We’re in the midst of an opioid use epidemic, fittingly named the “opioid crisis.” Studies estimate that some 20 million Americans aged 12 and up currently suffer from substance use disorder (SUD). Counseling can, should, and does play a major role in substance abuse treatment in Minnesota – here’s why.
Counseling Creates Trust
Drug users have systematically been treated badly by institutions such as law enforcement and the criminal justice system. For example, injection drug users can’t be honest about possessing used syringes out of fear of getting caught despite not hurting anybody but themselves. This wide-ranging rift between drug users and law enforcement effectively rejects law enforcement’s presence as an integral part of the community. Counselors are able to build reciprocal relationships with people suffering from substance use disorder, which both build upon recovering individuals’ social support structures and help these people accept forms of treatment they otherwise wouldn’t submit themselves to.
Transfers Wisdom from Recovered Individuals to Recovering Individuals
Group counseling gives people attempting to beat substance use disorder a chance to safely put themselves around other substance use disorder sufferers who have already recovered and like-minded peers who are also currently struggling with recovery. In such counselor-facilitated group sessions, people receiving substance abuse treatment can share problems with one another, as well as tried-and-true, real-world solutions to those problems that people who haven’t experienced substance use disorder just don’t understand.
We Love Helping Resolve Active Substance Use Disorder
Here at Options Family & Behavior Services, our staff truly enjoys helping people conquer their active substance use disorder by implementing counseling as an integral part of a modern, comprehensive, evidence-based substance abuse treatment in Minnesota; visit us online to get started.
