What Types of Therapy are Available for Meth Addiction?

What Types of Therapy are Available for Meth Addiction?

Methamphetamine is addictive for a reason: it’s inexpensive, accessible, and has a huge, immediate effect on your brain function. It’s also made of some of the most toxic chemicals humans can ingest. The 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that over a million people in the US have problems with meth addiction. And most of those people, we can imagine, are looking for a way to quit.

At The Sanctuary, we take an integrated approach to meth addiction recovery that goes beyond just treating your substance use. We address the ways meth affects your body, mind, soul, and spirit using a science-based program that employs multiple therapies. These powerful interventions include:

  • Psychotherapy
  • Nutrition and gut health
  • Energy medicine
  • Bodywork
  • Sound healing
  • Social support

After going through this intensive process, many clients who come to us for meth addiction find that the issues they came here for are no longer part of their reality. And they often find that this transformation can happen in much simpler ways than they imagined.

Let’s take a closer look at how these therapies can heal meth addiction.

Why Meth Recovery Needs a Holistic Approach

Old-school addiction treatment philosophies suggest that addiction is a lifelong illness: a fundamental flaw. But the truth is, addiction is a symptom of the entire human system. As humans, we’re holistic beings. We have a body, a mind, a soul, and a spirit, and they are all connected. So when we have an issue like addiction in one of these areas, it affects all the others. And if we work on all of them together, our chances of seeing success in recovery are far greater.

That’s why real, lasting meth addiction recovery requires a holistic approach. It needs to be addressed in all of the ways it affects you. We use a variety of therapies to access and heal the many parts of yourself, so you can make changes on a deeper level than ever before.

Types of Meth Addiction Treatments

Meth addiction often co-occurs with mental health disorders like depression and anxiety. And, it often occurs alongside other substance addictions.

What’s really important isn’t the substance used, but getting to the core issue underlying these behavioral patterns. This usually has to do with some form of underlying trauma. Comprehensive meth addiction treatment has to address both substance dependency and the mental health issues that go along with it. Following are a few of the therapies we use at The Sanctuary to do so.

Psychotherapy

Psychological therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) provide space for you to talk through the problems meth addiction stems from or is creating in your life. Therapists can help you identify your emotions and see how they’re linked to certain behaviors. At The Sanctuary, talk therapy also helps you process all the work you’re doing in other areas of your healing journey.

One previous Sanctuary client describes how group therapy helped move his recovery process along:

“The group therapy was one of my favorite things within the program because we receive so much support. We help each other as a group, and we can relate to things that others are struggling with. We bounce things back and forth, and it accelerates the healing process so much.”

Other psychotherapies that can be used to treat meth addiction include:

  • Depth psychology
  • Inner child therapy
  • Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
  • Trauma release exercises (TRE)
  • Somatic experiencing (SE)
  • Acceptance commitment therapy (ACT)
  • Shadow work
  • Individual and group process therapy

Nutrition

We now know that one of the largest causes of addiction and mental health disorders actually takes place in the gut. Meth use – and the malnutrition that accompanies it – has a major impact on your intestinal health. When you don’t absorb nutrients effectively, your gut starts sending messages to your brain that you’re not okay. And your brain, in turn, interprets those messages as anxiety or depression.

At The Sanctuary, we use nutrition as a powerful component of meth addiction healing. We do this via:

Diet

While on campus, clients eat a diet that’s free of processed and inflammatory foods that lead to disease, and full of all the antioxidants, healthy fats, and phytonutrients the body needs to create health. We’re careful about sourcing our local, organic products and creating delicious and diverse meals that nourish you from the inside out. In fact, much of our produce is grown right here on our grounds.

Supplements

In addition to a nutrient-rich diet, supplements are also important to provide essential vitamins and minerals that are missing from most modern food systems.

Our clients receive weekly personal consultations with a functional medicine doctor to make sure everything they’re taking in is just right for their bodily systems. We offer a standard supplement protocol designed to detox your organs and bring you back to baseline. You’ll also receive a personalized regimen based on your specific needs, as well as guidance on what supplements to take after you leave.

Education 

Our goal is to empower you to take control of your health, and nutrition is a large part of that. We hold group classes with our nutritionist once a week, where clients learn in-depth information about how to eat for recovery and optimal health. They also receive classes on the science behind our nutrition program, backed by information from some of the foremost doctors leading research on the gut-brain connection.

We understand that nutrition doesn’t end when you leave The Sanctuary. We’re here to answer all of your questions about how to maintain real-life dietary changes, so you can feel well for life.

Energy Medicine

An extremely strong stimulant, meth causes severe sleep deprivation. Binges often result in users staying up for days on end, which leads to the notorious meth psychosis- one of the worst consequences of meth addiction.

Meth carries its own vibrational frequency, and when you use it, you’re subject to it. This is why people in states of meth psychosis have such disorienting experiences. They’re interacting with very disturbing energies. Meth causes a severe disturbance in your energy field and healing it is absolutely necessary to recover from addiction.

Your energy field is a container for your own personal life force, and your wellbeing depends on it. But addiction depletes your stores of vital energy. However, when we clear and replenish this field, we accelerate recovery. At The Sanctuary, energy medicine forms a key component of the healing journey. By removing toxic imprints for addiction and disease, we create new opportunities to thrive.

Bodywork

Meth is destructive to your cells and tissues. Repeating movements, being awake for long periods of time, and holding muscle tension can all cause physical pain. And the trauma that causes meth addiction, as well as the trauma that results from it, get stored in your body. Releasing tension from your body restores your cells to a state of receptivity, so you can be more open to change.

Our experienced bodyworkers are trained not only in massage but also in other healing arts like Reiki. They’re able to discuss and sense what’s going on with clients at each stage in their journey and provide the specific support they need. Clients at The Sanctuary attend bodywork sessions twice a week, which forms a crucial component of the overall program. A healing touch can be a great comfort when you’re working through emotional challenges.

Sound Healing

When you’re using meth, you attune to its vibrational frequency. In other words, you come under its influence.

In sound therapy, the same principle applies, but your energy attunes to the vibration of healing instruments. This not only can produce profound feelings of relief, calm, and bliss but can also accelerate change in your brain and body. Sound therapy uses crystal bowls, drums, chimes, and other instruments to positively influence your brain waves. These healing vibrations stimulate change in your mind, body, and spirit.

At The Sanctuary, we work with some of Sedona’s best-known sound healers to provide a truly unique experience. A journey within a journey, sound healing sessions take place once a week after dinner for a restorative experience followed by a peaceful sleep.

Connection and Support

Meth addiction thrives in loneliness. In fact, addiction is referred to as a “disease of isolation.” While meth use often starts socially, addiction eventually causes us to stop showing up to the important things in life. Family and community responsibilities start to suffer. All the activities that you enjoyed, that made you feel like you mattered, cease. And as close relationships become stressed and eventually fall away, our circles become smaller and smaller until we feel truly alone.

At some point during addiction, isolation becomes a coping skill. We hide away so that others don’t see what we’re going through. We might even tell ourselves that we’ll get better on our own. But whether or not anyone knows it, we’re in a lot of pain. And the truth is that as social beings, we need a connection to thrive.

We believe that the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection. And our holistic treatment program facilitates a connection with yourself, with nature, and with those around you, so you can feel whole again. When you see how meaningful you are to others, it can feel like coming home.

One former client says:

“This holistic program is something that I feel would benefit absolutely anyone with any addiction. We’re disconnected from ourselves, and disconnected from the planet. A program like this really brings things back home, and that’s how I feel. I feel like I’ve come back home.”

A Comprehensive Journey of Healing From Meth Addiction

Meth addiction is serious, and fully healing from it requires a holistic approach. At The Sanctuary, we understand that this isn’t as simple as adding a yoga class to a traditional treatment model. Our non-12-Step program is based on science, and carefully integrates each aspect of healing into a complete, transformative experience.

Recovery requires us to change our patterns; to do things we’re not used to doing. And that can sometimes be intimidating. But once we step into that challenge and overcome our fear, what we find on the other side is a restored connection to our inner strengths. And that gives us the power to go about life in a whole new way.

Discover your empowerment at The Sanctuary. Contact us today.