Condition of Clients in Early Treatment

In the early stage of treatment, clients may be in the precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, or early action stage of change, depending on the nature of the group. Regardless of their stage in early recovery, clients tend to be ambivalent about ending substance use. Even those who sincerely intend to remain abstinent may have a tenuous commitment to recovery. Further, cognitive impairment from substances is at its most severe in these early stages of recovery, so clients tend to be rigid in their thinking and limited in their ability to solve problems. To some scientists, it appears that the “addicted brain is abnormally conditioned, so that environmental cues surrounding drug use have become part of the addiction” (Leshner 1996, p. 47).

Typically, people who abuse substances do not enter treatment on their own. Some enter treatment due to health problems, others because they are referred or mandated by the legal system, employers, or family members (Milgram and Rubin 1992). Group members commonly are in extreme emotional turmoil, grappling with intense emotions such as guilt, shame, depression, and anger about entering treatment.

Even if clients have entered treatment voluntarily, they often harbor a desire for substances and a belief that they can return to recreational use once the present crisis subsides. At first, most clients comply with treatment expectations more from fear of consequences than from a sincere desire to stop drinking or using illicit drugs (Flores 1997; Johnson 1973).

Consequently, the group leader faces the challenge of treating resistant clients. In general, resistance presents in one of two ways. Some clients actively resist treatment. Others passively resist. They are outwardly cooperative and go to great lengths to give the impression of willing engagement in the treatment process, but their primary motivation is a desire to be free from external pressure. The group leader has the delicate task of exposing the motives behind the outward compliance.

The art of treating addiction in early treatment is in the defeat of denial and resistance, which almost all clients with addictions carry into treatment. Group therapy is considered an effective modality for

…overcoming the resistance that characterizes addicts. A skilled group leader can facilitate members' confronting each other about their resistance. Such confrontation is useful because it is difficult for one addict to deceive another. Because addicts usually have a history of adversarial relationships with authority figures, they are more likely to accept information from their peers than a group leader. A group can also provide addicts with the opportunity for mutual aid and support; addicts who present for treatment are usually well connected to a dysfunctional subculture but socially isolated from healthy contacts (Milgram and Rubin 1992, p. 96).

Emphasis therefore is placed on acculturating clients into a new culture, the culture of recovery (Kemker et al. 1993).

Therapeutic Strategies in Early Treatment

In 1975, Irvin Yalom elaborated on earlier work and distinguished 11 therapeutic factors that contribute to healing as group therapy unfolds:

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Instilling hope—some group members exemplify progress toward recovery and support others in their efforts, thereby helping to retain clients in therapy.

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Universality—groups enable clients to see that they are not alone, that others have similar problems.

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Imparting information—leaders shed light on the nature of addiction via direct instruction.

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Altruism—group members gain greater self-esteem by helping each other.

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Corrective recapitulation of the primary family group—groups provide a family-like context in which long-standing unresolved conflicts can be revisited and constructively resolved.

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Developing socializing techniques—groups give feedback; others' impressions reveal how a client's ineffective social habits might undermine relationships.

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Imitative behavior—groups permit clients to try out new behavior of others.

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Interpersonal learning—groups correct the distorted perceptions of others.

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Group cohesiveness—groups provide a safe holding environment within which people feel free to be honest and open with each other.

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Catharsis—groups liberate clients as they learn how to express feelings and reveal what is bothering them.

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Existential factors—groups aid clients in coming to terms with hard truths, such as (1) life can be unfair; (2) life can be painful and death is inevitable; (3) no matter how close one is to others, life is faced alone; (4) it is important to live honestly and not get caught up in trivial matters; (5) each of us is responsible for the ways in which we live.

In different stages of treatment, some of these therapeutic factors receive more attention than others. For example, in the beginning of the recovery process, it is extremely important for group members to experience the therapeutic factor of universality. Group members should come to recognize that although they differ in some ways, they also share profound connections and similarities, and they are not alone in their struggles.

The therapeutic factor of hope also is particularly important in this stage. For instance, a new member facing the first day without drugs may come into a revolving membership group that includes people who have been abstinent for 2 or 3 weeks. The mere presence of people able to sustain abstinence for days—even weeks—provides the new member with hope that life can be lived without alcohol or illicit drugs. It becomes possible to believe that abstinence is feasible because others are obviously succeeding.

