Media & News:
Let Violence and Addiction Yield to Safety and Recovery
When you think of the single most important factor required to create an environment in which a woman can most effectively address her issues of addiction, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Absence of alcohol and drugs in her home? Enough time and money to be able to be in a treatment facility? A supportive network of people? Great counselors?
Each of those items is one aspect of recovery. However, there is another that stands out as the first and most essential element for successful recovery: Safety.
Being given the freedom to BE in a safe environment; to build a sober and clean life free of fear of recrimination, and free from physical or emotional threats are primary aspects of recovery.
At Residence XII, we believe that creating a safe environment that strengthens a woman and provides her with tools to address the secrets in her life, is the path to recovery and sobriety. This quest—this mandate— drives our treatment and clinical planning.
The treatment at Residence XII is constructed around the “Wise Woman” model. It values and embodies safety as a cornerstone to recovery. As we teach a woman to identify with the “Wise Woman” inside her, we must also address the glaring and chilling fact that fully eighty percent of women in treatment at Residence XII are victims of physical and/or sexual abuse.Given that, it is not surprising that much of the fuel of addiction (in addition to a genetic predisposition to the disease) in women is shame and guilt. Women frequently build their addictions around that secret.
Living with that kind of secret makes a safe life impossible to achieve. Safety comes in many forms. It means having the inner fortitude to effectively problem solve; to grab hold of one’s resources, wisdoms, and strengths to build a sober/clean life. Equally as important, safety is very much about dealing with the externals in one’s life. If you live in an environment where any form of violence is present, imagine the challenges to sobriety in that situation, not to mention the myriad emotional and physical challenges.
At Residence XII, we’ve long had a part of our treatment program geared to women for whom domestic violence or trauma plays a role in her past or present. Several years ago, as we looked at ways to further strengthen our treatment program, we concluded that we needed to do more to address the issue of domestic violence and trauma. We have greatly increased the skills training that we do for women who need this service. We have also broadened all of our patients’ awareness about domestic violence and trauma. The skills inherent in dealing effectively with domestic violence and in dealing with addiction have some similarities and some significant differences. We help women build their external safety net at the same time that she is working with her CDP counselor to build her internal safety net.
The cycle of violence in a woman’s life is often subtle and insidious. We’ve seen that when a woman who did not identify herself as a survivor of domestic violence is exposed to learning about domestic violence while she is in treatment, she begins to identify domestic violence in her own situation. She has not realized up to that point that the dynamics in her relationship included emotional/mental/ physical/sexual abuse. So, the work of the “Wise Woman” begins not just with those already aware of domestic violence issues, but with others whose learning is just beginning.
As we treat the whole woman, we also hold a deep commitment to our community. We strongly believe that one of the best gifts anyone can give to one’s community is a healthy, functional woman—because that means a healthy, functional spouse, mother, friend, daughter, employee, volunteer. Women are often the weavers of the fabric that holds together our communities. Our goal is to restore women to fulfilling lives in recovery.