Georgia Treatment Centers Redefine Men’s Addiction Recovery

Georgia treatment centers are redefining what men’s addiction recovery looks like. They’re starting with what addiction experts describe as an often unrecognized risk factor: social impoverishment, the lack of critical relationships that can help men maintain their health and sobriety one day at a time.

Men Supporting Men’s Addiction Recovery

Terrence is a recent resident of The Potter’s House, a faith-based recovery program in northeast Georgia. 

Like many men in addiction recovery, Terrence’s early years revealed no abnormal tendency towards addiction. He grew up in a loving Christian home, performed well at school and on the sports field and earned a scholarship to attend college.

But in college Terrance partied and drank and his substance use escalated significantly when his grandfather passed away. The pattern of heavy drinking and addiction sent his life into a downward spiral that he only pulled out of when his grandmother finally confronted him about it.

What Terrence’s Story and Recovery Reveal

Terrence entered into a year-long residential recovery program that allowed him to spend enough time in therapy and healing in community to do deep recovery work. 

He worked and enjoyed free time alongside his brothers in recovery. In this environment, he got the chance to overcome his addictive habits while also having the support of professionals and his peers to address the pain and loneliness at the foundation of his addiction.

In Terrence’s life, it was a set of valuable relationships that got him to and through addiction recovery. This echoes research indicating that positive relationships often help motivate a person towards seeking help and sticking to their recovery programs. 

Understanding the dynamics at play in the lives of Terrence and those like him could help reduce the current relapse rate of between 40 and 60%.

How To Help Men in Recovery

Unfortunately, most men living with addictions are beset only by negative relationships. For many of these men, a long term program is the first place they’ll ever be on the receiving end of respect and care. 

They also get to care for others in these types of programs, which allows wise and caring behaviors to develop. The transformational work occurs in mutual trust and respect of the relationships that form when men can properly care and be cared for. 

This means that the goal of addiction treatment must look far beyond mitigating and diminishing symptoms. The goal should be healing the whole person, which requires these deeper relationships at least as much as it requires other evidence based practices. 

Find Extended Care for Men Near You

Extended, peer-driven programs designed exclusively to meet the unique needs of men are available nationwide.

Find men’s treatment centers near you by treatment type, location and more or call 800-908-4823 (Sponsored) for immediate support.

Author

Emile Oosthuizen

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Emile is a law student in South Africa with a long history of outreach work in and around the country. He holds an undergraduate degree in Commercial Law and Economics. Having seen the problems the legal system in an unequal society can perpetuate, he intends to use his legal career to help people who face complex and difficult legal problems. When he’s not working, he’s either running, playing music, or fixing his (really old) car.

Editor

Terri Beth Miller, PhD

Author, Award-Winning Post-Secondary Teacher

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Terri Beth received her PhD in English literature from the University of Tennessee Knoxville and is an educator and disability studies scholar. For more than a decade, she has written extensively in the fields of mental health and addiction recovery and fiercely advocates for the destigmatization of mental illness.