Trauma-Focused
We provide trauma-focused care to those recovering from substance use disorders.
Treating Trauma and Its Ties to Addiction Recovery
At Augustine Recovery, we don’t just offer “trauma-informed” care. We provide trauma-first treatment. Our approach is rooted in extensive research, proven rehabilitation, and innovative modalities. Read on to learn more about the trauma therapies available in our Florida addiction and trauma recovery treatment center.
What Is Trauma?
Trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, leaving them feeling helpless, vulnerable, or unsafe. It can result from a single event, such as an accident or assault, or prolonged exposure to harmful situations, like abuse or neglect.
Trauma affects not only the emotional and psychological state but can also impact physical health and behavior over time.
- Everyone experiences trauma differently. Its impact isn’t defined by the severity of the event or “who has it worse” but by how an individual experiences and internalizes it.
- Trauma is widely recognized as a major underlying factor driving addiction, as individuals often turn to substances to cope with unresolved pain and distress.
- Men are more prone to addiction after trauma because societal norms discourage emotional expression, leading them to suppress feelings and seek escape through substances. Risk-taking tendencies further increase the likelihood of using substances to cope.
- Substance use can create new traumatic experiences, like strained relationships, legal troubles, or health crises, reinforcing the cycle.
- Recovery and sobriety require treating the addiction and the trauma. Treating addiction without addressing trauma often leads to relapse, as the underlying pain remains unprocessed.
Watch: Trauma & Recovery Explained
What Is Trauma Therapy?
Trauma therapy is a specialized form of counseling that helps individuals process and heal from deeply distressing experiences. It focuses on identifying the emotional and psychological effects of trauma and providing tools to manage symptoms, rebuild a sense of safety, and regain control over one’s life.
What Are Signs of Unhealed Trauma in Men?
- Emotional Suppression: Difficulty expressing or identifying emotions, often appearing stoic or detached.
- Anger and Irritability: Frequent outbursts or underlying resentment, sometimes masking deeper emotional pain.
- Avoidance Behaviors: Steering clear of situations, people, or conversations that trigger memories of the trauma.
- Difficulty Maintaining Relationships: Struggles with trust, intimacy, or emotional connection in personal or professional settings.
- Hyper-Independence: An extreme focus on self-reliance, avoiding asking for help or showing vulnerability.
- Physical Symptoms: Chronic pain, headaches, or gastrointestinal issues with no clear medical cause, often linked to stress.
- Risk-Taking Behaviors: Reckless driving, gambling, or other activities that provide a temporary escape from internal struggles.
- Flashbacks or Nightmares: Reliving traumatic events through intrusive memories or dreams.
- Persistent Guilt or Shame: A sense of failure or inadequacy tied to the trauma.
How is Trauma Addiction Treated?
The Augustine Recovery staff is highly trained in addiction and trauma recovery, whether it occurred in childhood, adolescence, or adult life. Our clinicians work with each resident in individual and group settings to address the personal history that fuels his or her addiction.
We utilize more than a dozen clinically sophisticated treatments, depending on the needs of each person. Our staff regularly attends continuing education events to update certifications and receive training in groundbreaking therapies.
Our commonly used approaches include:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
A therapeutic method focused on challenging a person’s negative thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors, ultimately changing them for the better.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Developed for the treatment of suicidality and severe mood disorders, this approach is especially effective for trauma and substance abuse. DBT enables participants to regulate intense emotions and change harmful behaviors.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
A cutting-edge technique, EMDR allows residents to safely process traumatic events by gradually controlling their response to memories. Learn more about EMDR.
Narrative Therapy Modalities
Our clinicians use various techniques from narrative therapy – such as telling one’s story, externalization, and deconstruction – to help residents separate themselves from their trauma, understand its role in their substance abuse, and move forward without disassociating.
Expressive Small Groups (Including Art Therapy)
Trauma and addiction can both result in isolation and a reluctance to open up. We provide a variety of expressive small groups to encourage connection and openness with others.
Body Mapping
This exercise helps residents to view their scars, injuries, birthmarks, and other physical traits as “a museum of their life.” This is especially useful in empowering trauma survivors to recognize their strength, care for themselves, and take their bodies back after years of substance abuse.
Neurofeedback
Our neurofeedback process uses real-time brain imaging to allow participants to visualize their mental functioning. These displays are powerful tools in promoting self-regulation of physical and emotional trauma responses.
Rhetorical Letters
Often, life events like sexual assault, domestic violence, and physical abuse leave victims with emotions they cannot safely express. Through rhetorical (unsent) letters, residents are able to speak their minds and convey their feelings about what has happened to them.
NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM)
This new treatment model is a blend of developmental research and neuroscience. It provides a conduit for the resolution of relational, developmental, and attachment trauma.
Seeking Safety
This approach represents the first empirically studied integrative treatment approach for substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Through Seeking Safety Groups, residents develop new, healthy coping skills related to these diagnoses.
Shame Resilience Therapy (SRT)
Created by Brené Brown, this modality helps trauma survivors develop a natural resilience to the feeling of shame through a deep connection with themselves and others.
Trauma Eggs and Timelines
In these exercises, residents are asked to list the painful events that have occurred throughout their lives, which advances the goal of identifying the harmful beliefs created by these events.
Inner Child Work and Inner Critic Work
Introspection and self-reflection are key pillars of recovery. Caring for our younger selves and addressing the negative voices in our heads are the basis of these trauma therapies.
Experiential Therapy
For some, sitting and talking about their feelings is difficult. Augustine Recovery offers a variety of experiential therapies designed to help residents tap into and express their emotions in innovative ways.
