Recovery is a life-saving process that has countless benefits. However, in return for all its benefits, recovery can be the most demanding opportunity in a person’s life. Leaving behind a life of substance abuse can be frightening, confusing, frustrating, challenging, and much more.
Thankfully, we don’t have to fight these obstacles to our growth on our own. An entire community of people in recovery wants the same thing we do — a better version of life than the one we were living.
One of recovery’s most significant challenges is facing life’s obstacles sober. Encountering difficult circumstances as a sober person may seem unmanageable to someone who has previously relied heavily on substances to combat difficulties.
Thankfully, a powerful therapeutic tool, psychodrama, can eliminate the feeling of being “alone in recovery.” This approach to treatment can provide numerous options for dealing with life on life’s terms.
Psychodrama as a Guide
Numerous studies have shown that psychodrama can significantly aid in the process of recovery. To understand psychodrama, imagine a play with actors putting on a show for an audience. While the actors may know what will happen next, the audience can only guess. The audience doesn’t know what’s going on inside the mind of the character on stage. They only get to watch as the story unfolds to find out what happens.
The difference in psychodrama is that the audience does understand what’s going on inside the character’s head. The audience gets to know the script and what would typically happen. However, instead of predictable results, the audience gets to see how they could approach the “story” differently.
Psychodrama to Learn New Ways of Coping
The power of psychodrama is that the audience is the person with difficulty. They get to watch and learn what their reaction to an issue could be. Not only that, the rest of the audience (and characters) get to weigh in on the problem and how it could be resolved in a healthy way.
Psychodrama is interactive theater at its finest. It’s a process by which you can put yourself in the shoes of a character in your story and explore what’s going on inside. In psychodrama, a mental health care provider will guide you through the process and make sure the process is conducted in a healthy, productive way.
How to Use Psychodrama in Recovery
Fighting addiction can be difficult. Not only are you wrestling with cravings, guilt, regret, and challenging relationships, you are learning how to combat those issues as a sober person. You have endless feelings and emotions you need to learn to process. Psychodrama can give you the tools you need to face these challenges.
No one should go through recovery alone. When you need people to understand the most, you often feel like no one ever will. Psychodrama creates a bridge between your addiction and others who know what you’re going through. With the connection psychodrama provides, every challenge in recovery feels like a team effort.
Maybe the idea of recovery seems overwhelming and impossible to imagine. Looking at a sober life from the outside can feel scary and perhaps like more trouble than it’s worth. Treatment centers like The Guest House specialize in therapeutic methods that can give you the tools you need to live a better version of life without substance abuse. Psychodrama is just one of those tools. If you struggle with substance use disorder (SUD) and want to take your life back, call (855) 483-7800 for more information.