Sustain a full recovery from both anxiety and addiction
Anxiety is part of our body’s natural survival mechanism
Also known as the stress response, anxiety is our warning signal that something potentially threatening is occurring. It puts us on alert and makes us vigilant. It also prepares our bodies to take action if needed, beginning the ‘fight or flight’ response. Anxiety problems leave us living in that heightened stressful state even when there is no threat.
The brain adapts to constantly scanning for danger and being prepared to save our lives, thus keeping us in a constant state of hypervigilance. Hypervigilance is also accompanied by anxiety and ultimately exhaustion since no living organism is designed to live in perpetual stress. The brain does not differentiate between a real threat and a perceived threat. The limbic brain is part of the unconscious mind and therefore is not healed through rational thought. Very often a person is not even aware of the cause of the anxiety.
Pharmaceuticals do not address the cause of anxiety and only reduce the symptoms. Often these drugs are habit forming and have a rebound effect. Thus a person’s condition is worse after taking these drugs than the original condition they were prescribed to treat.
Simply managing this with comforting thoughts, medication or soothing activity doesn’t make lasting changes. Real change occurs when the brain adapts to different ‘brain habits’ and operates more normally.
Anxiety is a common co-occurring issue with addiction. The interaction of the two is complex and for the person who has them, it can feel like an overwhelmingly hopeless situation. A vicious cycle develops in which symptoms of anxiety make addiction worse and symptoms of addiction make anxiety worse. These dynamics result in more substance use to seek relief. However, using more deepens anxiety and most people continue self-medicating, making the problem a chronic and progressive one. This vicious cycle interrupts daily life, progressively eroding the quality of life. It also plays a significant role in other problems that can develop such as depression, lost life opportunities, loneliness and isolation.
One of the most tragic results of co-occurring anxiety and addiction is the high risk of returning to substance use despite earnest efforts to stop using. This occurs if both conditions are not successfully resolved. Many addicted people with unresolved anxiety have suffered through addiction relapse after relapse despite arduous efforts to recover. It is difficult to maintain hope when trapped in the vicious cycle of anxiety and addiction constantly triggering one another.
You Are Not Alone
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety is the most common mental health condition in the U.S. affecting about 40 million adults.1 Its pervasive burden is reflected in other statistics:
• People suffering with anxiety are 6 times more likely to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital than those who do not have anxiety.
• People with anxiety problems are 2-3 times more likely to develop substance problems than the general population.
• Treatment costs for anxiety symptoms in the U.S. are more than $42 billion per year.2
The Good News
The good news is that we finally understand how anxiety works in the human brain. With that information, we now have effective, holistic techniques for its resolution. Discovering the brain’s neuroplasticity, or its natural ability to adapt and change, has made this possible.3 Some have said that the discovery of neuroplasticity is one of the most dramatic medical breakthroughs in the last few hundred years. Certainly, for those who suffer from anxiety and addiction, it has made the difference between ‘recovery failure’ and leading a sustainable and healthy life. People can now heal their anxiety rather than just manage it.
Our Solution: Full, Sustainable Recovery
The Sanctuary at Sedona offers you a non 12 Step holistic recovery program that addresses addiction and anxiety separately and simultaneously. We work with you to heal the underlying causes of both conditions to improve the quality of your life through a full and sustainable recovery. We provide:
• A Strong Clinical Component—our staff to client ratio is 1:1—virtually unheard of in addiction recovery. This gives you highly individualized care with far more clinical contact hours than the majority of addiction recovery centers provide. Additionally, individual sessions account for about 90% of your sessions and you will see two therapists per day.
• Our Small Size–we work with no more than 7 clients at a time. This allows us to give you intensive and individualized attention in a highly private setting. It also evokes feelings of trust and connection to the staff and other clients, giving you the support and psychological safety you need to be successful.
• Integrated Holistic Approach–we have assembled a team of highly skilled practitioners that are well-respected in their fields. They have expertise in many disciplines including nutrition, bodywork, acupuncture, herbalism, Energy Medicine, Functional Medicine, psychology and psychiatry. They work together to understand you and your needs holistically. They establish an ever-evolving treatment plan that is modified each and every day as you progress and your needs change.
• Finding the Core Issues— we help you identify and address the underlying root causes of addiction and anxiety. These may be biological issues, unresolved trauma, fear, anger, codependency, or feelings of emptiness, betrayal or abandonment, for example. We believe that addiction is not the ‘chronic, incurable and relapsing disease’ that traditional recovery models have believed in. We also believe that addiction can be cured and that you can be fully recovered when the root causes of your addiction are healed. The same is true for your anxiety.
• A Sustainable Recovery—as you go through our program, you learn techniques and skills that become a way of life so that you can sustain a full recovery from both anxiety and addiction. Relapse is no longer an issue when you heal at the deep level of root causes; you won’t need drugs to feel better anymore. You experience a fundamental shift in the neural pathways of the brain that brings about deep and sustainable transformation. You become empowered, enlivened and free of your anxiety and addiction—feeling connected to others and the world again. With this fundamental and healing shift, passion, a sense of purpose and meaning return. Employing the practices you learn with us, you can continue a full and sustainable recovery.
Read more about Our Holistic Addiction Recovery Program