Family Therapy and Family Intensive Weekends
Finally, we involve the entire family unit in each resident’s treatment. This helps everyone to understand the impact that addiction and trauma have had on each member of the family – not just the addict themselves. In this way, everyone can begin doing the work of recovery.
FAQs
Trauma therapy is a journey that asks for courage and commitment, but the rewards are life-changing. It’s about freeing yourself from the weight of the past and reclaiming the peace and confidence that trauma took away. While it challenges you to face what you’ve been carrying, it also empowers you with tools, understanding, and relief that make every step forward worth it.
If a trauma therapy session feels overwhelming, therapists can adjust the process, using grounding techniques and slowing the pace to ensure safety and support. Long-term recovery treatment is ideal because it provides the time and space to work through trauma at a manageable rate, allowing individuals to build emotional resilience and fully address underlying issues. This extended care fosters deeper healing and lasting sobriety.
The best-proven way to handle trauma involves a combination of evidence-based therapies tailored to the individual. That’s why Augustine Recovery has an expert team trained in the most effective treatments and is also able to cater to individual needs during the sobriety process. Recovery from trauma is most successful when it’s addressed through a personalized, integrated approach that acknowledges the mind, body, and emotions. That’s exactly what our clients get through the long-term recovery treatment for addiction.
The Connection Between Childhood Trauma and Substance AbuseContact Augustine Recovery today and take control of your life.
Our Therapies
The Augustine Recovery staff is highly trained in the resolution of trauma, whether it occurred in childhood, adolescence, or adult life. Our clinicians work with each resident in individual and group settings to address the personal history that fuels his or her addiction.
We utilize a variety of clinically sophisticated treatments, depending on the needs of each person. Our staff regularly attends continuing education events to update certifications and receive training in groundbreaking therapies. Our commonly used approaches include:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
A therapeutic method focused on challenging a person’s negative thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors, ultimately changing them for the better.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Developed for the treatment of suicidality and severe mood disorders, this approach is especially effective for trauma and substance abuse. DBT enables participants to regulate intense emotions and change harmful behaviors.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
A cutting-edge technique, EMDR allows residents to safely process traumatic events by gradually controlling their response to memories.
Narrative Therapy Modalities
Our clinicians use various techniques from narrative therapy – such as telling one’s story, externalization, and deconstruction – to help residents separate themselves from their trauma, understand its role in their substance abuse, and move forward.
Expressive Small Groups (Including Art Therapy)
Trauma and addiction can both result in isolation and a reluctance to open up. We provide a variety of expressive small groups to encourage connection and openness with others.
Body Mapping
This exercise helps residents to view their scars, injuries, birthmarks, and other physical traits as “a museum of their life.” This is especially useful in empowering trauma survivors to recognize their strength, care for themselves, and take their bodies back after years of substance abuse.
Neurofeedback
Our neurofeedback process uses real-time brain imaging to allow participants to visualize their mental functioning. These displays are powerful tools in promoting self-regulation of physical and emotional trauma responses.
Rhetorical Letters
Often, life events like sexual assault, domestic violence, and physical abuse leave victims with emotions they cannot safely express. Through rhetorical (unsent) letters, residents are able to speak their minds and convey their feelings about what has happened to them.
NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM)
This new treatment model is a blend of developmental research and neuroscience. It provides a conduit for the resolution of relational, developmental, and attachment trauma.
Seeking Safety
This approach represents the first empirically studied integrative treatment approach for substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Through Seeking Safety groups, residents develop new, healthy coping skills related to these diagnoses.
Shame Resilience Therapy (SRT)
Created by Brené Brown, this modality helps trauma survivors to develop a natural resilience to the feeling of shame through deep connection with themselves and others.
Trauma Eggs and Timelines
In these exercises, residents are asked to list the painful events that have occurred throughout their lives, which advances the goal of identifying the harmful beliefs created by these events.
Inner Child Work and Inner Critic Work
Introspection and self-reflection are key pillars of recovery. Caring for our younger selves and addressing the negative voices in our heads are the bases of these trauma therapies.
Experiential Therapy
For some, sitting and talking about their feelings is difficult. Augustine Recovery offers a variety of experiential therapies designed to help residents tap into and express their emotions in innovative ways.
Family Therapy and Family Intensive Weekends
Finally, we involve the entire family unit in each resident’s treatment. This helps everyone to understand the impact that addiction and trauma have had on each member of the family – not just the addict themselves. In this way, everyone can begin doing the work of recovery.
The Link Between Trauma and Addiction
If you have read the above list, you may wonder why these various trauma therapies are necessary. Put simply, treatment is not one-size-fits-all. Furthermore, it is impossible to separate trauma from addiction. These two states go hand in hand. Consider that…
People with a history of trauma are at higher risk of substance abuse.
Research shows that trauma of any type – large or small – can result in negative symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, heightened tension, and anxiety. Some people may attempt to dull those symptoms with drug or alcohol use. Over time, this poor coping mechanism leads to a physical and psychological dependency.
Those who are dependent on substances are more likely to experience traumatic events.
When a person is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, their inhibitions are lowered. They may make decisions that are risky or uncharacteristic. When these choices involve unsafe interactions with others, driving under the influence, or other dangerous behaviors, the chance for trauma is heightened. Additionally, the very experience of addiction is traumatic. “Going to any lengths” for one’s next drink or dose often unravels relationships, encourages harmful actions, and puts a person in a vulnerable position.
A Safe Place to Heal
At Augustine Recovery, we understand what it takes to recover from trauma – we’ve done it ourselves. Our clinicians go the extra mile by tailoring trauma therapies to each person’s needs, ensuring that each resident receives effective treatment.
To learn more about our approach to trauma-first treatment, please contact Augustine Recovery today. Our compassionate admissions team members are standing by to answer all of your questions.