Imparting information often is needed to help clients learn what needs to be done to get through a day without chemicals. Psychoeducation also allows group members to learn about addiction, to judge their practices against this factual information, and to postpone intense interaction with other group members until they are ready for such highly charged work. Attention to group cohesiveness is important early in treatment because only when group members feel safety and belonging within the group will they be able to form an attachment to the group and fully experience the effects of new knowledge, universality, and hope.

Therapeutic factors such as catharsis, existential factors, or recapitulation of family groups generally receive little attention in early treatment. These factors often are highly charged with emotional energy and are better left until the group is well established.

Attention to group cohesiveness is important early in treatment.

During the initial stage of treatment, the therapist helps clients acknowledge and understand how substance abuse has dominated and damaged their lives. Drugs or alcohol, in various ways, can provide a substitute for the give-and-take of relationships and a means of surviving without a healthy adjustment to life. As substances are withdrawn or abandoned, clients give up a major source of support without having anything to put in its place (Brown 1985; Straussner 1997).

In this frightening time, counselors need to ensure that the client has a sense of safety. The group leader's task is to help group members recognize that while alcohol or illicit drugs may have provided a temporary way to cope with problems in the past, the consequences were not worth the price, and new, healthier ways can be found to handle life's problems.

In early-stage treatment, strong challenges to a client's fragile mental and emotional condition can be very harmful. Out of touch with unmedicated feelings, clients already are susceptible to wild emotional fluctuations and are prone to unpredictable responses. Interpersonal relationships are disturbed, and the effects of substances leave the client prone to use “primitive defensive operations such as denial, splitting, projective identification, and grandiosity” (Straussner 1997, p. 68).

This vulnerable time, however, is also one of opportunity. In times of crisis, “an individual's attachment system opens up” and the therapist has a chance to change the client's internal dynamics (Flores 2001, p. 72). Support networks that can provide feedback and structure are especially helpful at this stage. Clients also need reliable information to strengthen their motivation.

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A Note on Attachment Theory and Substance Abuse Treatment.

At this time, clients are solidifying their “new identity as an alcoholic with the corresponding belief in loss of control.” They develop “a new logical structure” with which to assail their “former logic and behavior.” They also can develop a “new story … the Alcoholics Anonymous drunkalogue,” which recalls their experiences and compares previous events with what life is like now (Brown 1985).

Whether information is offered through skills groups, psychoeducational groups, supportive therapy groups, spiritually oriented support groups, or process groups, clients are most likely to use the information and tools provided in an environment alive with supportive human connections. All possible sources of positive forces in a client's life should be marshaled to help the client manage life's challenges instead of turning to substances or other addictive behaviors.

During early treatment, a relatively active leader seeks to engage clients in the treatment process.

Painful feelings, which clients are not yet prepared to face, can sometimes trigger relapse. If relapses occur in an outpatient setting—as they often do, because relapses occur in all chronic illnesses, including addiction—the group member should be guided through the regression. The leader encourages the client to attend self-help groups, explores the sequence of events leading to relapse, determines what cues led to relapse, and suggests changes that might enable the client to manage cravings better or avoid exposure to strong cues.

For some clients, chiefly those mandated into treatment by courts or employers, grave consequences inevitably ensue as a result of relapse. As Vannicelli (1992) points out, however, clinicians should view relapse not as failure, but as a clinical opportunity for both group leader and clients to learn from the event, integrate the new knowledge, and strengthen levels of motivation. Discussion of the relapse in group not only helps the individual who relapsed learn how to avoid future use, but it also gives other group members a chance to learn from the mistakes of others and to avoid making the same mistakes themselves.

Leadership in Early Treatment

Clients usually come to the first session of group in an anxious, apprehensive state of mind, which is intensified by the knowledge that they will soon be revealing personal information and secrets about themselves. The therapist begins by making it clear that clients have some things in common. All have met with the therapist, have acceded to identical agreements, and have set out to resolve important personal issues. Usually, the therapist then suggests that members get to know each other. One technique is to allow the members to decide exactly how they will introduce themselves. The therapist observes silently—but not impassively—watching how interaction develops (Rutan and Stone 2001).

