As a society, our ability to manage difficult emotions seems to be diminishing. When coupled with trauma, addiction, or substance dependency, this can be deeply toxic to our physical, emotional, and social health. Dealing with anger, coping with grief, and experiencing emotional recovery are all essential parts of a comprehensive treatment program, and it’s one of our main focuses at our San Diego detox program.
Death, Trauma, and Grief Coping with Substance Use Disorders
Rage, grief, sorrow, and depression are universal, tangible emotions that everyone experiences. In the US, however, we’re often raised to be “tougher” than our emotions, leading many people to develop unhealthy coping mechanisms when they don’t have healthy, normal channels for their feelings. Grief and trauma can leave severe, lasting impacts on every aspect of our health. One study following urban children who experienced childhood trauma found shockingly high rates of substance dependence in this same group years later. Of this population, 39% were dependent on alcohol, over a third had a cocaine dependency, and 6.2% were dependent on opiates. When acute trauma like death or disease in friends or family isn’t addressed, coped with, or managed, it can develop into a more serious post-traumatic stress disorder.
Veterans, who often experience these immense stressors as a daily part of their job, are most susceptible to the long-term negative consequences of burying their emotions. As the Department of Veterans Affairs themselves puts it, “Almost 1 out of every 3 Veterans seeking treatment for SUD also has PTSD”. With major naval and marine facilities in the area, it comes as no surprise that detox programs in San Diego are more needed than ever to cope with the severe trauma many soldiers endure.
As we let these traumas linger without care, we risk becoming dependent on immediate, short-term coping mechanisms, like drugs and alcohol. The euphoric state these chemicals can trigger often helps to bury our most painful emotions but never truly relieves our burden. Much like a weed, the deeper we bury these unhealthy emotions, the further they spread. Repressing our emotions is an unhealthy grief coping mechanism that almost always leads to more problems.
AToN’s Detox Program in San Diego
As our culture shifts and changes, the old way of treating addiction isn’t keeping up with the needs of our community. San Diego detox and residential treatment centers have to be prepared to care for a society that is both fiercely independent and dealing with serious, buried traumas. Many people feel they have a stronger support system than they really do because internet forums and a larger quantity of lower-quality connections give us the illusion of a dense support network while leaving us emotionally vulnerable when we need a human connection most.
Lack of Authentic Communication
Social media and stronger internet involvement have technically made us more “connected.” At the same time, a report in the UK’s Mental Health Foundation found that more and more often, people are experiencing what they consider “chronic loneliness.” Simply put, we don’t have the same quality connections with other people that generations before us may have had. We do most of our talking through forums, memes, emails, and social media. This lack of authentic communication, coupled with economic uncertainty and a million other factors, has led us to be more emotionally reclusive, reserved, and even cynical than ever before in history.
AToN Recovery focuses on helping us re-establish our emotional roots so we can deal with them rather than burying them indefinitely.
