Our Programme

Our Programme & What we do

Experienced psychiatrist & clinical psychologists at Awakening rehab foundation, guide recovering clients/addicts for their compulsions, addictions, and other behavioral problems with a focus that goes beyond just ridding the individual of their symptoms. These experienced practitioners help with identifying the core of the issue that causes these individuals to become addicted to a substance, in the first place. Through the use of the following therapies, clinical psychologists at Awakening rehab foundation, aid recovering addicts to gain back the control of their lives before any adverse consequences.

Behavioral Therapy:

Often used in combination with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Motivational Enhancement, behavioral therapy looks at eliminating individual patterns that may be causing stress and anxiety to particular clients/addicts.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy:

This therapy is an effective way for an individual to understand the relationship between thought processes, behaviors, and emotional states. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps clients with adaptive thinking, and understanding as to how one’s life experiences contribute to their views on themselves and the world around them.

Contingency Management:

This is a kind of behavioral therapy that is based on operant conditioning. This kind of therapy instills positive and/or negative conditioning in the client/addict, depending on the kind of behavior exhibited. At times, withholding of privileges is taken to measure if the patient has been observed to carry out unacceptable conduct, and vice-versa.

Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy:

The goal of this kind of therapy is to assess and eliminate thought processes that may be negative or incorrect, in return helping the patient overcome psychological problems and mental distress, leading to addiction.

Motivational Enhancement Therapy:

This therapy employs motivational sessions with a therapist, to help the patient engage with their therapy. Motivational therapy is used to help the client/addict have more positive thought patterns about their recovery.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy:

This kind of therapy adepts clients with new skill sets to manage difficult emotions, in turn decreasing conflict within their inter-personal relationships. Using techniques such as mindfulness, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) allows the patient to be in the present, and have  perspective, when managing their attitudes towards their own addictions.

Multidimensional Family Therapy:

This therapy is mostly used to treat psychological problems in youth. By focusing and working on behavioral problems such as delinquency, antisocial and aggressive acts, this therapy helps the young addict in forming more meaningful relationships with their families.

Integrative Therapy:

This therapy employs different methods (behavioral, cognitive, physical, social, and spiritual) through various stages of the healing process, to attain the maximum benefit.

Person- Centered Therapy:

This therapy brings the patient to the centre of the conversation table, by putting their perspective about themselves at a pedestal. The therapist, in this approach, works towards understanding the patient from their perspective. This method can enable the patient to reconnect with their inner values and sense of self-worth.

Family Therapy:

The families/care-takers of the client need regular counseling (twice a week), to break the co- dependency pattern. Co-dependent people can often seem to reinforce each other’s unhealthy habits, and we here at Awakening Rehab foundation, provide counseling sessions to help eliminate this.

Relapse Management Program:

This program works by highlighting and working on individual triggers that may result in the patient re-using. This program focuses on working towards a healthy body and mind through meditation and relaxation techniques, which in turn result in a higher probability of being able to resist temptations and triggers. 

This also includes a regular follow up by a staff member for three months after the client has been discharged.

 

The 12 – step program

An extensively tried and tested approach, the 12 – step program facilitates an active probing of the patient, encouraging their attendance and participation. The 12 steps of recovery, addresses the psychology of the patient/user- their addiction, as well as the individual’s willingness to engage with others and ask for help. The steps allow for the patient to acknowledge the need for a change, through personal accountability. The steps may seem to point at addiction as malignant, but doesn’t look at it simply as a sign of moral weakness. The 12 – step program works well, as there is a focus on one’s individual moral code as being central in the path to recovery.

 

The health practitioners at Awakening rehab foundation recognize the need for a psychiatrist to visit the premises, regularly. We value our clients and take their health and healing to be our primary focus. While our physician tends to ailments related to addiction, there is also a focus on routine health check-ups for ailments and health problems that aren’t connected to addiction. Our facility has several tie-ups with various hospitals in the area, where our client/addicts are periodically taken for health visits. Addicts/users are known to suffer from health concerns that accompany a lifestyle lacking in adequate nourishment. We, at Awakening rehab foundation recognize this, and consider a routine health check up to be paramount in the early detection of any conditions that may ail our clients, due to the past lifestyles they may have led.

 

 

Detoxification

Detoxification is the initial stage of the rehabilitation process where all the traces of drugs and alcohol from the body are removed. Health practitioners at the facility here, examine the individual’s unique body composition, metabolism and the particular drug used by the client, and under the supervision of the concerned medical staff, endeavor to make detoxification a thoroughly secure process. This process is important in helping the body get rid of toxins that may interfere with its normal functioning.