During early treatment, a relatively active leader seeks to engage clients in the treatment process. Clients early on “usually respond more favorably to the group leader who is spontaneous, ‘alive,’ and engaging than they do to the group leader who adopts the more reserved stance of technical neutrality associated with the more classic approaches to group therapy” (Flores 2001, p. 72). The leader should not be overly charismatic, but should be a strong enough presence to meet clients' dependency needs during the early stage of treatment.

During early treatment, the effective leader will focus on immediate, primary concerns: achieving abstinence, preventing relapse, and learning ways to manage cravings. The leader should create an environment that enables clients to acknowledge that (1) their use of addictive substances was harmful and (2) some things they want cannot be obtained while their pattern of substance use continues. As clients take their first steps toward a life centered on healthy sources of satisfaction, they need strong support, a high degree of structure, positive human connections, and active leadership.

In process groups, the leader pays particular attention to feelings in the early stage of treatment. Many people with addiction histories are not sure what they feel and have great difficulty communicating their feelings to others. Leaders begin to help group members move toward affect regulation by labeling and mirroring feelings as they arise in group work. The leader's subtle instruction and empathy enables clients to begin to recognize and own their feelings. This essential step toward managing feelings also leads clients toward empathy with the feelings of others.

Condition of Clients in Middle-Stage Treatment

Often, in as little as a few months, institutional and reimbursement constraints limit access to ongoing care. People with addiction histories, however, remain vulnerable for much longer and continue to struggle with dependency. They need vigorous assistance maintaining behavioral changes throughout the middle, or action, stage of treatment.

Several studies (Committee on Opportunities in Drug Abuse Research 1996; London et al. 1999; Majewska 1996; Paulus et al. 2002; Strickland et al. 1993; Volkow et al. 1988, 1992) have observed decreased blood flow and metabolic changes rates in the brains of subjects who abused stimulants (cocaine and methaphetamine). The studies also found that deficits persisted for at least 3 to 6 months after cessation of drug use. Whether these deficits predated substance abuse or not, treatment personnel should expect to see clients with impaired decisionmaking and impulse control manifested by difficulties in attending, concentrating, learning new material, remembering things heard or seen, producing words, and integrating visual and motor cues. For the clinician, this finding means that clients may not have the mental structures in place to enable them to make the difficult decisions faced during the action stage of treatment. If clients draw and use support from the group, however, the client's affect will re-emerge, combine with new behaviors and beliefs, and produce an increasingly stable and internalized structure (Brown 1985).

Cognitive capacity usually begins to return to normal in the middle stage of treatment.

Cognitive capacity usually begins to return to normal in the middle stage of treatment. The frontal lobe activity in a person addicted to cocaine, for example, is dramatically different after approximately 4–6 months of nonuse. Still, the mind can play tricks. Clients distinctly may remember the comfort of their substance past, yet forget just how bad the rest of their lives were and the seriousness of the consequences that loomed before they came into treatment. As a result, the temptation to relapse remains a concern.

Therapeutic Strategies in Middle-Stage Treatment

In middle-stage recovery, as the client experiences some stability, the therapeutic factors of self-knowledge and altruism can be emphasized. Universality, identification, cohesion, and hope remain important as well.

Practitioners have stressed the need to work in alliance with the client's motivation for change. The therapist uses whatever leverage exists—such as current job or marriage concerns—to power movement toward change. The goal is to help clients perceive the causal relationship between substance abuse and current problems in their lives. Counselors should recognize and respect the client's position and the difficulty of change. The leader who leaves group members feeling that they are understood is more likely to be in a position to influence change, while sharp confrontations that arouse strong emotions and appear judgmental may trigger relapse (Flores 1997).

The goal is to help clients perceive the causal relationship between substance abuse and current problems in their lives.

Therapeutic strategies also should take into account the important role substance abuse has played in the lives of people with addictions. Often, from the client's perspective, drugs of abuse have become their best friends. They fill hours of boredom and help them cope with difficulties and disappointments. As clients move away from their relationship with their best friend, they may feel vulnerable or emotionally naked, because they have not yet developed coping mechanisms to negotiate life's inevitable problems. It is crucial that clients recognize these feelings as transient and understand that the feeling that something vital is missing can have a positive effect. It may be the impetus that clients need to adopt new behaviors that are adaptive, safe, legal, and rewarding.

