Recovery Dharma is a treatment approach for mental health and substance use disorders (SUDs). It allows you to use different principles, methods, and beliefs to reach your long-term sober goals. Bright Mission Recovery utilizes the principles of Recovery Dharma in our treatment approach to help our clients find the best path toward healing.
What Is Recovery Dharma?
Recovery Dharma is an approach for treating mental health disorders and SUDs that utilizes principles of Buddism. It uses the principles of the Four Noble Truths, mediation, mindfulness, and peer support to create the best opportunity to overcome your condition and reach long-term healing. This type of program utilizes a holistic mentality to treat you as a whole being, not just the signs and symptoms you are presenting with.
Four Noble Truths
This type of program works to understand the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. The first three truths surround human suffering and link experiencing cravings as a form of suffering. Working to embrace these truths helps you to accept that suffering is a part of being human, cravings are a form of it, and that there can be an end to suffering.
The last truth is about the Eightfold Path. The path’s steps can be used to help you out of the cycle of addiction. They are:
- Understanding
- Intention
- Speech
- Action
- Livelihood
- Effort
- Mindfulness
- Concentration
By practicing these elements, you can change your thought processes, be aware of signs of relapse, focus on your sobriety, and discover who you are without substance use. Staying on your healing path takes hard work, determination, and motivation. The Recovery Dharma approach wants to teach you the skills necessary to make it to long-term healing.
Meditation and Mindfulness
Another aspect that Recovery Dharma takes from Buddhism is meditation and mindfulness. These practices are used to create harmony between your mind, spirit, and body. Meditation uses different techniques to enhance this connection, your well-being, and your mental health. Some techniques include:
- Breathwork
- Visualization
- Mantras
- Certain sounds and music
Mindfulness is another form of meditation and helps you to be present in the moment. It can help you evaluate situations and feelings and appropriately respond to stimuli. This practice enables you to see the situation clearer and without making prejudgements.
Peer Support
Creating a support system is vital to achieving long-term healing. Recovery Dharma programs are often peer-led, meaning those with experience in the program help teach beginners and newcomers. Using peers to lead the programs allows beginners to see what is achievable, form connections with others who have experienced what they have, and feel comfortable confiding in an unbiased person about their substance use. Feeling supported and part of a community can help you in a variety of ways, including:
- Holding you accountable
- Motivation
- Forming connections
- Create a support system for after-treatment
- Help you overcome obstacles
How Does Recovery Dharma Influence Bright Mission’s Care Approach?
Bright Mission Recovery is a detox and residential SUD and dual diagnosis treatment facility. Our discovery programs are personalized to you to ensure that your needs are met and that you have the greatest opportunity to achieve long-term healing. This individualization means that there are different therapeutic approaches that can be utilized in your healing, including:
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Anger management
- Mindfulness
- Experiential therapy
- Music and art therapy
- Breathwork
- Motivational interviewing (MI)
Our use of meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and yoga is to follow principles of Recovery Dharma that work to bring harmony and peace to the human being. These approaches help you feel a sense of calm that can open you up to treatment and make you more susceptible to the knowledge you can gain while on your discovery journey.
We pride ourselves on the supportive and nurturing environment that we create. The Recovery Dharma approach influences this environment because it works to develop connections with other members of the program and build a support system. Our belief is that having a proper support team can help you reach your long-term goals and foster healing.
Another way that Recovery Dharma influences our healing approach is through its holistic base. Bright Mission Recovery looks at every aspect of an individual when creating your unique healing plan. This outlook on treatment allows us to ensure that all of your needs are being met and that you have the best chance of reaching your long-term goals in life. One way we do this is by bringing in other professionals; for example, if you are a boxer, then we will bring in a boxing coach to ensure you can keep up and build on those skills. Another example is that if you are a chef, we can bring in different foods for you to cook with.
Recovery Dharma is a different approach to mental health and substance use disorders that follows the teachings of Buddhism. These teachings include meditation, mindfulness, peer support, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path. These aspects are used to help deepen your understanding of what causes addiction, the different aspects of it, and how to come to terms with addiction. This approach can help you admit you have a disease that will be a part of your life forever, but learning more about it and how to control it can significantly help you in handling it. For more information, contact (747) 444-3284 today. We at Bright Mission Recovery understand that you have a unique story and are here to help.