Happy Thanksgiving 2020 from New Start Recovery Solutions

New Start Recovery Solutions

Sierra Health and Wellness Centers

Wishing our Clients, Friends and Their Families a Very Happy Thanksgiving!

• Holiday Sobriety Planning Tips    • Coping with Social Distancing on Thanksgiving
• Use Mindfulness to Stay Present

At New Start Recovery Solutions (and our parent company, Sierra Health and Wellness Centers) – we have a lot to be grateful for this year!

We are grateful for all our clients, friends and their families!

And as of November 2020 – we experienced a major expansion with the addition of Recovery Happens Outpatient Rehab Centers.

With five Recovery Happens Outpatient Rehab locations to serve the Bay Area and Northern California – we are now able to reach and help more clients seeking addiction recovery.

And with Recovery Happens Outpatient Telehealth – we can now provide quality addiction treatment via virtual meetings.

Recovery Happens Virtual IOP Intensive Outpatient Programs

Recovery Happens Telehealth Virtual IOP is an insurance-eligible way for clients to replicate our face-to-face patient care experience in every way.

Virtual IOP combines group therapy and individual counseling sessions via the internet.

By using your smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop computer, or any device with an Internet connection and camera – individuals can participate in sessions from the convenience of your home.

In addition to the program’s easy-to-use and accessible video conferencing platform, our virtual systems comply with federal and state health care privacy regulations. Our program meets HIPAA-compliant telemedicine standards.

Thanksgiving Sobriety Planning

Here we are at another Thanksgiving and Holiday Season. Happy Thanksgiving!

For many, this can include visits with friends and family. And for many, those visits will be a minefield of relapse triggers.

For those without family or friends to visit – Thanksgiving and winter holidays are a lonely time that can also be a major trigger and challenge to sobriety.

Are there ways to experience holidays without relapse or major depression? Holidays can be stressful – but they are not destined to be depressing. It is vitally important to have a Sobriety Plan.

Holiday Sobriety Planning Tips

1. Make a firm and unshakable resolve to remain Sober.
2. Remember self care: Check H.A.L.T. – Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.
3. Avoid people, places and things that bring memories of previous drinking or drugging.
4. Have Strategies and a Plan for Relapse Prevention in Place; know potential obstacles.
5. Self Regulate and Communicate; Return to Common Ground Topics
6. Manage emotions; use Mindfulness to stay in the present moment.
7. Attend recovery support group meetings, such as SMART Recovery, AA, NA, ACA, NarAnon
8. If family gatherings are too stressful or toxic – attend support group meetings and/or spend time with supportive friends.
9. Use mindfulness to acknowledge and work with emotions – do not ‘bury’ unpleasant emotions.
10. Allow yourself to have Real Fun – Sober. Create new sober holiday traditions.
11. Give Thanks: Implement ‘Gratitude as an Attitude‘ whenever possible.
12. Sobriety is the Priority. (And have a back-up plan in place).

Coping with Social Distancing on Thanksgiving

Parts From ‘We asked mental health experts how to cope with a lonely Thanksgiving‘

For those in recovery – social support and interaction is important. That makes the Thanksgiving 2020 Social Distancing even more challenging to manage.

It will take more effort – but it is possible.

Remember, Thanksgiving is just one day out of the year.

And if you’re lonely, so are millions of other Americans going through the same thing.

Dr. Carlin Barnes, MD, and Dr. Marketa Wills, MD, MBA, who are the co-authors of “Understanding Mental Illness,” told me that it’s totally normal to feel lonely this Thanksgiving. “It can be easy to lose sight of the fact that Thanksgiving is one day and not a week or season,” they said. “Shifting your focus to a day instead of managing a holiday week or holiday season can help reduce anxiety.”

“It is important to acknowledge and validate if you are feeling lonely on this Thanksgiving holiday,” Barnes and Wills added. “If you are feeling some loneliness, this is very normal, many of us are having these same feelings.”

Together, Barnes and Wills sent me a list of activities they recommend:

• Connect with family and friends virtually (with use of Zoom, FaceTime, or other video conferencing platforms)

• Participate in a drive by, socially distant potluck dinner

• Reach out via phone and reconnect with family and friends with a phone call

• Plan activities that allow you to use your alone time enjoying fun or relaxing activities (e.g. exercise, volunteer by dropping food off to a shelter or writing letters to nursing home residents or veterans, read a good book, watch a good movie, cook a special holiday meal)

• Meditate and/or create a gratitude list of things you’re grateful for

• If possible, get out in nature

• Start planning how you will spend next Thanksgiving when things are (hopefully) back to normal

Use Mindfulness to Stay Present

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is having the internal focus to be quietly aware of your own thoughts and impulses – without judgment and without acting on the impulses.

Studies have shown that alterations in brain and immune function are produced by mindfulness meditation. With mindfulness practice, new neural networks are created in the brain.

Mindfulness meditation is associated with structural changes in areas of the brain that are important for sensory, cognitive and emotional processing.

Mindfulness meditation research shows that Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention is effective. Study results find that mindfulness interrupts reactive behaviors and encourages thoughtful and skillful responses to relapse triggers.

New Start Recovery Solutions includes Mindfulness as a part of our Whole Person addiction recovery program; including Conscious Recovery.

New Start Recovery Solutions Dual Diagnosis Addiction Treatment

We Accept Most Insurance

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• Each patient is evaluated by New Start Recovery Solutions staff and receives a biopsychosocial assessment; and an individualized treatment plan.

• We use Mindfulness for Relapse Prevention and other whole person evidence-based therapies; including CBT, DBT, yoga, tai chi and more.

• If you or your loved one is located in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Bay Area, Sacramento, Chico, Paradise, Redding, Martinez or other Northern California area – and are dealing with a drug abuse or an alcohol use disorder – welcome to evidence-based whole person addiction treatment at New Start Recovery Solutions.

Please call our Admissions for more information, or feel welcome to Contact Us.

We thank all the essential workers that continue to assist in these times!
We recognize the importance of continuing to serve our clients.

We Accept Most Insurance

A Military Addiction Recovery Center
In-network with TriWest

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Your Life Awaits – Make a New Start Now

Residential Inpatient Dual Diagnosis Rehab Addiction Treatment

Outpatient Dual Diagnosis Treatment – Recovery Happens Outpatient Rehab Centers

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Walnut Creek
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Recovery Happens Walnut Creek
2121 North California Blvd., Suite 290
Walnut Creek, CA 94596

Call 866-303-6275

New Start Recovery Solutions
Addiction Treatment Northern California and the US
Bay Area, East Bay, Silicon Valley, Bangor, Northern California
Dual Diagnosis Holistic Addiction Recovery