Beyond Addiction Services
ADETS (Alcohol & Drugs Education Traffic School)
The ADETS curriculum teaches program awareness, facts about mood altering drugs, how to assess the person's experience, development of a personal life plan, and life after ADETS.
An ADETS student is a first-time offender charged with a DWI in the State of North Carolina. The three criteria by which a person may be recommended for ADETS are:
The results of the substance abuse assessment show that the person does not have a substance abuse handicap, the person has never in their life had another DWI conviction anywhere or driven while under age 21 after consuming alcohol or drugs, and the person's BAC was 0.14% or less.
ADETS students have suffered a serious legal consequence due to their usage, making them prime secondary prevention intervention targets. At this early stage, they need an education that not only gives them the truth about alcohol and other drugs, but also allows a process to help assimilate this information into their own personal lives.
The process gives the student an opportunity to develop a personal substance usage plan that will facilitate living a successful life.
DWI Services
Level I - DWI Education (Alcohol & Drug Education Traffic School): First DUI/DWI conviction total lifetime, arrest BAC of .14 or less, did not refuse breath test, and has no substance abuse diagnosis. Must be a minimum of sixteen contact hours completed in no less than 4 sessions.
Level II - DWI Short-Term Treatment: More than 1 DUI/DWI total lifetime, refused breath test, BAC of .15 or greater, DSM-IV diagnosis of substance abuse meets Level 1 ASAM placement criteria. A minimum of 20 but less than 40 contact hours lasting a minimum of 30 days.
Level III - DWI Intermediate Level Treatment: Meets criteria for DSM-IV substance dependence diagnosis and meets Level 1 ASAM placement criteria. Minimum of 40 but less than 90 contact hours, minimum of 60 days duration.
Level IV - Intensive Outpatient Treatment: DSM-IV diagnosis of substance dependence moderate to severe, meets Level II ASAM placement criteria. A minimum of 90 contact hours with a minimum duration of 90 days.
According to ASAM, to be considered intensive outpatient, one requires at least 3 sessions and 9 hours per week in treatment. This program may be preceded by a brief inpatient stay for detoxification or stabilization of a medical or psychiatric condition.
Anger Management Program
The Anger Management Program addresses anger in the context of your life and relationships. Additional psychotherapy work might be required depending on the nature of what is driving your anger.
In this program you will learn all about your anger and how to address it so it no longer wrecks havoc in your life. You will learn how to resolve your anger by learning where it comes from, how it gets triggered, its function, and by addressing its underlying cause.
This process will assist you in addressing masked, vulnerable feelings, changing how you relate to others, and getting your needs met. You will be better able to be yourself and invite acknowledgement, acceptance, nurturing, and intimacy into your life and relationships.
We assist you in stopping hostile and aggressive behavior and recurring arguments or fights. You will learn how to take control of yourself and your life, and experience warm, loving relationships again.
The Six Core Processes of ACT
The Psychological Flexibility Model
The general goal of ACT is to increase psychological flexibility, which is the ability to contact the present moment more fully as a conscious human being, and to change or persist in behavior when doing so serves valued ends.
Psychological flexibility is established through six core ACT processes. Each of these areas is conceptualized as a positive psychological skill, not merely a method of avoiding psychopathology.
Acceptance
Acceptance is taught as an alternative to experiential avoidance. Acceptance involves the active and aware embrace of those private events occasioned by one's history without unnecessary attempts to change their frequency or form, especially when doing so would cause psychological harm.
For example, anxiety patients are taught to feel anxiety fully and without defense. Pain patients are given methods that encourage them to let go of struggle with pain. Acceptance and de-fusion in ACT are not ends in themselves, but methods of increasing values-based action.
Cognitive Fusion
Cognitive de-fusion techniques attempt to alter the undesirable functions of thoughts and other private events, rather than trying to alter their form, frequency, or situational sensitivity.
ACT attempts to change the way one interacts with thoughts by creating contexts in which their unhelpful functions are diminished. A person might thank their mind for a thought, label the thought process, or observe thoughts as events rather than facts.
The result of de-fusion is usually a decrease in believability of, or attachment to, private events rather than an immediate change in their frequency.
Being Present
ACT promotes ongoing non-judgmental contact with psychological and environmental events as they occur. The goal is to help clients experience the world more directly so that their behavior becomes more flexible and more consistent with their values.
Self as Context
Human language leads to a sense of self as a locus or perspective and provides a transcendent side to normal verbal functioning. Self as context is important because from this standpoint, one can be aware of the flow of experiences without attachment to them.
In ACT, self as context is fostered by mindfulness exercises, metaphors, and experiential processes.
Values
Values are chosen qualities of purposive action that can never be obtained as an object but can be expressed moment by moment. ACT uses a variety of exercises to help a client choose life directions in domains such as family, career, and spirituality.
Acceptance, de-fusion, and being present are not ends in themselves. They clear the path for a more vital and consistent life.
Committed Action
ACT encourages the development of larger and larger patterns of effective action linked to chosen values. This can include exposure, skills acquisition, shaping methods, goal setting, and other behaviorally coherent methods.
Behavior change efforts lead to contact with psychological barriers that are then addressed through the other ACT processes such as acceptance and de-fusion.
Taken as a whole, each of these processes supports the others and all target psychological flexibility: contacting the present moment fully as a conscious human being and persisting or changing behavior in the service of chosen values.
From Victim to Visionary
We have the opportunity to learn to consciously direct, consciously undertake, and consciously organize our experiences. Adopting this focus can assist us in understanding and influencing the direction of our communication, behavior, and feelings.
Your success in this is guaranteed should you want to create something new immediately. These ideas can become leading-edge technologies for change in our reality, or the way we experience life's given moments.
We can begin to experience what we want in every area of our lives. It is as simple as going from a dark room into a lit room. In the dark room it is impossible to see what is there, so we stumble and fall. In a room full of light, we can relax and be self-assured that what we see is really there.
Smoking Cessation
Thinking about letting go of smoking or cigarettes takes serious contemplation. One cannot achieve anything without considering all the options, the pros and cons so to speak.
So ask yourself and listen to your own answers.
What are the positive reasons to continue to smoke?
What do I expect to happen in the long run?
What are the consequences of smoking?
Do I want the end result that smoking brings?
Do I want to see what I have denied myself by smoking?
After answering those questions ask yourself this:
What if you could forget about smoking completely?
What if "I wanna smoke" is just an idea and not a command? Would you consider letting the idea go in favor of another idea or suggestion such as "I'd like a glass of water"?
The suggestive talking mind does just what it is supposed to do, it suggests ideas, and you have to choose which one you want to experience.