Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT)

What is CBT?

CBT helps patients recognize and address negative thoughts and feelings and learn techniques to overcome addiction. It also focuses on helping patients to better understand their triggers so they can avoid or alter them.

How Does CBT Help with Addiction Treatment?

Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the therapies Brooks Health Center uses at our treatment center for drug and alcohol treatment. CBT teaches those in treatment for a substance use disorder (SUD) to find connections between their thoughts, feelings, and actions and increase awareness of how these things impact recovery.

What Are Some Examples of CBT?

People who use CBT techniques to help with their addiction treatment will often look for alternatives to replace their addiction. For example, if after a stressful day someone normally turns to alcohol or drug use to relax and take the edge off, they learn how to reframe their thoughts and seek out healthier alternatives like taking a long walk or playing a video game to relieve their stress. Other examples of CBT include:

• Journaling – Writing down your feelings or something that triggered negative thoughts. You can also keep track of how you’re feeling during your addiction recovery.
• Activity scheduling – If there’s something that you’ve been avoiding because it’s stressing you out, putting it on your calendar will make you more likely to do it. Once you’re able to accomplish this task you are able to remove the stressor.
• Mediation – Your counselor can help you learn some techniques to mediate and practice mindfulness when you start feeling overwhelmed, helping to combat addictive behaviors.

How Can CBT Help Me?

If your counselor determines that CBT would be an effective treatment option, you’ll be able to participate in CBT as part of your inpatient rehab treatment including our partial hospitalization program (php). Our staff will be able to develop a treatment plan using CBT to help with your recovery.

Tyler Bowman, Founder and CEO of Brooks Healing Center, struggled with his own addiction for many years and says that learning how to manage his emotions was an integral part of his recovery process. “I feel like that’s why I’m still here,” says Bowman. “To share my experience and let people know that life is beautiful and that it’s based on perception and how you look at it and the people you surround yourself with and it’s also your mentality. It’s a thinking problem and we have to learn how to combat it.”

To learn more and speak to an admissions counselor about how we use CBT at our Tennessee treatment facility here.