Empowerment Brunch!

We're on 11 Alive again!!

This time it's announcing our Empowerment Brunch, to be held on October 1st at Northside United Methodist Church.

The brunch will raise money so that Breakthru House can continue to provide scholarships to cover the cost of residential substance abuse treatment for women without the financial resources to receive treatment otherwise!

Ashley Smith Robinson, author of "Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero"will be our keynote speaker. In Jennifer Leslie's article (http://www.11alive.com/news/article/205941/40/Hero-hostage-in-Nichols-case-helping-women-in-recovery), Ashley says, "I'm speaking at Breakthru House because l have been through many of the same issues that most women there are going through."

We hope that you will join us for brunch in celebration of the empowerment of women that happens through treatment at Breakthru House!

 Register here: http://atlanta.actionministries.net/digital_faith/events/35

"I pray they realize it's never to late to turn your life around and that God loves all of us the same, no matter our choices."  - Ashley Smith Robinson

Clinical Corner: Trauma

by Sarah Postich, LAPC, NCC, Lead Counselor

Trauma occurs when a crisis is so bad that meaning is destroyed. You cannot make meaning out of your experience.  Along with the loss of meaning is terror, helplessness and extreme emotionality or numbing.  What is traumatic for one individual may not be traumatic for another person. For some individuals, a hurricane, fire, or other natural disaster can be traumatic. Being physically, sexually, or emotionally abused at any point in one’s life can be traumatic. For others, being in a car accident, in jail, or being adopted was traumatic. It all depends on the individual.

The majority of the women in our program have experienced at least one traumatic event in their life, if not multiple traumatic events. In general, trauma can impact a person in several ways. It can lead to hyperarousal, where a person is physiologically aroused all the time because they are on the lookout for danger. They may have an extreme startle response to unexpected stimuli, or difficulty sleeping. Another way trauma affects a person is that they may experience flashbacks where memories of the event intrude into their mind unexpectedly.  There may be dreams that occur that include fragments of the traumatic event. In addition, individuals may feel numb or shut off their emotions, believe that they are observing from outside their body, that time has slowed down, or that this is a bad dream from which they will wake.

Moreover, trauma affects our women (and most individuals) in a number of ways. Trauma ultimately destroys one’s relationships with oneself and others in the world. Individuals feel they cannot trust themselves because they were not able to keep themselves out of harm’s way. They may not trust other people in the world because those people have betrayed their trust and hurt them in some way.  Often times, individuals have tried to figure out ways to cope with the trauma they have experienced. Some of the common, unhealthy ways individuals have dealt with their trauma is by using alcohol or drugs to numb themselves. It is very confusing and painful to have traumatic memories pop into one’s head unexpectedly, or to always be afraid of what will happen next.  Another way they may have learned how to cope is by limiting what they do day to day- they may not go certain places, and even start to isolate from family and friends. Commonly they may attempt to control their fear of getting hurt again by creating a sense of safety in their actions. This is done by controlling other aspects of their lives: their job, their home, and their relationships with other people in their life.

So, when a woman comes to Breakthru House we want her to start to trust herself, trust the other women in the community, and the treatment team. This all occurs very slowly as trust is built over time. One of the ways we try to heal the trauma the women have experienced is by having them feel the feelings surrounding the traumatic event. Often times, this may include: anger, shame, embarrassment, guilt, etc.  They may not be able to even identify these feelings, so we may use different techniques to help them. One technique is to look at different pictures I have of people experiencing different emotions and then the woman will have to guess what emotion that individual is feeling. Or, I may include media to have them identify with a topic.  These 2 songs relate to the cycle of domestic violence.

Staff Spotlight - Meet Sarah, Lead Counselor!

My name is Sarah Postich and I serve as Breakthru’s Lead Counselor. I am passionate about helping women to empower themselves, to heal, and grow on their journey of recovery.  Prior to obtaining both my Specialist in Education and Master of Science degrees in Professional Counseling at Georgia State University, I completed my undergraduate studies in Psychology at the University of Georgia. As a Licensed Associate Professional Counselor in the state of Georgia and a National Certified Counselor, I hold memberships in the American Counseling Association (ACA) and Licensed Professional Counselors Association of Georgia (LPCA).

I have had the privilege to learn and work in a variety of mental health settings. I completed my master’s degree internship at Skyland Trail, which is a residential facility that serves individuals diagnosed with Depression, Bipolar Disorder, and Schizophrenia. I have professional experience as a Case Manager at Ridgeview Institute, a psychiatric hospital that provides inpatient stabilization and outpatient services to clients struggling with mental health or substance issues. In addition, I provide individual and group counseling in the private sector during the evenings and weekends.

In my time here, I have come to love Breakthru House for several reasons. One is because of the mission of our program. I am amazed at the services we offer our women and believe that we provide one of few holistic treatment programs to women that would be unable to receive treatment elsewhere. I find it exceedingly important that women receive both group and individual counseling on a weekly basis as research highlights the benefits of both,  and our women do receive both treatment modalities here. In addition, I love that Breakthru House is long term. Research shows that the longer an individual remains sober and in treatment the higher the likelihood they will remain sober. Very few residential treatment programs allow their residents to stay 12-18months. This is a rare privilege Breakthru House can offer its women.

Recovery Month Proclamation at the Georgia Capitol!

