Faith and spirituality have been the foundations for incredible healing and recovery for thousands of years. However, science-based approaches to substance abuse and mental health treatment have often found it difficult to measure the efficacy of spirituality and addiction treatment. Despite the reluctance of “hard evidence” by scientists to disprove the benefits of luxury spiritual drug rehab programs, there’s proof that says otherwise.
Several studies, including an in-depth series of studies conducted by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, have shown that the concept of mindfulness (spirituality) can be effective in treating disorders like drug addiction, anxiety, depression, and even chronic physical pain.
At Seaside Palm Beach, we believe that implementing faith, religion, and spirituality into drug and alcohol treatment is effective, which is why we combine spirituality and substance abuse recovery through the Faith in Recovery program.
What’s the Purpose of Faith-Based Addiction Recovery Programs?
The concept of combining spirituality and addiction treatment is found in many religious or faith-based traditions, although it is often known by different names such as meditation, prayer, or trance states. Researchers published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion have even developed a measurable “Spiritual Transcendence Index” that illustrates the relevance and importance of spirituality in people’s lives, enabling them to explore how spirituality affects other aspects of their health.
Using this index, researchers have determined that spirituality buffers the adverse effects of stress on the individuals studied. This alone could account for a positive impact of spirituality on overall health, as stress has been shown to play an important role in the onset and perpetuation of many physical and mental disorders.
Our Spiritual Rehab Programs at Seaside Palm Beach
We offer Christian-based therapy at our Palm Beach luxury rehab to give patients an extra tool and source of inspiration in the fight against addiction. We offer both Christian and non-denominational spiritual therapies, incorporating regular religious services, scripture readings, and group counseling.
We believe that being closer to God and building spirituality can help provide you with long-term assistance in relapse prevention and continued success in recovery. Faith-based addiction programs allow patients to strengthen their faith as well as overcome any addiction or mental illness that is present.
Christian-Based Counseling
One service offered to patients in our luxury spiritual drug programs is individual Christian counseling sessions with our counselors. During these sessions, patients will have the opportunity to sit with either our Chaplain, Anthony Acampora, or one of our other counselors to discuss their struggles, relapse prevention techniques, and more.
Leaders of our faith-based addiction recovery meetings may also offer advice from a Biblical perspective or utilize Bible studies to teach patients valuable lessons for recovery.
Those interested in the individual faith counseling sessions offered in our Faith in Recovery program will have to speak to Anthony or another team member to schedule them. These sessions are not included in the program but rather an additional and optional service.
Christian Telehealth Counseling
In addition to spiritual and Christian inpatient therapy, we also offer our spiritual programs to patients who’d prefer to receive treatment remotely. In light of COVID-19, offering telehealth services to patients has become a priority to our Palm Beach addiction center. This means that those who are interested in our Faith in Recovery services and luxury spiritual drug rehab programs can do so remotely. Patients in our telehealth Faith in Recovery programs connect with their counselors online via Zoom to go over Bible studies, recovery downfalls and achievements, relapse prevention, faith, and more.
The spirituality component to addiction treatment can be very powerful, and we have seen success throughout our addiction treatment in Palm Beach.
The Me I Never Knew Existed
When you’re in recovery, making amends with others is only half the battle; you also have to make amends with yourself. Living well and treating yourself with dignity and respect are cornerstones of successfully maintaining sobriety. If you don’t respect yourself for who you are and what you’ve accomplished in recovery, you won’t have a solid base for success.
You can have all the support you want from your family and friends; but if you don’t believe in yourself, you’re destined for failure. I had to find this out the hard way as I struggled for about eight years with alcohol addiction.
When I first went into rehab, I thought just going through the motions would be enough. I thought that paying lip service to my therapist and my loved ones would be enough to get me through it.
The fact was that I was getting help for all the wrong reasons. Inevitably I would enjoy a limited period of sobriety and lucidity then gradually lapse into a pattern of self-destructive behavior and poor decision-making. This would be my life for about five years. I had plenty of money to spend on rehab, but I was short on the confidence and self-respect needed to sustain it.
The whole time I was in rehab, I felt like I was doing it for other people. There was a gaping sort of incompleteness that just wasn’t being satisfied by counseling and therapy. I don’t know if it was the repetition of relapse and the constant reminder of my weakness, but eventually, I just gave up and didn’t care. I was short-changing myself on every level and respected nothing, least of all myself. Alcohol was winning and, in a perversely complacent sort of way, that was OK with me. After completing holistic addiction treatment, my whole outlook had dramatically changed.
When I first got to Seaside, I thought it would be another in a long string of short-falls. I had zero faith in this program’s ability to sustain my recovery. As time went on, they started zeroing in on areas that other facilities had missed, like why I chose to start drinking in the first place and the circumstances that made me want to keep drinking. They also offered meditation, which I still practice to this day. I never thought I could benefit from meditation and regarded it more as an abstract exercise for crackpots. Once I learned how to do it right, it became part of my daily routine.
