The Driftwood Approach to Treating Suicidal Ideation

Suicidal ideation is more common than what most people would think. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12.3 million adults have considered suicide at some point in their lives. Anyone from all walks of life can experience or struggle with suicidal ideation. Those who struggle with these thoughts can feel empty, tired, and hopeless. 

There is always hope, and anyone can recover from these distressing thoughts and feelings with the right professional help. At Driftwood Recovery, clients have the freedom to discuss their inner thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment or belittlement. Staffed by caring and compassionate professionals, each client receives the attention and treatment they need to overcome anything. 

However, treatment cannot begin if a person doesn’t understand that they need it. Suicidal ideation is heavily stigmatized and rarely discussed. It’s only in recent years that there has been a push to educate the greater public about suicidal ideation and those who are most at risk. By speaking about this topic, we validate those who are struggling and encourage them to seek help.

What Is Suicidal Ideation?

Suicidal ideation, also known as suicidal thoughts, is when someone struggles with persistent thoughts of death and suicide. Although someone may have these thoughts and feelings, it does not mean that they will attempt suicide. These thoughts are often intrusive and very distressing. Over time, these thoughts can wear down the spirit, making it difficult to connect with others or find joy in life.

There are two forms of suicidal ideation: active and passive. Active suicidal ideation is when you have suicidal thoughts and also have the intention to die by suicide. This may involve taking steps such as making a plan, purchasing a weapon, or designating a specific day to die. Passive suicidal ideation is when you have thoughts of suicide, such as “I wish I could disappear,” but have no plans to harm or die by suicide. 

Who Is Most at Risk?

Suicidal ideation can be the result of many factors. However, it often boils down to a desire to escape a situation that feels inescapable. It’s what happens when a person loses hope and finds no value in continuing life. Sometimes, this is a result of a serious condition, such as chronic pain, grief from the loss of a loved one, or addiction. Mood disorders and other mental health conditions, such as depression, can also cause suicidal ideation. Some medications used to treat these conditions may also have a side effect that can cause thoughts of death and suicide. 

Other risk factors that may cause suicidal ideation in individuals are:

• Surviving or experiencing bullying, abuse, and violence
• Loss of a loved one, relationship, healthcare, or job
• Employed in highly stressful occupations
• Experiencing social isolation or loneliness 
• Facing discrimination
• Having a family or community history of suicide 
• Being a member of a marginalized group
• Having easy access to lethal weapons or means to harm oneself
• Being exposed to unsafe media portrayals of suicide

Having any of these risk factors does not automatically mean a person will experience suicidal ideation. It simply means that they must be ready to reach out for help should they need to. 

Getting Treatment for Suicidal Ideation

Those who are struggling with thoughts of self-harm and suicide can reach out by calling or texting the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This lifeline exists to help stabilize individuals and find treatment options in their area. Callers are often directed to enroll in a mental health care facility or seek hospitalization, depending on the severity of their suicidal thoughts. Suicidal ideation must be treated by professionals for the individual to recover, so it’s vital to seek treatment right away. 

At Driftwood Recovery, there are several therapies used to treat suicidal ideation. Psychotherapies such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) help talk clients through their thoughts and feelings. This helps them identify what is triggering these thoughts and allows them to change these thoughts into healthier alternatives. Group therapy is also helpful in showing clients that they are not alone, allowing them to find support and understanding among their fellow peers. Clients learn that their lives matter, and care is taken to build up their confidence and feelings of self-worth.

Receiving treatment for conditions that cause suicidal ideation is also essential for its treatment. Driftwood Recovery focuses on treating some of the most common causes of suicidal ideation, which are addiction, chronic pain, and mood disorders. By treating a wide range of conditions, clients have an easier time finding the comprehensive care needed to treat both their suicidal ideation and the conditions that cause them. Sometimes, medicine can help manage these thoughts. Using any medication requires time and a collaborative effort between the client and a medical professional, but many clients have found success.

