Are you at a crossroads?

What if a loved one was slipping back into addiction to opioid painkillers, alcohol or any drug for that matter? What if you confronted him and he denied it or said that it wasn’t that bad?

What if you asked him to go back to rehab and he said he’d think about it but he never brought it up again? Imagine he said he’d get help, but just couldn’t afford to take the time off from work that would be required for residential treatment – but he might consider an outpatient program.

Would you know where to look? You might even be the person with the drug or alcohol problem, asking yourself these questions. How might you answer? Who would you turn to?

Traditional approaches don’t work

In my experience, many people, including the healthcare professionals you might turn to, would not be able to adequately answer these questions. First, they are not aware enough of the various treatment options for people with substance use disorders, nor are they aware that some of these treatments are scientifically-validated (i.e., evidence-based) and others are not.

Second, they are often unfamiliar with evidence-based approaches that virtually anyone could learn to motivate individuals who are “resistant” to engaging in treatment – approaches that have been shown to be more successful than traditional “interventions.”

Additionally, treatment providers can’t generally do enough outreach to help those not in treatment. They don’t manage relapses that occur after treatment is completed, aside from having them repeat the same program they already went through. And they don’t have time to get “drop-outs” back into treatment.

This lack of knowledge, I believe, has at least partially resulted in some pretty bleak statistics. Only about eight percent of people with a substance use disorder receive treatment at a specialty facility in a given year, and fewer still get evidence-based treatment. The relapse rate after inpatient treatment is about 50 percent in the first 12 months and the drop-out rate from treatment is approximately 40 percent.

My Approach

Based on my more than two decades of experience training a wide variety of professionals, including addiction specialists and health and wellness coaches, I have developed the Progressive Recovery Coach Training Program, which adheres to the core competencies and code of ethics of other professional coaches (e.g., life, health and executive coaches.) A progressive recovery coach is a professional coach who adheres to what I call a “progressive model of recovery,” one in which the coaching is:

• client-directed, in that the client decides what he/she will or won’t work on, which has been shown to be an important element of effectively motivating people who are “resistant” to change.
• evidence-based, in that coaches use an approach called motivational interviewing, which has been shown to improve engagement in treatment and outcomes. They also educate clients about which treatment approaches are evidence-based and which are not.
• focused on either individuals with substance use issues or family members and concerned significant others, using their evidence-based coaching strategies to help clients according to what’s best summarized with the acronym, “N.E.A.R.” – because a professional recovery coach is always nearby.