Drug or alcohol addiction tends to give a person a sense of isolation and lack of self-confidence, and group therapy at a women’s recovery center allows a patient to be part of a healthy group whose members share the same goal. Humans are social creatures by nature. This natural tendency to associate and relate with others makes group therapy a potent therapeutic instrument for overcoming substance abuse.
Women alcoholics have been found to benefit greatly from group therapy since women tend to be more emotional, sensitive and more open to sharing their personal struggles with fellow women who are in the same shoes. Here is why group therapy is indispensable in any rehab for women, per the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
- Group therapy positively provides support from peers as well as a considerable amount of self-imposed pressure to stay clean. Feeling that you are a part of a group also somehow binds you to a moral obligation to attend and participate. Failing to attend, participate and give importance to group meetings can disappoint the members, and thus a patient feels much more socially obliged to take part in it actively for the benefit of the entire group. In this way, they are helping themselves as well as each other.
- Group therapy dramatically helps in reducing the feeling of isolation experienced by most women alcoholics and addicts. Simultaneously, being part of a group enables patients to identify and empathize with fellow women who share similar struggles in life, thus making them feel more secure and able to participate in sharing openly.
- This long interpersonal process group therapy offered at any women’s recovery center allows patients to witness firsthand the intra- and interpersonal changes and recovery of fellow patients, thereby motivating and inspiring them to become more determined in staying sober.
- A patient can learn coping techniques through vital pieces of advice from other patients based on actual personal experiences. In this way, patients can improve their relationships not only with family and friends but also with their employers, co-workers, and people in general.
- A group can add deep and practical insights to patients who have only just started on the often rough and rocky road toward recovery and lasting sobriety. For instance, patients will be advised on how to steer clear of potential triggers to drug or alcohol use. Relapse can thus be kept at bay and sobriety can hopefully be made lasting and permanent.
- A group also provides a family-like experience. Especially in residential or inpatient rehab programs, belonging to a group eases homesickness and isolation. In some cases, groups are the closest thing to a family a patient can have since most drug and alcohol abuse cases have underlying issues of orphanhood, homelessness, domestic violence or even abuse.
- A group can provide coaching, encouragement, support and reinforcement that are essential especially during difficult and overwhelming struggles not at all absent from the path to recovery, sobriety, and wellness.
- Through confrontation in a group setting, a patient does not feel as if he’s in the hot seat since everyone in the group shares the same afflictions and struggles. Through this mass confrontation and admission of their addictions and shortcomings in life, a patient can more easily overcome the denial phase and thus be able to move more quickly toward the treatment and rehabilitation process.
- Being part of a group instills a considerable amount of hope and encouragement in patients. In other words, patients who witness the progress of fellow patients start thinking in this way: “If she can make it, so can I!”