New Groups at Breakthru House!

by Melanie Storrusten, LCSW, Clinical Coordinator

We have modified our group schedule at Breakthu House to include a new group: Sober Support Skills! These groups will introduce new activities that have been shown to support sustained recovery in various ways. These group activities will include exercise, art, meditation, and leisure skills (games, movies, etc.).

Each of these types of activities have been shown through research to benefit and support sustained recovery in various ways.

It is important to not only encourage clients to participate in these activities in their free time, but to set aside group time to introduce new methods of exercise, relaxation and meditation, creative expression, and leisure to clients, as well as to give them an opportunity to practice these skills. It is natural human behavior that we are more likely to do an activity later when we have already begun the action! So, when we practice a meditation technique or exercise activity in group, it allows clients to experience for themselves, "hey, this is actually helpful! (and fun!)" Then they are much more likely to continue the behavior in their free time and continuing on after treatment to enhance and support their recovery efforts.

For further reading on how each of these types of activities are supportive of recovery, you may want to check out some of these articles!


Benefits of Exercise in Addiction Treatment and Recovery
"Active Replacement" - Benefits of Leisure Skills, including Exercise in Addiction Treatment and Recovery
Benefits of Meditation in Addiction Treatment and Recovery
Benefits of Meditation in Addiction Treatment and Recovery (second article)
Creative Arts Therapy and Addiction Treatment and Recovery
Women in Recovery from Alcoholism: The Place of Leisure
Therapeutic Recreation and Addiction Treatment

To read more about another new group at Breakthru House that focuses on creating safety to address trauma and addiction, please see our article about our new Seeking Safety curriculum!

A fatal disease

by Melanie Storrusten, LCSW, Clinical Coordinator

Addiction is a disease that is fatal when untreated. RIP, Amy Winehouse. Hopefully her untimely death will help save the life of another. For further information about drug addiction and treatment, or to make a donation to support women struggling with addiction, please visit Breakthru House's website or call us at 404-284-4658.

Step by Step - Step One

by Melanie Storrusten, LCSW, Clinical Coordinator

Step One: We admitted we were powerless over __________ - that our lives had become unmanageable.

For some, alcohol fits best in the blank. For others, it's addiction, or cocaine, or narcotics, or just drugs of any kind. For most of us, (and I don't mean just the addicts and alcoholics), we can fill that blank with a lot of behaviors.

Getting an official psychiatric diagnosis of dependence on a substance requires that a certain number of specific criteria are met: Increased tolerance, withdrawal in the absence of the substance, significant time spent getting, using, and recovering from the substance, using more than you intended to or for longer than you intended, unsuccessful attempts at ceasing or limiting use, missing out on important job or relationship functions due to use, and continued use despite negative consequences.

Often the most baffling of those characteristics to those viewing addiction from the outside, and also to the sufferer themselves, is the continued use despite negative consequences. Common sense and behavioral laws alike tell us that when we experience negative consequences for a behavior, that we should STOP IT!

When I first got involved with addiction treatment, the first step sounded oh-so-simple to me. I thought, "Well, these people are in treatment and asking for help - so it's obvious that they are powerless and their lives are unmanageable." Thankfully, my clinical supervisors and mentors at the time encouraged me to do a first step assignment myself. I put this off for a long while, but eventually sat down to write 10 very specific examples of the consequences I'd suffered in my life from my nicotine addiction. I struggled very much with the idea of powerlessness - my thoughts went something like this, "I could stop if I really wanted to, I just don't really want to right now." And my life was certainly not unmanageable - no one was going to arrest me for smoking a cigarette after all. As I wrote the examples, they got progressively more shocking to me, and painted a picture that - "Oh yeah... my life is pretty unmanageable in certain ways. Why haven't I stopped doing this? ... oh yeah, because I can't. I am powerless." Even though the consequences of nicotine addiction do not begin to compare in any way to the consequences of drug and alcohol addiction - the exercise was powerful. It is hard to 1. see your powerlessness and unmanageability, and 2. to acknowledge it. And this is only the first step!

Maybe you can relate to some of the following...

I knew that I was powerless over cigarettes and that my life had become unmanageable when I smoked in the car with my nephew even thought I knew it was harmful to him, and a bad example.

I knew that I was powerless over drugs and alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable when I allowed my electricity to get cut off because I spent all of my money getting high.

I knew that I was powerless over other people's actions and that my life had become unmanageable when my attempts to control others left me alone and resentful.

I knew that I was powerless over other people's thoughts and feelings and that my life had become unmanageable when I realized that I was unable to make a decision on my own and didn't know who I was anymore.

I knew that I was powerless over my depression and that my life had become unmanageable when I missed out on my child's growing up because I was in my bed avoiding the world.

I knew that I was powerless over my anxiety and that my life had become unmanageable when I could not attend my best friend's wedding.

If these statements, or others like them sound familiar to you, there are 12-step programs that can help you deal with many problems, not just drugs and alcohol.

Alcoholics Anonymous - http://www.aa.org/
Narcotics Anonymous - http://www.grscna.com/
Codependents Anonymous - http://www.coda.org/
Emotions Anonymous - http://www.emotionsanonymous.org/
Overeaters Anonymous - http://www.oa.org/
Al-Anon - http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/
Adult Children of Alcoholics - http://www.adultchildren.org/