Thoughts from Pennsylvania Adult and Teen Challenge

6 Tips to Make Your Inpatient Treatment Center “Friendly” to Justice Related Professionals By: David Louis, MA CAADC CCS Judges, District Attorneys, Lawyers, Probation officers and Police officers have a tough job, especially when it comes to working with those affected by substance use disorder. I should know. My addiction took me to straight to the back of a police car, a jail cell and in front of a judge! But this was the BEST thing that happened to me, because it gave my family and myself a great motivator to enter and stay in treatment. And believe me, at 19 years old, I did not WANT to be there, but the legal motivator of possibly doing jail time kept me there long enough to get the help I needed. After 18 years of sobriety and 15 years working in the field of inpatient treatment, I have worked closely with many justice related professionals (JRPs for short). As an addiction counselor for 8 years, I worked with many men who were on probation, parole or had upcoming court case...

How to Create a positive culture in a long-term residential Drug/Alcohol treatment setting By: Dave Louis, MA CCS CAADC One day a while back, I was having a phone conversation with a colleague and somehow the topic of how to handle problem clients in our long-term residential programs came up. I started explaining to him how I had recently come to group the residents of our long term programs into three types. The first are those who are really wanting to get help with their substance abuse, want to quit using, and they will confront and challenge those who don’t. Then there are those who do not want to quit using addictive substances and are continually looking for every opportunity to find a way to smuggle addictive substances into our centers, and have no intention of following our rules. Then there is a group in the middle who will go along with whichever of these two previous groups they are most exposed to or which group they perceive as the dominant culture in any given facil...

If you have a loved one who has been struggling with substance use disorder , you've probably been through this roller coaster with them. They manage to get off drugs or alcohol for a period of time; maybe 3-6 months. Things are going really well and you as a family member are so proud of them! They get and hold a job. They save up enough money to get a new car. They even bring home a well-mannered significant other, that mother approves of! They seem like they have made it over the hump and they are living a productive life free from the destructive consequences of addiction.  Then it happens...All of your hopes are dashed again! They go back to using their chemical! But wait! You have no idea how to interpret this. Why would they go back to these drugs when they have so much to lose? Why would they risk their new job, the pretty girlfriend, the new car and the newly found self-respect? After all, don't they already know from experience that the drug will take eve...