At the Awakening rehab foundation, detoxification is a two way process. Under the supervision of a qualified psychiatrist, certain medicines are provided to the clients (medicines differ based on the kind of substance used) that help with easing the symptoms of withdrawals and/or diminish the intensity of the withdrawals. Detoxification, in this facility, is also carried out through diet (tailor made by the dietician) and by providing specific juices. This two way process ensures that the quitting window becomes easier to deal with.

 

Activities at Awakening rehab foundation

At our center, we focus on incorporating therapies into recreational activities, that help users/addicts with unlearning unhealthy habits, eventually leading them into building a positive self worth and esteem. The center employs cognitive (involves relearning or improving skills such as thinking, learning, memory, planning, and decision making), vocational (aids in building skills for re-entering education or working at a job), art therapy (can aid clients with expressing their emotions, or with developing the feeling of social connectedness), and recreational (helps promote emotional well-being through crafts, games, and animal-assisted therapy) rehabilitation, in order to establish a positive relationship in the clients, with themselves.

Continued substance abuse can often times lead to the building of a negative self-image in users/addicts. These individuals become detached to any hobbies, healthy inter-personal relationships, or ambitions they may have had, before they started using drugs. The following recreational therapies used in our center, offer to bring some of these back, in a holistic way. These activities go beyond providing the clients with a sense of exhilaration or fun- these encourage recovering addicts to tap into a plethora of other mindsets and emotions that can be positive influences on treatment and recovery.

• Adventure Therapy– Having a daily routine that involves a 30-45 minute workout, encourages resilience, trust, self-confidence, and problem-solving skills- all of which rapidly diminish for a substance abuse addict. Through discipline, established by having a daily activity on the timetable, addicts/users can begin to develop a new and a healthier relationship with themselves. The center encourages its clients to involve themselves in activities such as playing badminton, and running- after these individuals have spent a certain amount of time indoors, with the various staff.
• Wilderness Therapy – Under adequate supervision- having activities that are set in a contained outdoor setting (a garden/ neighbourhood park), can encourage team-building and self-sufficiency in recovering addicts/users. Sessions may include various survival skills, where applicable and under a trained staff member. A close encounter with nature can provide healing at a deeper level, thus helping the addicts/users develop smarter skills that substitute unhealthy patterns.
• Holistic Therapies – Yoga and meditation, massage, Reiki, and acupuncture can help foster a meditative mind, often essential in the case of recovering addicts. These can be provided as activities undertaken as groups.
• Art Therapy – These sessions can include music, dance, or visual arts, integrated in a way that encourages self-reflection, introspection, and confidence, and may even assist a recovering addict work through traumatic experiences connected to addiction. At our center, we offer classes on gardening and pottery- that bolsters the recovering addict’s mind into mindfulness- a state that is essential to tap into, when healing from a past riddled with substance abuse. The center also holds karaoke, poetry exhibit and dance nights, which aids with the development of a strong self-esteem among recovering clients of substance abuse.
• Day-to-day recreational opportunities – Depending on the sources available at each center, a variety of activities can be initiated as part of the addict’s/user’s leisure time. Hiking, fishing, trips to a nature reserve, heritage walks, rock-climbing, visits to a local library- can all be beneficial in bringing the recovering addict back to living a fulfilling life. Our center hosts movie nights on Saturdays, and encourages the recovering clients to play board games such as chess- these activities inculcate important skill sets such as the development of a sturdy intuition and a strong mind, both, important in the rehabilitation of an addict.
• Animal Therapy – Having congenial pets in a rehabilitation center can aid the process of healing for recovering addicts. By working and playing in close proximity with gentle animals, recovering addicts can develop their sense of perception, in a way that encourages healing and introspection.
• Professional or executive programs – Professionals from various fields of study can be brought into rehabilitation premises, for an hour-long session on something topical and/or niche. Our center has an in-house English teacher that helps with developing confidence among the recovering addicts, by teaching them a language that may help them gain employment, once they are ready to step out into the job-world. Facilities such as this, offer recovering clients the time to work and stay connected to their career aspirations.
• Culinary Diversity – Far too often, in the state of an addiction, persons may not give importance to nutrition in a way that leads to malnourishment. Having weekly cookouts and cook-ins, can help develop an interest in one’s own physical health. Group activities that involve meal prepping and cooking a meal, develop inter-personal skills, and the excitement of taking an active role in one’s health. Visiting a local vegetable market under sufficient supervision, can also help with the development of a healthy relationship with food among recovering addicts.