As the recovering client's mental, physical, and emotional capacities grow stronger, anger, sadness, terror, and grief may be expressed more appropriately. Clients need to use the group as a means of exploring their emotional and interpersonal world. They learn to differentiate, identify, name, tolerate, and communicate feelings. Cognitive—behavioral interventions can provide clients with specific tools to help modulate feelings and to become more confident in expressing and exploring them. Interpersonal process groups are particularly helpful in the middle stage of treatment, because the authentic relationships within the group enable clients to experience and integrate a wide range of emotions in a safe environment.

When strong emotions are expressed and discussed in group, the leader needs to modulate the expression of emerging feelings, delicately balancing a tolerable degree of expression and a level so overwhelming that it inhibits positive change or leads to a desire to return to substance use to manage the intensity. It also is very important for the group leader to “sew the client up” by the end of the session. Clients should not leave feeling as if they are “bleeding” emotions that they cannot cope with or dispel. A plan for the rest of the day should be developed, and the increased likelihood of relapse should be acknowledged so group members see the importance of following the plan.

Leadership in Middle-Stage Treatment

Historically, denial has been the target of most treatment concepts. The role of the leader was primarily to confront the client in denial, thereby presumably provoking change. More recently, clinicians have stressed the fact that “confrontation, if done too punitively or if motivated by a group leader's countertransference issues, can severely damage the therapeutic alliance” (Flores 1997, p. 340). Inappropriate confrontation may even strengthen the client's resistance to change, thereby increasing the rigidity of defenses.

When it is necessary to point out contradictions in clients' statements and interpretations of reality, such confrontations should be well-timed, specific, and indisputably true. For example, author Wojciech Falkowski had a client whose medical records distinctly showed abnormal liver functions. When the client maintained that he had no drinking problem, Falkowski gently suggested that he “convince his liver of this fact.” The reply created a ripple of amusement in the group, and “the client immediately changed his attitude in the desired direction” (Falkowski 1996, p. 212). Such caring confrontations made at the right time and in the right way are helpful, whether they come from group members or the leader.

Another way of understanding confrontation is to see it as an outcome rather than as a style. From this point of view, the leader helps group members see how their continued use of drugs or alcohol interferes with what they want to get out of life. This recognition, supported by the group, motivates individuals to change. It seems that people who abuse substances need someone to tell it like it is “in a realistic fashion without adopting a punitive, moralistic, or superior attitude” (Flores 1997, p. 340).

In the middle stage of treatment, the leader helps clients join a culture of recovery in which they grow and learn. The leader's task is to engage members actively in the treatment and recovery process. To prevent relapse, clients need to learn to monitor their thoughts and feelings, paying special attention to internal cues. Both negative and positive dimensions may be motivational. New or relapsed group members can remind others of how bad their former lives really were, while the group's vision of improvements in the quality of life is a distinct and immediate beam of hope.

The leader can support the process of change by drawing attention to new and positive developments, pointing out how far clients have traveled, and affirming the possibility of increased connection and new sources of satisfaction. Leaders should bear in mind, however, that people with addictions typically choose immediate gratification over long-range goals, so benefits achieved and sought after should be real, tangible, and quickly attainable.

The benefits of recovery yield little satisfaction to some clients, and for them, the task of staying on course can be difficult. Their lives in recovery seem worse, not better. Many experience depression, lassitude, agitation, or anhedonia (that is, a condition in which formerly satisfying activities are no longer pleasurable). Eventually, their lives seem devoid of any meaningful purpose, and they stop caring about recovery.

These clients may move quickly from “I don't care” to relapse, so the group leader should be vigilant and prepared to intervene when a client is doing all that should be done in the recovery process, yet continues to feel bleak. Such clients need attention and accurate diagnosis. Do they have an undiagnosed co-occurring disorder? Do they need antidepressants? Do they need more intensive, frequent, adjuncts to therapy, such as more Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings and additional contacts with a sponsor?

Leaders need to help group members understand and accept that many forms of therapy outside the group can promote recovery. Group members should be encouraged to support each other's efforts to recover, however much their needs and treatment options may differ.