Holistic addiction treatment opened my eyes to the real me. It was an awakening that has allowed me to stay off of alcohol and rebuild my life. I know myself better than I ever have and when you know what you’re capable of, you don’t want to let yourself down. The wholeness and personal strength I achieved at Seaside is a better buzz than anything I could ever hope for in a glass, can, or bottle.
Clearing the Air
For a long time, I didn’t want to tell people that I went to a luxury drug rehab program. It seems that every time I did, people just thought I went on an extended vacation and threw money at my addiction. Believe me, if I wasn’t committed to my sobriety, no amount of money would have helped.
It’s incredibly frustrating to have to explain the merits of my recovery strategy to people who have no idea what addiction is like. Even when I’m sitting before them, proof that my recovery is working, they still doubt me. Thankfully, I’ve learned to tune out skeptics and surround myself with supportive people.
Luxury rehab is far less about the quality of amenities at your facility than it is about the quality of care. The last thing I had on my mind when I was entering rehab was how many tennis courts or swimming pools my program offered. What attracted me to luxury rehab was the comprehensive level of care and the amazing therapies they provided. They offered me an opportunity to not only heal from alcohol addiction but to completely change my life: how I took care of myself, what I thought of myself, etc.
When I first went to rehab, I needed a special kind of help from a special kind of program. It was an incredible source of comfort to know that I was getting treatment from the best doctors. I’d spent years short-changing myself by making bad decisions and I just wanted to give myself the best possible shot at recovery. It was my husband who ultimately made the arrangements for me to get treatment. When I walked into my treatment center, I was disoriented, distrustful, and almost completely unwilling to accept anybody’s help. Little by little this changed throughout my treatment.
In rehab, I learned what true healing was. I was put back in touch with some long-forgotten truths and discovered that in all situations, including recovery, you get exactly what you give. It was only in this environment that I was allowed to confront the deeply rooted truths about who I was and what I had been going through. The best luxury rehab centers can rebuild you from the ground up and make you strive to be a healthier and more balanced person. I’ve taken the lessons that I learned in my program and applied them to my everyday life.
Of course, I was grateful for the amenities. The fact that I had the comforts of home kept me grounded and connected during my more vulnerable periods. It also helped that I was able to speak with my husband regularly. In the end, however, luxury rehab turned out to be an awakening and a deeply spiritual experience. So whenever I encounter someone who seeks to trivialize the efficacy of my program, I just tell them that I did exactly what I needed to do to get help. Eventually, my sobriety will speak for itself.
Open Yourself Up to a Better Life
The body and mind want to heal and function properly. It is only when they revert to a state of dysfunction that there is cause for alarm. No matter how much we abuse our bodies with drugs and alcohol, they try to fight back and process everything normally. I learned first-hand of the body’s resiliency when I was in treatment for prescription opioid addiction. I didn’t realize the advantage of holistic drug rehab centers until I needed to get help for myself.
One thing you have to realize is that when you’re addicted to pain pills, EVERYTHING suffers, your mind, your body, your faith—everything…at least it did for me. I needed a treatment center that could help me get my overall health back.
I was always an active and health-conscious person; in fact, the reason I wound up addicted to painkillers is because I hurt my back in a rock-climbing accident. I had to have surgery following a fall and the rest, as they say, is history. Painkillers provided the relief I needed to stay active and get back to work, and that was all I needed to hear. I thought that my body would tell me when I didn’t need them anymore, but I never got that message and just kept right on taking the pills. It wasn’t long before my physical and mental health started to decline and I became almost useless.
I’m lucky enough to never have experienced a truly undignified “rock-bottom” moment or anything like that, but every time I reached for a pill, I knew that I wasn’t in control of my own life and that my brain and body were on the slow verge of shutting down. In just five months, I went from being able to run four miles per day to not being able to breathe even in the most relaxed of circumstances. To compound this nightmare, I became irritable and started to lash out at people for no reason. I became depressed and started questioning how life could fall apart so quickly.
Eventually, I realized that I needed help, also my wife politely reminded me with an ultimatum. I came across a few holistic drug rehab centers that seemed to offer exactly what I needed. I received help for painkiller addiction, but also re-learned how to embrace a healthy lifestyle. I even entered spiritual therapy to help me reshape my faith in the world. If this experience came even a month later than it did, I don’t know if I would have responded to it so positively. My wife seemed to know exactly when I needed to get help.
You often hear about how rehab is a “life-changing experience,” but you can’t grasp its full power unless you leave yourself open to the process. I was fortunate enough to have a wife and friends that stuck by me and a team of doctors that would have gone to the ends of the earth to help me overcome addiction, and remind me that, no matter what, life can be good again.