 

Clients recovering from substance abuse, have, for far too long, lived in a manner that did not offer stability, or a focus on the person’s emotional, mental, spiritual, or physical health. A result of this is that many sufferers of addiction may find it hard to believe that an engaging life could exist, after sobriety. Incorporating the above therapies and techniques during the rehabilitation of a user, can bring about a positive perspective in the recovering addict. Although some of the above categories may not outright be activities, their inclusion may allow a recovering patient to begin forging their own day-to-day behaviours or activities, however small, that may help to instill a stronger sense of self and purpose in their life.

 

Diet

 

As a rehabilitation center for substance abuse/addiction, we are focused on providing recovery through a holistic approach. We look at nutrition and exercise as key factors that aid towards a complete recovery of the addicts/users we house here. At the center, we believe that proper nutrition and hydration are paramount to the substance abuse healing process, as these help restore physical and mental well being, thereby increasing the chances of recovery. Health practitioners in the rehabilitation center are aware of the various deficiencies that can accompany the symptoms of drug abuse, namely: depression, anxiety, social isolation, and low energy- all of which can lead someone to start re-using drugs or alcohol, or in other words, trigger a relapse.

 

It is assumed that clients who carry a history of drug abuse haven’t been practicing good nutrition. A result of negligence towards proper nutrition can either effect in malnourishment or obesity, in substance abuse addicts/users. At the center, not only do we value keeping a close eye on the kind of foods we offer, we also develop a habit of eating at regular times, in the recovering clients. We are aware that some kinds of substance abuse can create a disruptive metabolic cycle due to a suppression of appetite, and hence, make sure that the clients here get their daily nutritional values met.

 

Substance abuse can lead to various vitamin and mineral deficiencies that can lead to an abnormality in the functioning of various vital organs and the nervous system, resultantly decreasing immunity in addicts/users. To help a patient recover from the effects of substance abuse, we provide them with calorifically appropriate meals at regular intervals, along with a certain amount of physical activity, that helps with stress management and improved sleep.

 

We provide nutrient-dense foods (e.g. fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish) that help decrease inflammation, reduce cell oxidation, and provide the basics of a healthful diet. At the center, we look at incorporating macronutrients such as Carbohydrates- the body’s main source of energy, in the regular diet of the clients. Carbohydrates can be eaten in various forms (Poha/ flattened rice/Idlis- for breakfast, rice for lunch), and aids in keeping the blood sugar stable. Unstable blood sugar can lead to feelings of frustration, anxiety, and cravings.

 

Eating healthier forms of carbohydrates (Dosa, Upma) aids in the production of serotonin, which facilitates a happy, stable mood; aids in sleep; and helps curb food cravings. Low serotonin levels can result in sleep problems, irritability, and depression.

Drug addicts/users can often suffer from gastrointestinal distress, and hence, a diet rich in fiber (through oatmeal, rice, green leafy vegetables and darker fruits) can help eliminate their stomach problems. Often deficient in Vitamin B, which helps the body produce energy from food, recovering addicts/users must also include healthy fats such as avocados, nuts and dry fruits (raisins, apricots, almonds), fresh water fishes, poultry, and lean meat in their daily diet.

 

The center has access to a dietician, who monitors the physical requirements of each of the clients, individually. All meals are pre-approved by the dietician, who works in close coordination with the psychologist, to provide tailor made eating plans for each user, depending on their individual vitamin and mineral deficiencies. The dietician also works closely with clients that tend to be overweight, helping them lose weight. Inversely, to help with increasing the number on the weighing scale, the dietician gives underweight clients a specific diet chart to follow.

 

At the center, we also focus on encouraging clients to drink adequate amounts of hydrating fluids. We monitor sugar intake, as several recovering addicts/users may begin to look at sugar in the same way they would look at drugs- as something that spikes their blood sugar levels and brings them to a crash, resulting in a depressive episode. Clients are allowed one cup of coffee or tea in a day, and no more, as caffeine can trigger the same reward centers of the brain as substances, and can markedly impact anxiety and sleep. We ensure that the clients in our center are provided with their daily nutrients, through green vegetable juices and seasonal fruit juices.

Through the above-mentioned diet, health practitioners at the rehabilitation center are able to heal and nourish the clients, and stabilize their mood. These foods aid in reducing stress and cravings for drugs and/or alcohol. Most importantly, a regular cycle of eating, inculcated among clients, ensures that they are able to encourage self-care and a healthful lifestyle in themselves.