In the middle stage of treatment, the leader helps clients join a culture of recovery in which they grow and learn.

The leader helps individuals assess the degree of structure and connection they need as recovery progresses. Some group members find that participation in religious or faith groups meets their needs for affiliation and support. For long-term, chronically impaired people with addictive histories, highly intensive participation in 12-Step groups is usually essential for an extended period of time.

Condition of Clients in Late-Stage Treatment

During the late (also referred to as ongoing or maintenance) stage of treatment, clients work to sustain the attainments of the action stage, but also learn to anticipate and avoid tempting situations and triggers that set off renewed substance use. To deter relapse, the systems that once promoted drinking and drug use are sought out and severed.

Despite efforts to forestall relapse, many clients, even those who have reached the late stage of treatment, do return to substance use and an earlier stage of change. In these cases, the efforts to guard against relapse were not all in vain. Clients who return to substance abuse do so with new information. With it, they may be able to discover and acknowledge that some of the goals they set are unrealistic, certain strategies attempted are ineffective, and environments deemed safe are not at all conducive to successful recovery. With greater insight into the dynamics of their substance abuse, clients are better equipped to make another attempt at recovery, and ultimately, to succeed.

During the late stage of treatment, clients work to sustain the attainments of the action stage.

As the substance abuse problem fades into the background, significant underlying issues often emerge, such as poor self-image, relationship problems, the experience of shame, or past trauma. For example, an unusually high percentage of substance and alcohol abuse occurs among men and women who have survived sexual or emotional abuse. Many such cases warrant an exploration of dissociative defenses and evaluation by a knowledgeable mental health professional.

When the internalized pain of the past is resolved, the client will begin to understand and experience healthy mutuality, resolving conflicts without the maladaptive influence of alcohol or drugs. If the underlying conflicts are left unresolved, however, clients are at increased risk of other compulsive behavior, such as excessive exercise, overeating, gambling, or excessive sexual activity.

Therapeutic Strategies in Late-Stage Treatment

In the early and middle stages of treatment, clients necessarily are so focused on maintaining abstinence that they have little or no capacity to notice or solve other kinds of problems. In late-stage treatment, however, the focus of group interaction broadens. It attends less to the symptoms of drug and alcohol abuse and more to the psychology of relational interaction.

In late-stage treatment, clients begin to learn to engage in life. As they begin to manage their emotional states and cognitive processes more effectively, they can face situations that involve conflict or cause emotion. A process-oriented group may become appropriate for some clients who are finally able to confront painful realities, such as being an abused child or abusive parent. Other clients may need groups to help them build a healthier marriage, communicate more effectively, or become a better parent. Some may want to develop new job skills to increase employability.

Some clients may need to explore existential concerns or issues stemming from their family of origin. These emphases do not deny the continued importance of universality, hope, group cohesion and other therapeutic factors. Instead it implies that as group members become more and more stable, they can begin to probe deeper into the relational past. The group can be used in the here and now to settle difficult and painful old business.

Leadership in Late-Stage Treatment

The leader plays a very different role in late-stage treatment, which refocuses on helping group members expose and eliminate personal deficits that endanger recovery. Gradually, the leader shifts toward interventions that call upon people who are chemically dependent to take a cold, hard look at their inner world and system of defenses, which have prevented them from accurately perceiving their self-defeating behavioral patterns. To become adequately resistant to substance abuse, clients should learn to cope with conflict without using chemicals to escape reality, self-soothe, or regulate emotions (Flores 1997).

As in the early and middle stages, the leader helps group members sustain abstinence and makes sure the group provides enough support and gratification to prevent acting out and premature termination. While early- and middle-stage interventions strive to reduce or modulate affect, late-stage interventions permit more intense exchanges. Thus, in late treatment, clients no longer are cautioned against feeling too much. The leader no longer urges them to apply slogans like “Turn it over” and “One day at a time.” Clients finally should manage the conflicts that dominate their lives, predispose them to maladaptive behaviors, and endanger their hard-won abstinence. The leader allows clients to experience enough anxiety and frustration to bring out destructive and maladaptive characterological patterns and coping styles. These characteristics provide abundant grist for the group mill.

As group members become more and more stable, they can begin to probe deeper into the relational past.