We sat down with Megan Stevenson, Clinical Director of Avenues Recovery Center at Clarksville, to hear about the role that holistic wellness plays in addiction treatment and recovery.
1. Hi Megan, and thanks for joining us today! What is holistic wellness, and what role does it play in addiction treatment?
Sure, it's great to be here! Holistic wellness means meeting a person’s physical, mental, and emotional needs through quality and all-encompassing treatment. Addiction is not just a physical illness – it affects body, mind, and spirit – so treatment must address these three aspects as well. We treat the whole person; we want our clients to heal on every level.
2. How do you practice holistic wellness at the Kentuckiana facility?
Our entire treatment approach and daily schedule is threaded with a holistic theme. We begin each day with a short morning meditation to center ourselves and set our intention for the day – that addresses the spiritual piece. Individual and group sessions focus on mental issues, co-occurring disorders, trauma, grief etc. – that addresses the mental component. In between groups we have recreation and rest times, so clients can relax and decompress. We have established mealtimes and curfews, which creates stable sleeping and eating schedules for our clients – and all that addresses the physical piece.
Aside from that, we bring outside services like yoga and art therapy into the facility. We do some great holistic activities on the weekend as well.
3. What makes you passionate about holistic wellness?
There is a common misconception regarding addiction treatment. People think rehab is about textbook-style learning, about memorizing definitions and writing notes and learning coping skills. But it’s not – it’s about learning to change the way you think and feel and act! This is where my passion lies. I want people to FEEL recovery with all their heart and soul. I want them to feel the difference and the beauty of sobriety on every level.
4. How does holistic wellness play into mental health?
Greatly! The mind and body are strongly connected, and our emotions manifest themselves physically. When we feel sadness, our bodies produce tears. When we are scared, our muscles tense up and our heart rate increases - and so on.
Holistic wellness gives us coping skills to handle our emotions and the physical symptoms that come with them. It teaches us to use our mind and spirit as tools to heal our physical body. It helps remain mindful and in control, and prevent reactions from happening in the future or deal with them in the moment.
5. How do our holistic recovery principles set clients up for success?
The hallmark of Avenues is individualized care, because we know that equal treatment is not necessarily fair treatment. Each person is unique, and each person has vastly different circumstances and needs! What’s right for me may not be right for you. Avenues Recovery practices holistic treatment and individualized care by looking at the whole person, and making decisions for each client that are fair – not equal.
For example, our facility offers visitation for one hour each weekend. But if there’s a mom with a baby, one hour per week is not fair to her, her baby, or the whole family dynamic. So we’ll let her have three one-hour visits per week. That’s not equal, but it’s most definitely fair.
Offering individualized care that is truly in each client’s best interests – that’s holistic.
6. Is there anything you wish people knew about holistic wellness?
I feel like there is a slight stigma surrounding holistic wellness. People feel that it’s not evidence-based, it’s not clinical, there are no real statistics behind it, so it can’t really be effective. Going on a walk with a client can’t be billable, right? But we know that holistic wellness has countless clinical benefits, and is critical to the overall success of treatment.
We can change this misconception with the work that we do. Let’s prove to the world the importance and impact of holistic therapy!
7. Can you share one instance where you clearly saw the impact of holistic wellness?
We did a fun water balloon activity with the clients on the Fourth of July. I tried to engage all of their five senses and turn the activity into a valuable mindfulness exercise as well as just a fun activity. We did a check-in and check-out at the beginning and end of the activity, and at the check-in the general tone was annoyed and disinterested – like, I’d rather be anywhere but in rehab on a holiday, right? But at the end, at the check-out, I had so many clients coming over and thanking me, telling me it was the best Fourth of July they ever had! It seemed cheesy at first, but they didn’t realize how much fun it could be to just listen to music and play with water balloons over a volleyball net!
In general, we try to leverage every obstacle in treatment as a springboard for growth and self-development in our clients. “The sound of the highway is triggering for you? Great! Let’s talk about it!” The real world won’t protect clients from triggers once they’re out there, so let’s rather deal with it while they are safe beneath clinical guidance in treatment. We use every opportunity to help our clients work through their challenges and heal on every level – body, mind, and spirit.WW