THE RIGHT COMBINATION

Director: Clinical and spiritual attention must be ‘parallel’ for successful treatment

Lifeline Recovery Center often shares testimonials from clients about their struggles before entering Lifeline and the success and hope they feel when they graduate.

But what happens in between? What do they do during their long-term, residential treatment on the men’s and women’s campuses?

A key component of their sobriety journey comes with the help of Lifeline’s clinical services.

Executive director Ashley Miller said the recent expansion of clinical services by trained professionals helped Lifeline achieve national and state accreditation and licensure. It also helps clients find a successful route to their sobriety.

“As a graduate of Lifeline myself, I benefited from our program,” Ashley said, “but I’ve always felt there was a missing piece to our puzzle – the clinical component. Being able to provide more professional services now only enhances the quality of our program.”

Lifeline is the area’s only long-term, faith-based residential treatment center, meaning the recovery program includes both clinical and spiritual components.

Robbie Sewell directs Lifeline’s credentialed staff of eight clinical experts providing counseling and education to help clients battle addiction.

“Our clients gain knowledge about the disease, a sense of belonging, a chance to be removed from the stress and relapse triggers of their daily lives to focus on what they need to do to get healthy and stay in recovery,” she said.

Robbie has spent her career in various treatment facilities, but has found no other that provides the freedom for staff and clients to discuss freely the spiritual life and its importance in recovery.

“From a clinical perspective, the spiritual component is vital,” she said. “Spiritual and clinical have to be parallel in treatment, and I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the spiritual foundation. I have found that recovery is not the same if you don’t have the spiritual component.”

While Lifeline offers Bible classes and worship opportunities to boost the spiritual side of recovery, it also has highly-trained staff and sessions focused on the physical and emotional health of the clients.

Clinical Services

When a new client arrives at either Lifeline campus, he or she follows this path:

• A nurse examines their physical condition and drug use history. “We want to know from the start where we need to meet this person on this journey,” Roberta said, “to individualize his treatment and meet his needs.”

• A counselor completes a biopsychosocial assessment covering the client’s drug history; legal, emotional, social, family and job consequences; family history of addiction; childhood history; suicide risks; educational background and any learning disabilities; current living conditions; trauma and mental health history, with referrals to a psychologist or other specialists, as needed.

• The client spends weekly one-hour individual sessions with a counselor, developing and working on an individualized treatment plan.

• Clients spent 10 hours each week in clinical group sessions with a counselor, case manager or nurse for education and discussion.

• The client will attend one or more family counseling sessions, while the family may be referred for additional family counseling and encouraged to go to Al-Anon sessions. While the client is getting 24/7 residential treatment, the family’s time at Lifeline is limited, so counselors show them ways to use other resources so they can work on their own education and healing, while their loved one is doing the same. “For the family, hope and trust are gone. We want to give them some hope and some ways they can let their loved ones in recovery earn back their trust,” Robbie said.

Clinical Services Staff

Director Nurse

Case Manager

Two counselors

Three part-time counselors

Plus: Seven employees pursuing certification as counselors

Client Clinical Goals

The clinical staff helps clients:

• Develop a list of what they see as negative consequences of their use and an individual relapse prevention plan.

• Gain healthy coping skills through group and individual therapy, prayer, talking with peers, daily journaling, stress relief with meditation.

• Learn impulse control techniques in cognitive behavioral therapy on how to think before acting.

• Improve communication skills by learning to share information with family and friends, including expressing their needs and wants while listening to others’ needs and wants. “They have not been communicating during their addiction,” Robbie said. “They shut down. Their only communication has been substance-driven and manipulation, such as ‘how do I feed my addiction? ”

ROBBIE’S STORY

Like most of the staff at Lifeline, Robbie is working her own recovery program. As the full-time clinical director with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in counseling, she said the encouragement she receives from clients and their families keeps her engaged and motivated.

“I get some type of encouragement every day,” she said, “but when I do family education, that’s one of my favorite days. A family member almost always comes up to me with tears in their eyes and says their loved one seems different this time. That’s the hope we are trying to give them.”

Our Treatment Program

During the first phase, clients are very involved in clinical individual and group sessions. As they progress through the phases of treatment, the clinical time is reduced while clients prepare to go back to their jobs and families.

Clients learn about addiction, 12step programs, the cost of addiction and how to manage finances; and participate in Bible classes. Clients also begin community service through volunteer programs and engage in job training, including job shadowing, building a resume and interviewing skills.