able to leave treatment and practice maintenance myself.

12 Step Program for adolescents

Adolescent drug and alcohol rehab center

Before going to residential drug rehab, I lived in Santa Monica, I had made several half-hearted attempts at getting clean. I tried going to AA and NA meetings and working with a therapist. I’d even been enrolled in a juvenile outpatient program. After each potentially successful attempt, I would inevitably return to using, to everyone’s dismay and frustration. I felt that I was destined to be an addict and alcoholic. Every time I went back to school, the drugs were still there, and I didn’t have enough of a foundation in recovery to face it without using. As a last-ditch effort, my parents sent me to an adolescent rehab, where I was removed from my entire life at home in order to focus fully on my recovery. As my time in the treatment center went on, I began to doubt my ability to stay clean after leaving the safety of inpatient treatment. My counselors and I began to focus on relapse prevention. I had put in so much hard work in treatment that I couldn’t bear to see my sobriety slip away.

I continued to build my support group. With the treatment center’s encouragement, I got a sponsor that I check in with daily. Frequent meeting attendance led me to start seeing familiar faces in the rooms. I identified some of my triggers- the things that make me want to use, and began to do work to take some of the power out of them. I began to recognize my own power of choice. Nothing could make me use; I made the decision whether or not I used. As one counselor put it, “You can choose to go there in your head, or you can choose not to.” Even today, when my head starts spinning over a particular issue, I remind myself that I choose whether or not I run with the thought or not. I can make a deliberate shift in what I’m thinking about. For example, if I am spinning over an issue, I’ll stop and think about what it’s like to ride a horse, or what my favorite birthday present was. It works for me. I also imagine that I am playing air hockey- just knocking the disturbing thoughts right out of my brain. I have begun the long process of replacing the old negative information in my brain with new useful information. As I have stayed clean, I have held onto the basic tools I learned in residential treatment. I am so glad that I was given the chance to learn some good tools that help me to make the right choices today.

Ask about adolescent rehab in Santa Monica or elsewhere

My Sister Finally Went Into Drug Rehab!

Sisters in Recovery


My sister and are were thick as thieves growing up… and eventually started using drugs together and literally began thieving together. This went on for years and eventually we stopped getting along once I fell in love with Heroin and she fell in love with Methamphetamine – somehow, we just weren’t compatible anymore. Go figure.

Well, by the grace of god, I stumbled into the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous and have stayed clean since Dec. 2002. My sister kept using. Once I found out that there was another way to live, free from the chains of active addiction and away from the horrors that a using addict feels trapped by, I wanted her to know all about how happy I was. I wanted her to know that every emotion I felt was 10 times better when I experienced it clean (even the not-so-nice feelings). I wanted her to know that meetings and the 12-steps weren’t as lame as TV or movies had made them seem. I wanted her to know it actually took a lot more effort to get and use and find ways and means to get more drugs than it did to just stay clean and go with the flow of nature (totally appealing to the lazy addict). I wanted her to know that through the help of a sponsor and stepwork, I was actually beginning to accept myself, and work to improve in my areas of weakness. I wanted her to know everything beautiful I had experienced. Most of all, I wanted her to know that if I could do it, she could do it.

So I tried to tell her, but she didn’t care. I was devastated. Here I was, showing her a way out, that she didn’t have to live like that anymore and she just didn’t care! My vision of the two of us skipping off to meetings together in the sunset was smashed! My NA sponsor told me I was powerless over other people (places, things), in addition to being powerless over my addiction (step 1), which I found very irritating. She said the only things I had power to do were being a living example of the program of NA in action and pray for her. Sigh.

I’ve been praying for years. Five years, nine months and eleven days of prayer that my sister finds her path, whatever it may be (I eventually realized that god’s will might not look the same as my vision of what her process should be… ugh). At the end of every NA meeting, we have a moment of silence for the addict who still suffers, inside or outside the walls (meaning clean or still using). My sister’s name is the first name that I think of; it always will be. She means everything to me.

…On Saturday I visited my sister at her Drug Rehab. She just got a sponsor in Narcotics Anonymous J and now has over 90 days clean. She introduces me to her rehab buddies as “This is my sister, she has 5 years clean,” with pride in her voice. Tears come to my eyes as I write this; I can’t express how much gratitude I have that she has found her way to the beginning of her process and I’m so honored to be able to be a part of it.

Working in Adolescent Drug Treatment

An Outsider’s Perspective

When I started working at Visions Adolescent Drug Treatment Centers two years ago, I didn’t know the 12 Steps from a 12 pack. I wanted to familiarize myself with the program not only for my job, but to satisfy my own curiosity. What I found is that the principles of AA definitely apply to my life. When you get down to it, AA is really about living a life of integrity and service, and staying the course when things go bad. I found that it is about taking care of ourselves and each other, and taking the appropriate actions to right our wrongs. I am lucky to be surrounded by so many recovering adolescent alcoholics and adolescent addicts, and I have nothing but a great respect for those Adolescents and adults who have been reborn through AA, NA, CA or any “A” for that matter!