Male Addiction and Trauma

Next Chapter Addiction Treatment is an all-male residential facility, focused on the treatment of drug and alcohol addiction, resolving past trauma, and overcoming other addictive/compulsive behaviors. Gender-specific treatment allows the clinical team to focus specifically on male issues surrounding addiction and trauma. Much of the work we do at Next Chapter involves working through traumatic and shame-inducing events from childhood, which have greatly impacted our patients in a host of detrimental ways. Oftentimes, men will be more hesitant to discuss certain traumatic events in a co-ed group. Male-exclusive treatment allows patients an opportunity to heal together while learning to foster meaningful and healthy relationships with other men – without the additional distractions that mixed gender treatment tend to create.

Benefits of All-Male Treatment Programs

The benefits of an all-male program encourage treatment effectiveness by allowing patients to address male-specific addiction and trauma related issues. The separation of sexes during the treatment process allows for a more comfortable and focused environment for patients to explore and experience unresolved, underlying issues and the often uncomfortable emotions necessary to recovery. Gender-specific settings provide a better opportunity for core-issues to be addressed openly and freely. Withholding or stifling the underlying pain of unaddressed trauma would undeniably have negative consequences on overall progress in recovery. The male-exclusive environment that Next Chapter provides allows men to heal honestly and thoroughly.

Additionally, mixed gender treatment poses the risk of relationship forming, which has a tendency to influence addictive behavior that often contributes to a relapse. At Next Chapter, we work to eliminate any potential disturbances to the effectiveness of treatment, and do our very best to provide our clients with the best opportunity to grow and succeed.

Why We Treat Addiction Through the Lens of Trauma and Attachment

Much of the work at Next Chapter involves working through trauma and attachment issues from childhood. Patterns of attachment typically begin in early adolescence, and are a direct result of prolonged emotional enmeshment, abandonment and/or abuse inflicted by a primary caretaker. From birth, infants are biologically intended to develop a significant attachment to their primary caretakers. This initial attachment is a substantial indicator of the health and functionality of future relationships; meaning the structure of these first relationships in life influence every relationship that follows. Attachment injuries such as childhood experiences of enmeshment, abandonment, and/or abuse, whether real or perceived, are often the root causes of trouble in the inability to form healthy relationships later down the line. Furthermore, these profound childhood occurrences are usually the fundamental causes of the majority of all existing trauma and addiction disorders. It is extremely common amongst addicts for such attachment disorders to be present. When enmeshment, abandonment, and attachment disturbances occur, children tend to blame themselves, and they subconsciously take on the responsibility to repair or recreate the essential and lost connection. Seeking out the same attachment is often characterized by attempts to make connections with people, drugs, things, and behaviors that ultimately lead to addictive disorders. In other words, addiction is a by-product of these traumatic childhood experiences. At Next Chapter, we utilize the evidence-based principles of 12-Step recovery for addiction disorders while incorporating intensive therapeutic techniques to treat the root causes of addiction and trauma, and begin thorough and lasting psychological healing.

Childhood Experiences or Events That Can Contribute to Addiction, Trauma, and Attachment Disorders: