Recreation Therapy in Treating Addictions
"Alcohol/drug addiction is a leisure disease and a disease of leisure! People pay for the feeling because they don't know how to get it free. That is, they don't know how to play in a manner that produces the desired feeling." -Rozanne Faulkner
Most people take their first drink or drug during their leisure time. It happens while at a party or hanging out with friends, not in math class or during a shift at work. Due to this fact, leisure and addiction are often intertwined and individuals struggle to separate the two. Many abandon their leisure interests and hobbies when addiction takes over. One of the purposes of Recreation Therapy is to help them find and implement interests and activities again without the addiction. How do they recreate sober?
Recreation Therapy is a service, different from recreation services that use recreational and experiential modalities in designed prescriptive intervention strategies devised to reduce symptoms of addiction and/or mental health, develop new skills, increase independence, and quality of life.
Recreational Therapy benefits:
Improve social functioning
Develop effective problem-solving skills
Improve self-esteem
Promote positive social skills
Increase ability to cope with stressors
Identify new coping strategies
Increase feelings of control
Increase ability to focus
Decrease loneliness
Reduce boredom
Develop relaxation skills
Improve the use of free time and increase leisure planning
Increase the ability to have fun while sober
Importance of Leisure Education
A combination of a physical fitness program, healthy recreation activities, and fulfilling leisure time will aid in the development of a healthy recovery since it provides the individual the opportunity to practice lifestyle changes, balance and healthy coping skills. Teaching leisure skills to individuals during treatment will increase their ability to participate in appropriate leisure activities and move toward independent participation in recreation.
Importance of Fitness
Exercise has been shown to reduce cravings and use, helping to replace unhealthy habits and relationships, reducing overall stress and fatigue, and re-instilling a sense of taking care of one’s self. Exercise helps to repair the body and helps it heal by encouraging new muscle tissue growth and improving the body’s overall physiology. Exercise also encourages new brain tissue growth and repairs brain damage; in particular, serotonin and dopamine receptors in the brain, which may have been damaged from prolonged drug or alcohol abuse, can actually be reversed.
Many people who exercise report a type of “high” they get as a result of exercising. This feeling is a product of these natural chemicals in the brain being released in healthy amounts which can help individuals who struggle with addiction feel better emotionally and physically, and improve the overall state of mind.
Importance of Recreation
Recreation is defined as an activity done for enjoyment when one is not working. Leisure is the use of free time that is enjoyable. Recreation and leisure are how an individual resets, recuperates, restores, and is re-energized.
By the time an individual needs addiction treatment, their leisure and social activities most likely revolve entirely around alcohol and drug use. People recovering from drug and alcohol abuse must learn how to manage stress and have fun without the use of chemicals. Finding leisure activities they enjoy can provide them with constructive use of their free time.
Recreational activities are an excellent tool for teaching individuals how to achieve goals, solve problems, socialize while sober, and handle stressful situations without the use of drugs or alcohol. Providing a variety of activities to participate in is necessary to help these individuals identify new interests and sober activities for them to enjoy on their own. Recreation is one of the key ways to Erase those negative behaviors or memories and Replace them with new, fun, uplifting ones. This in turn can also decrease triggers as they replace negative associations and create new ones.
Importance of Outdoor Recreation
The healing effects of nature are very powerful and can be highly therapeutic, especially to those in treatment for drug or alcohol abuse. Outdoor recreation provides individuals with the chance to rest and refocus their energies on their recovery.
Benefits of outdoor recreation include reduced stress levels, increased attention span, improved relaxation, decreased anxiety, reduced blood pressure, and decreased risk of depression.
Importance of Recreation in Sobriety
Boredom is one of the biggest challenges people face in early recovery. If someone leaves the structure of treatment and returns home without a plan to address how they spend their free time it is easy to fall back into old habits and bad relationships. It is critically important to incorporate fitness and leisure activities as part of treatment as a way to spark an individual’s life-long interest in sober activities. People in early recovery need to be shown that it’s possible to have fun without the use of chemicals.
Addict to Athlete believes that an active role in sober recreational activities leads to a fuller and more rewarding life. It is time for you to give new life, create your life again, and bring freshness by recreating. We hope to help individuals and families not only recreate but re-create their lives. Our goal is to give our athletes an opportunity to enjoy a variety of recreational activities. The anticipated result is to show individuals how to find enjoyment in a leisure activity, encourage them to be socially active while building sober support, and help them learn new skills they can apply to many areas of their lives, thus implementing our erase and replace philosophy.