What best describes holistic addiction treatment? Think of it this way: our addiction affected us in several different areas of our lives.  For example, abusing substances likely affected our physical health.  It probably forced us to eat poorly and have poor nutrition.  Our relationships likely suffered.  We became emotionally unbalanced.  We lost our mental edge.  And our habits of drinking or using drugs probably isolated us in some ways.  And we became spiritually bankrupt.

So holistic treatment is simply the process of addressing all of those areas and more.  Instead of simply saying “addiction is a spiritual disease, therefore, the solution is spiritual,” the holistic approach seeks to go beyond this and address other aspects of addiction and recovery.

It makes sense to use a holistic approach.  This becomes increasingly true as you move from short term recovery into long term recovery.

For example, take someone who is living in recovery and has a few years of sobriety in.  They are middle aged, have suffered from a lifetime of drinking and abusing drugs heavily, and they smoke cigarettes every day.  They are a bit overweight and they do not exercise at all.  This is the type of recovering addict who can probably benefit greatly from a holistic approach.  Simply from the physical end of things, if they were to quit smoking, start exercising, and improve their nutrition, it would go a long ways in benefiting their recovery overall.  This is not just “a nice thing to do” for your recovery….daily exercise will go a long way in actually helping people to stay sober.  There are actually a few programs out there that focus exclusively on exercise as a model for recovery.  There are other programs that focus heavily on nutrition as a big part of recovery.  So take advantage of these ideas and incorporate them into a holistic approach.

There is no need to stop at the physical, though.  You can look at other aspects of recovery and push yourself to grow in that area, thus increasing the holistic aspect of your life.  For example, you might notice that you tend to isolate in your recovery and you are worried that this will affect you negatively.  In this case you might find ways to reach out to other recovering addicts on a regular basis, such as through sponsorship, regular meeting attendance, or some other means.  If you see an area in your life that needs work you can focus in on it and push yourself to correct things.  This is the power and flexibility of the holistic approach and if you are diligent about targeting your weak points in recovery then it can be extremely effective at helping you to achieve long term recovery.

Most people who have tried and failed at traditional recovery know that they place a strong emphasis on spirituality in those types of programs. There are other factors involved in getting and staying clean and holistic treatment is the path to address those other factors. Remember that an holistic approach simply means that you are treating the “whole person,” rather than just one narrow aspect of their addiction. This is what makes it such a powerful recovery technique.