Addiction and Change: Understanding the Journey of Initiation and Recovery

Course overview

Addiction and Change Understanding the Journey of Initiation and Recovery This keynote will describe how people change using the stages of change to understand initiation of and recovery from addiction including both substance use disorders and behavioral addictions like pathological gambling. The tasks of the stage can provide a way to understand the journey into and out of addiction and a template for how providers can tailor interventions to tasks of the stages and support the journey through recovery. This presentation will also describe mechanisms of addiction and how to understand and address impaired self-regulation. Initiation and successful recovery from addiction represent a journey through a process of change. This presentation will explore this process and identify how providers can intervene in preventing addiction and promoting recovery. Initiation of addiction often interacts with adverse childhood experiences, mental health challenges, and critical contextual influences. Prevention attempts to interfere with the initiation process. Recovery and moving to free oneself from an addictive behavior involves finding the motivation, decision-making, commitment, effective planning and implementation to overcome this well maintained neurobiological and behavioral condition. Significant use of substances affects brain, body, and takes over the life space of the individual. The individual must make the journey through recovery using personal coping mechanism, seeking support and scaffolding for their compromised self-regulation, and re-center their lives. We will explore how outreach and treatment are connected to the personal journey into and out of addiction and the reality of successful recovery. Learning Objectives Participants will be able to 1. Describe key tasks of each stage of change and how they operate in both the initiation and recovery journey. 2. Understand the differences between early and later stages tasks and processes of change. 3. Name and describe the three critical components of use disorders: Neuroadaptation, impaired self-regulation, and salience or narrowing of the behavioral repertoire 4. Identify strategies that providers can use with clients to help them move through their process of change. 5. Understand how scaffolding can be used to support self-control and self-regulation.