Buddhism – What It Gives
A therapist has counseling techniques, but more fundamentally, the therapist himself is the “best tool” in his therapeutic arsenal. The therapist’s psychological health gained through personal experience is a crucial factor in being able to relate to and help a client. Spirituality also is an important aspect of personal growth. Carl Jung says it even more emphatically, “Spirituality underlies all mental health and illness.”
A therapist’s spiritual journey can affect how well he can help others with their life problems. Traditional religions are the usual routes to deepening spirituality, but there is increasing diversity in how people are exploring their creative paths. How can Buddhism contribute to a person’s spiritual journey? One famous response to the question, “What is Buddhism?” was:
“Buddhism is to study oneself. To study oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to be enlightened by all things.”
I will try to utilize these various aspects, starting with a few comments that may clarify ideas regarding Buddhism as a religion. Buddhism is more humanistic and less theistic than other religions. This means that the person as a human being is just as important, if not more important, than the theology. Individual diversity and uniqueness are respected over proselytizing dogmatic beliefs. The Buddhist teachings can help people regardless of their religious backgrounds. Buddhist teachings are better considered a call to action than a call to believe.
One can benefit from Buddhism without any threat to an existing belief system. Properly understood, Buddhism always gives, never takes away. Buddhism is a religion that can negate itself; that is, Buddhism is not overly attached to the “ism” or label of Buddhism. It is perfectly fine if by studying Buddhism, one became a better Christian, or a better Jew, or a better Muslim, or even a better atheist. In other words, Buddhist teachings can help one become a “true” human being.
What is meant by a “true” human being? It is one who is full of sincere humility and gratitude. These are the spiritual qualities that enable one to live life with wisdom and compassion and are the basis of peace within and harmony with others. It should be emphasized that the historical Gautama Buddha was not a deity, but a human being—a human being who awoke to a spiritual reality that has provided a guiding light (called the Dharma) for countless people (called the Sangha). In sharing what he experienced, the Buddha said, “Do not believe what I teach just because I say it. Try out the teachings in your own life and then decide.” Words like teaching or studying refer more to transformation than to education or intellectual understanding.
One does not have to search for great teaching but has to learn how to be a great listener. Being in the dark, one doesn’t have to search for light but has to open his eyes—to see the light that has been shining around him all the time. Being spiritually asleep, one has to wake up. The word Buddha means the awakened one.
Enlightenment or awakening means that one realizes life’s truths or reality; such understanding is wisdom. There is no sin in Buddhism, only ignorance. The greatest ignorance is ignorance of oneself; namely, thinking that one exists as an independent entity in the world and that everything revolves around oneself.
The teachings help break down or free oneself from rigid conceptual categories such as self-other, internal-external, health-sick, good-evil, win-lose, etc. Suffering is caused by being mentally trapped in either extreme of such presumed opposites. We may have to function in a relative world of such dualistic dichotomies but we do not have to allow ourselves to be victimized. Instead, let’s go beyond nouns and let’s live the verbs.
Forget subject-object, and distinctions like singer-song, and dancer-dance. Let there be just singing and dancing! This is to flow or become one with the dynamic nature of reality, and not get attached to the names and labels we put on this reality. Liberation comes from loosening the grip of one’s self-centered and self-created existence. Indeed, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” After all, we rarely see the world the way it is but usually see the world the way we are. We have to go beyond ourselves to a wider perspective and awaken to the infinite. It is only then we can fully live each precious moment. Right here, right now, all things are enlightening us.
A Personal Account
The Complete Me
I decided that after my detox from chemical dependency ended, I would continue to detoxify my whole body, as well as my spirit. More important than all of that, I knew that getting clean would not come without a personal insight that would gain me some hard-earned wisdom.
The controlled environment in which I detoxed was effective in getting me clean. I liken it to being hosed down. For me to maintain that cleanliness, I would need the spiritual equivalent of a warm bath. That, I knew would come from holistic addiction treatment.
Before my addiction, I’d always been a spiritual person; it was a pursuit of a higher spiritual plain, which led me to my addiction.
Recovery, as we all know, involves getting in touch with one’s higher power. As spiritual as I purported to be, I’d never really known my true higher power.
Before I could heal on the outside, I’d have to be clean on the inside and I’m not referring to my internal organs; I’m referring to my damaged spirituality.
One of the first steps in healing my spirituality was the yoga therapy I underwent during my holistic addiction recovery. Believe it or not, this was key in helping me identify triggering behaviors that could cause me to backslide.
Even more crucial to my complete detox was energy therapy. Seeing myself for the first time as an energy field, I was now able to use that energy to take control of my experience and actions. I used it to combat the negative and maintain a much more positive persona.
This persona became external as well as internal and people important to me informed me they noticed a positive change in my outlook and demeanor. More importantly, I noticed it too.
I still am in search of my higher power, but instead of being consumed by the dogged pursuit of the unknown, I now find myself on a soothing journey of knowledge and enlightenment that has kept me clean since my detox.
Glenna F. – Lincolndale, NY
