
Walk through some of the basics of what mindfulness really means, and plan some activities that they can do to help ground themselves and stay present in stressful situations. Practice mindfulness.Some of your clients may be resistant to the idea of mindfulness at first, but encourage them to be open-minded. As the facilitator, you can ask follow-up questions such as, “Do you think you could emulate these traits?”, “Do your heroes have faults?”, and “How do their flaws make you feel about them?”ħ. If they bring up a person who used to be their role model, but no longer is, make sure they address why their opinion changed. Reflect on their role models.Ask everyone in the group who their role models are or were, and what about their behavior or personality they admire. Then, have the group follow up to discuss whether they agree or disagree with the reader’s perception and why.Ħ. Ask them to explain what they think is happening or how they think the characters on their card feel. For this topic, give each person a card detailing a situation or conversation, and have them read it to the group. Challenge their perceptions.Everyone perceives experiences and interactions differently. What would they say to high schoolers or college students? To other adults?ĥ. You can also challenge them to think about whether their speech would change depending on who they were speaking to. In this exercise, have them consider what stories would be appropriate to share. Prepare a speech.Ask your clients to think about what they would say if they had the opportunity to speak to a group of middle-school children about staying away from drugs. Then encourage the group to take notes on distractions and coping methods-such as phoning a friend, going for a jog, cooking a healthy snack or meal, listening to healing music, or writing in a journal.Ĥ. Cravings can come on at any time and in any situation, so pass out index cards and pens. Make a list of stay-busy activities.Encourage your clients to keep a list of things they can do when they’re confronted with triggers or are feeling vulnerable or anxious. But by listening to their peers, they might identify secondary, smaller triggers that they hadn’t considered in their own lives, and plan accordingly for thoseģ. Individual attendees will all have different triggers, which you should discuss to ensure they have adequate and appropriate coping mechanisms.
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Discuss triggers.One of the most significant substance use disorder group topics is triggers. Icebreakers at the beginning of any group help to break the tension and facilitate more personal connections between participants.Ģ. Anxieties are high for new groups, and even those that have been together for a while can go stale and need something to reinvigorate the atmosphere. Start with an icebreaker.Sometimes, the toughest part of group therapy is just getting your clients to open up. Substance Use Disorder Group Topics to Try in Your Practiceġ. Here are eight topics and tools that you can implement in your group sessions. As clinicians, your key to facilitating engaging group sessions is choosing substance use disorder group topics that your clients will connect to and be able to reflect on even after the session is over.
#Fun group activities for addicts how to#
It also teaches participants how to relate to others, challenge their own perceptions, and build relationships, which they may have had trouble doing while struggling with addiction.

Group therapy can encourage a deeper sense of self-reflection. Listening to and learning from peers who are on the same difficult journey and also committed to sobriety brings an entirely different element into the counseling process. While individual counseling is essential in someone’s recovery, attending substance use disorder groups can also be beneficial. Focus on Creating a Safe SpaceĪs mental health providers, it’s important to create a safe space for growth and recovery, and that’s especially true when you work with people struggling with addiction. As a result, many people with addiction are dismissed by their providers, and not offered the treatment they need. In many medical circles, addiction is still looked at as something that the person is personally at fault for, rather than an illness. So what’s contributing to this huge disparity in care?Ĭonsidering how prevalent addiction actually is, there’s still a huge stigma associated with seeking treatment.

Despite that, only around 10 percent of people receive treatment for their addiction. Almost 21 million adults in the US struggle with at least one addiction, and drug overdose deaths have more than tripled since 1990.
