Addiction Treatment

“Michael had such problems with drugs and drinking in high school, and we are so grateful that we found an addiction treatment at Sober College.  His life has taken a complete 180 degree turn since he graduated a year ago.”

Addiction Treatment at Sober College

Historically young adults, ages 17-26, have been placed in addiction treatment programs with anyone over 18 years of age.  Sober College founder, Robert Pfeifer, was working in the field of addiction and saw the need for specialized addiction treatment centers for the young adult population. 

Student's building new lives with out the use of drugs and alcohol

Sober College helps young adults to overcome their addictions, and helps rejuvenate them with the motivation to become a successful student.  Many young drug and alcohol addicts are very intelligent, but they lack in a motivation to succeed in school.  Sober College provides resources that no other drug rehabs dealing with young adults is able to provide, on-site college classes from an accredited university. Sober College offers college courses on-site through its partnership with Woodbury University, a WASC accredited institution, Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the highest accreditation that any West Coast school can achieve.

The staff have helped countless students to achieve a long lasting, happy sobriety.  Sober College has helped young adults seeking addiction treatment for the past five years. Many of the staff at Sober College went through the program, and have developed the innate ability to utilize their own experience to help the current students. 

Why Sober College is Age-Specific

Drug abuse has consistently increased for young adults over the past five years.   The statistics say that by the a student finishes high school 65 percent of American children have drank alcohol in the past year, and  42 percent have drank in the last month.  35 percent of high school seniors have smoked marijuana in the past year, and 22 percent of them have smoked in the past month. 

School helps with addiction treatment by building confidence, providing students with tangible results, allowing them to move forward while in treatment, it can provide a blueprint for what the rest of their life, and helps teach students how to continue to be productive while coping with obstacles that life presents.

Types of Addiction Treatment

1. 12 Step Model (Disease Model) – The 12 step model of recovery is used by a variety of different 12 Step Fellowships.  The largest is Alcoholics Anonymous.  It focuses on addiction treatment through acceptance of powerlessness over drugs or alcohol, adapting a new code of ethics, examining past errors, making amends for past wrong doings, and continuing to help others.
2. Client Centered Approach – Client Centered Psychoanalysis was developed by the famous American Psychologist Carl Rogers.  The approach focuses on the belief that every person has the ability to change within themselves.  Rogers would relay what a person was expressing to him with a more empathetic tone, and let them amend their own statement.
3. Relapse Prevention – Relapse Prevention helps alcoholics and addicts focus on the places, people, things, and situations, often referred to as triggers, that can cause them to want to use drugs and alcohol.  It then helps them develop healthy ways to replace using to cope with triggers.  The triggers can, also, provide an avenue for conversation about many underlying causes to drug and alcohol abuse.
4. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – Cognitive Behavioral Therapies have proven very successful in the treatment of addiction.  They combine both cognitive and behavioral therapies, and have been in use for over fifty years.  The goal of the therapy relies on being more in the moment.  It helps both with the mindfulness of clients, cognitive, along with their actions, behavior.
5. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy – Another commonly used approach for addiction treatment is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.  It focuses on clients and therapists becoming allies, and working on issues together.  It begins with a focus on stopping suicidal and self-injurious behavior, then stopping behavior that interferes with treatment, and finally working on quality of life behaviors.  The four core components of DBT are core mindfulness skills, interpersonal effectiveness skills, emotion regulation skills, and distress tolerance skills.