The two fundamental phases in treating an alcohol addiction are getting professional support to properly detox and then receiving treatment in a recovery center. Rehabilitation programs include a range of therapeutic modalities, such as Multidimensional Family Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and 12-Step-based group work.
By providing a variety of talk therapy options, these options can give each person access to interventions that will help them adopt new, more advantageous habits.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) states that behavioral therapies are meant to:
- Modify your attitudes and behaviors in relation to alcohol and drug abuse.
- Develop fresh, wholesome coping methods and life skills
- Continually treat patients with medication, as necessary
These research-based methods can be offered through various talk therapy formats from both individual and group counselors. Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy is a division of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). This brief kind of behavioral therapy aims to alter unhealthy thoughts, actions, and behaviors in order to help the patient maintain their health.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: What Is It?
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, a subset of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, uses many of the same techniques to investigate the underlying reasons for particular behaviors and beliefs. An REBT therapist will assist the client in this type of psychotherapy by helping them examine their current emotional distress or unhealthy behaviors.
The therapist will then assist the client in exploring any emotions or ideas that may have influenced these behaviors and had a detrimental impact on their lives. For instance, someone who has unfavorable core views about their job may experience depression or anxiety.
The therapist and client collaborate to replace the negative behaviors with positive behaviors once these beliefs have been recognized and how they manifested as actions have been clarified.
Albert Ellis, a psychologist, created REBT in the 1950s and continues to improve it. Today, there are numerous therapists that specialize in this method. In order to help clients feel better about themselves, their loved ones, and their place in the world, Ellis set out to establish a new, more focused approach to transforming negative ideas and behaviors.
According to Ellis, the vast majority of people desire happiness, therefore learning to control the detrimental effects of disappointments, rejections, and failures aids everyone in maintaining focus on their overall welfare.
Mainly erroneous beliefs include:
- Demanding or absolute: This entails rigid or dogmatic ideas.
- Demand for love or approval: The individual looks to others’ affirmation and love as the cornerstone of their self-acceptance.
- Demand for success or achievement: When people choose a worthwhile objective, exceeding expectations in accomplishing it becomes the yardstick by which they judge the truth of their own self-concept.
- The inability to control tension or discomfort is referred to as the demand for comfort.
- Affiliation: When one minor item doesn’t go as planned or goes wrong, the person catastrophizes the entire situation, believing that everything is terrible, has failed, or is a catastrophe.
- Low tolerance for frustration: The person frequently exclaims that something is “too hard” or that they “cannot bear it.”
In terms of Ellis’s fundamental musts, these fundamentally irrational beliefs can be understood. These three self-descriptions demonstrate the detrimental effects of illogical ideas on the individual:
- To obtain others’ acceptance, the person must do admirably; without it, the person is worthless.
- Others must treat the person with care, justice, and kindness in the proper manner; if not, they should be held accountable.
- A person cannot tolerate the result if they do not receive what they want, when they want it, and do not have to fight with issues they do not want.
REBT in Alcohol Rehabilitation
Many types of substance addiction treatment, including alcohol dependency or alcohol use disorder, can be treated with REBT. Alcohol addiction is closely linked to both depression and anxiety, particularly in those who use alcohol to treat themselves for the thoughts, feelings, and actions that characterize their mood illness.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), serious depression affected 50% of individuals who died by suicide in the US, and 30% of those deaths were caused by blood alcohol concentration (BAC) that was at or over the legal limit of 0.08 in those cases. This shows that abusing alcohol worsens the signs and symptoms of depression.
When undergoing rehabilitation, REBT techniques can be employed to assist the patient in confronting their unfavorable perspective on stress. Many therapists assist persons battling alcohol consumption to comprehend that stress is a typical reaction and the related discomfort is natural rather than turning to drinking to relieve daily demands like work or child-rearing.