While your loved one is an
admitted patient at Gentle
Path at The Meadows, contact will be limited. However, Gentle
Path at The Meadows offers opportunities for families to interact and
come together in the healing
and recovery process during family
week. Families coming to Wickenburg, Arizona for Family Week are
responsible for their own lodging, reservations and cancellations.
To
inquire about lodging please contact the Wickenburg Chamber of
Commerce at 928-684-5479.
Start Your
Journey Today
Gentle
Path at The Meadows, located in Wickenburg, Arizona, provides an
intensive, experientially based 45-day treatment program for men with
the complex issues of sexual addictions.
We are a Behavioral Health
Inpatient Facility with 28 beds, providing the highest level of care
dedicated exclusively to men suffering from sexual
addictions. We are accredited by The Joint Commission which
demonstrates our ongoing commitment to safe, high quality care, and
treatment. Patients can be assured that they will receive outstanding
care at Gentle Path at The Meadows.
In
a safe and nurturing community composed of their peers, men are
guided on their journey of recovery by examining the underlying
causes of addiction and co-occurring disorders. The goal is for these
individuals to gain the courage to face difficult issues, including
grief and loss; heal
from emotional trauma; and become accountable for their own feelings,
behaviors, and recovery. Visit
us here or feel free to phone us at 866-811-8265.
Content Source : Healing and Recovery Center
Once a month, the
Workshop team is treated to a consultation from Pia Mellody, the creator
of the Survivors workshop treatment model. She makes herself available,
both to consult on clinical cases, answer and process questions and to
inspire us with her wise adages for the spirituality of recovery. Often,
I leave our gatherings with notes in hand to share with my workshop groups.
A recent example
of one of these inspirational mini-lectures is the concept of using our
character strengths to learn the lessons that our weaknesses present to
us. Being human means we are inherently imperfect. Being human also
means that we are given opportunity to improve our quality of life. Pia
frequently reminds us, “Our strengths don’t make us better-than and our
weakness’ don’t make us less-than. We ought to be grateful for our
strengths and learn from our weakness”.
We all have weaknesses:
Weaknesses of character that show up to remind us of our humanity and
imperfection. For most people, weaknesses are a source of personal lack
or toxic shame. What we perceive as weaknesses may keep us in a one-down
position, or keep us from trying new endeavors, or keep us stuck in
seemingly endless despair.
What if we begin
to think of our weaknesses as an opportunity to learn important life
lessons? Life is about learning, which is an act of spiritual creation.
Our short-comings are soul-lessons that encourage us to grow in
emotional, mental, ethical and/or spiritual
ways. As we strive to become more respectful, thoughtful, balanced and
moderate, we enter into an arena of greater awareness about ourselves
and the world we live in.
Thankfully, we all
have strengths as well. Strengths are gifts. We are given those gifts
to help us overcome our short-comings, to learn the lessons of life, and
to help ourselves and others in this world. Sadly, some people plead
that they haven’t any strengths to be noted. This is a cognitive
distortion! EVERYONE is given strengths that encourage us and give us a
sense of purpose. As a baby, you probably taught yourself to walk. That
is called strength! You have perseverance.
Sometimes we think
of our strengths in a much too limited fashion. For example, baking a
perfect soufflé requires more abilities than just whipping some eggs.
Baking a soufflé requires an amount of focus, a light touch, and
diligence. Develop those skills into strengths that will assist you as
you address the greater lessons in your life.
How do you discern
what your strengths are? To start, make a list of your values. What
ethics do you employ? List your interests, what are the best parts of
those interests? What about your accomplishments in school, at work,
with partnerships, with your family and friends, with hobbies or sports
participation? What do those positive thoughts tell you about your
strengths?
As with all
change, the challenge is to continue, to persevere until it is
accomplished. Just keep reminding yourself that you learned to walk;
therefore, you can learn life lessons using your gifts to develop more
strength. Now, go learn something!
Content Source :
Humanity and Imperfection
In order to understand why religious families inadvertently and at times unintentionally create an environment where their children run to addictions rather
than God as their coping mechanism, we must first begin by
understanding the mindset of a child. When we look back on our
childhood, we look back through adult lenses. Since then, we have grown
by our maturity and life experiences, which may have distorted the truth
of our childhood. Many of us carry messages that tell us we are bad
children if we get mad at our parents or disagree with them. This
message can have a profound impact on the way the person feels about
himself or herself in adulthood. It is important to respect our parents
but we can also have different opinions.
A child needs to feel their opinion is important to their parents or the
child may feel he or she isn’t important. Validating and acknowledging a
child’s feelings is essential if they are to have self-worth. If
children are afraid to share their true feelings and doubts in fear of
reprisal then who can they trust? All of these messages set up the
destructive entitlement that leads to addiction. It’s no coincidence
that most addictions begin before the age of 18.
It’s important to
understand that all children are egocentric at an early age. When my son
was five, I was carrying him down the stairs and I stumbled. I banged
my arm against the wall, broke my glasses, and hurt my shoulder while
making sure he wasn’t hurt. At the bottom of the stairs, he looked at me
and said, “It’s not nice to push little boys down the stairs.” This is
the way children think at this age. They believe they are the center of
the universe. Even when a parent dies at an early age, the child feels
anger toward the deceased parent because they felt abandoned. If a
parent works long hours in order to save for life’s expenses, the child
may not view it this way. They may believe if they were better children,
then the parent would want to spend more time with them. Their brain
hasn’t developed enough to view this differently. Regardless of
religion, skin color, or socioeconomic status, all children believe the
world revolves around them. If the child believes something is more
important to the parent than he or she is, then the child will develop
animosity and defiance towards whatever it is. This includes religion.
Contrarily, if a child feels he or she comes first, then religion does
not become the enemy. They will welcome and accept religion as they grow
older.
Today, there is a
need to increase structure in the family system when raising our
children. Unfortunately, too much control will create a child that loses
their sense of self. In many religious families, parents use control as
a mechanism to mold their children into who they want them to be. They
forget that children need to feel understood for their beliefs and
fears, as well as loved unconditionally, in order to want to be
religious rather than feel they need to be religious as the way to
receive their parent’s love. Read More…
Content Source: Families and Addiction
