Imagine this. You’re on the way to spend thirty days at a residential addiction treatment program. You’re sure it’s going to be the worst month of your life. Visions of lock-down and extreme boredom dance through your head. But then you arrive at Country Road Recovery. As you pull into the main campus, the sprawling 135 acres of pastureland catches you by surprise. You’re greeted warmly by the admissions staff and invited inside where other clients move about freely and smile at you in acknowledgement. This feels more like summer camp than rehab...
Treatment is not a punishment and your experience should reflect that. In this blog, we’ll explore what a day in the life could look like during your stay at Country Road and share 5 experiences that just might change your road to recovery.
The alarm goes off and you groggily get out of bed. As you go through your morning routine, you feel like a walk outside might be a good way to get the blood flowing and wake you up a bit. With 137 acres of land to explore, you throw on a jacket and head outside. Walking down to the fishing lake, you cut right and hit the hiking trails for a cool 2 mile walk before group starts. Coming back to your room you meet up with your hallmates and grab some coffee from the caf on the way to your first session of the day.
After the mornings’ group therapy session, you and some friends get together to decompress and play ping-pong. In active addiction your social circle has shrunk to a few using buddies but in the back of your mind you always knew they would double-cross you in a second if they knew it would be beneficial to them. You’d forgotten what it was like to have real friendships with people who care about your well-being. Feeling a connection to these strangers seems odd at first but as you get to know them and hear their stories, you realize they’re just like you. Same struggles, similar trauma, and an internal desire to overcome all that adversity and find a better way to live. As the plastic ball goes back and forth across the table, you check in with each other and get ready for the rest of the day.
Finishing up with lunch, you get ready for equine therapy since it’s Friday. When you first arrived, the weekly horse-centered therapy sessions were intimidating but now you’re comfortable around the gentle giants. You’ve come to appreciate their quiet strength and kind manner. Each day of the week there’s a different experiential therapy. When you first arrived you met with your clinical team and together you created a personalized treatment plan that incorporates art therapy, music therapy, equine therapy, and EMDR. Now you’re wondering if you shouldn’t have added yoga in there as well. With a full spectrum of therapeutic options, you can curate a weekly schedule of differing experiences all aimed at helping you heal.
The rest of the afternoon is spent in a relapse prevention class, meeting with your counselor for a one-on-one session, and ends with another therapy group. Hungrily you look forward to dinner, but excitedly you can’t wait for the evening’s outing. Convinced that rehab would be boring and restrictive, it was a revelation when you found out that the staff take clients off-site for weekly Fun in Recovery outings. Tonight you and your friends are going to see the latest summer blockbuster in the theater. Last week you went bowling.
When you get back to campus that evening you crash pretty quickly knowing that tomorrow is going to be a big day.
If getting out to see a movie was a perfect way to cap off the week then taking a trip to the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge is the perfect way to start the weekend. Just like weekly trips off campus for fun, you also get the opportunity to get off campus and explore the amazing outdoor experiences that Oklahoma has to offer. A stone's throw from Country Road is the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, a park comprised of, “60,000 acres of mixed grass prairie, ancient granite mountains, and fresh water lakes and streams.” It’s also home to Mt. Scott which you’ve promised yourself to summit before your time at Country Road is over. After a long week of therapy and classes, spending time out in nature grounds you and helps you feel centered. As you walk through the woods of the park you a sense of gratitude settles into your mind and you realize for the first time in a long time that you are hopeful about the future.
With years of experience and a staff that is committed to providing the best experience possible, Country Road Recovery is working hard to change the idea of treatment. If you or someone you love is struggling with substance abuse, give us a call to talk about their options and discover how we can help them get on the path to recovery.