Transformational Treatment Model
Austin Recovery's Transformational Treatment Model represents our commitment to assure the effectiveness of our programs.
Albert Einstein once said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." That insight certainly appears true when it comes to finding a lasting solution to the perplexing problems of alcohol and drug addiction. Over the years, seminal thinkers have addressed what the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous calls, "the seeming hopeless state of mind and body" that is addiction. Common threads that appear among the writings of these visionaries all point to the pivotal role that spirituality must play in the recovery process.
William James, known to many as "the father of American psychology," spoke of individuals who had recovered when they, "recognized the unseen spiritual order that surrounds them and adjusted themselves harmoniously to it." He wrote of women and men who had "spiritual awakenings" (some sudden and revolutionary in their nature, while others were more gradual and educational.) In his book Varieties of Religious Experiences, he listed accounts of some alcoholics who had undergone such transformations and who, as a result, found lasting sobriety.
Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist, told one of his alcoholic patients that he needed to experience, "a psychic conversion" if he was to have any hope of finding the solution to his alcoholic dilemma. Jung went on to say that, "His (the alcoholic's) craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: 'the union with God.""
Dr. William Silkworth, the physician who treated AA co-founder Bill Wilson, wrote of the solution he witnessed in the lives of hundreds of early AA members who had undergone the 12-Step program of spiritual transformation. He said the changes he observed in them, "... appeared in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements." He noted that, "Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were the guiding forces of the (lives) of these people are suddenly cast to one side and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them."
Austin Recovery takes seriously the key role that spirituality plays in an individual's recovery process - whether that recovery is from alcohol or from drug addiction. Research studies demonstrate that increased spiritual practices are often associated with long-term addiction recovery (Carter, 1998) and with the maintenance of treatment gains (Koski-Jannes & Turner, 1999.) Still another study (Kaskutas et al, 2003) indicates that when clients report a "spiritual awakening" as a result of their 12-Step involvement, those clients were nearly four times more likely to be abstinent three years post-treatment than those who reported no spiritual awakening. We recognize also the new and important role that science and research are contributing to the addiction treatment field. We have seen significant advances to our knowledge since the pioneering days of James and Jung and other visionaries. Our Transformation Treatment Model takes these new resources into account.
Our goal at Austin Recovery is to help clients experience within themselves a new state of conscious connection to their Higher Power that makes their lives more meaningful and purposeful while they remain abstinent from alcohol and other mood-altering drugs.
Through our Transformational Treatment Model:
Our Transformational Treatment Model is and will likely always be a work in progress. As we learn what works we will build on it; as we uncover components that do not contribute, we will discard them. In developing our Model, we commit ourselves to be non-proprietary making our data fully available to the addiction treatment field. We welcome your interest and ask for your support in helping us achieve Austin Recovery's Mission of making compassionate treatment services effective and affordable to the great numbers of addicts and alcoholics who are in need.
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