It’s also essential to know that these thoughts will not last forever. As long as a person is willing to make a positive change in their life, they can accomplish anything. Sometimes, a person receiving care for suicidal ideation may inadvertently help others with similar thoughts. Using the skills learned at Driftwood Recovery allows one to make a tangible difference in the world. Every life matters, including your own. 

Experiencing sadness or the “blues” is a normal experience that people have. However, sincerely thinking about your death or daydreaming about your death is not. This is called suicidal ideation, and it can be frightening and stressful to live with. However, it’s possible to recover from suicidal thoughts and ideation with the right treatment and support. Here at Driftwood Recovery in Driftwood and Austin, Texas, clients have access to compassionate and quality mental health treatment. Staffed by caring and understanding individuals, clients are recognized and seen as the individuals they are. If you are struggling with suicidal ideation, don’t wait. There is always hope for a better tomorrow. To learn how Driftwood Recovery can help, call (512) 759-8330 today. 

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), more than 21 million children had a parent who misused substances or had a substance use disorder (SUD). Being a parent, while incredibly rewarding, comes with a host of challenges. SUD adds another layer of difficulty in being the best version of yourself as a parent. You know you have put a lot of work into being a healthier you. However, you also know parenting in recovery is not easier than parenting with active SUD.

At Driftwood Recovery, we recognize how important family is for recovery and restoring balance in your relationships. With a focus on family in alumni, you can rebuild or foster connections to support you and your children’s well-being. You know your recovery is not a solo endeavor or something that only impacts you. Your children have been impacted by your substance use, too, and need support tools to heal, too. 

However, we know the strain SUD has put on your relationships can be daunting. You may experience challenges with guilt about your SUD, how it has impacted your children, and maintaining recovery. The worries you have about your recovery, your relationships, and parenting in recovery are valid. 

Although everyone’s situation is different, it is important to remember you are not alone in your experiences or concerns. With a vibrant alumni, you can find support and understanding from peers who are and have been through similar situations. Recovery and parenting in recovery are possible when you have a strong support system behind you. Now, you can start taking steps to heal yourself and your family by better understanding how SUD has impacted your children.

The Impact of Parental Substance Use on Children

As noted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), SUD impedes your ability to fulfill your childrearing responsibilities. When your difficulty with parenting is left unaddressed, it can lead to long-term challenges for your children. Some of the ways parental substance use can negatively impact children include:

• Unhealthy attachments in their relationships
  • Difficulty making friends and maintaining healthy relationships
  • Challenges forming trust
• Difficulty regulating their emotions and behaviors
• At risk for SUD and other mental health disorders

Moreover, substance use can increase the risk of intentional and unintentional abuse and or neglect in the household. Parental substance use on its own is a part of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). However, your substance use can also impede your ability to maintain employment and stable housing. Without a stable income or housing, you lack the ability to provide basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter, which is a form of neglect. Thinking about the ways your SUD has impacted your children is understandably upsetting. While you can not go back in time to prevent your children from having ACEs, you can use this knowledge to understand and address the challenges of parenting in recovery.

Addressing the Challenges of Parenting in Recovery

Beyond the challenges of recovery itself, there are several challenges found in parenting in recovery. From being physically, mentally, and emotionally present in your children’s lives again to the act of parenting, addressing these challenges can support effective parenting in recovery. Listed below are some of the challenges you may experience parenting in recovery:

• Employment
• Stable and safe housing
• Transportation
• Reestablishing your parenting role
• Childcare
• Balancing recovery and parenting responsibilities
• Guilt over your absence and SUD
  • Overcompensating
    • Difficulty disciplining and setting healthy boundaries 
• Challenge building trust 

Looking at the challenges to parenting in recovery highlights the fact that there are both interpersonal and structural barriers to sustained healing for parents and children. The presence of structural barriers to recovery capital adds more stress to the process of recovery and parenting in recovery. 

Barriers to Sustained Healing While Parenting in Recovery

Many people in recovery experience challenges with finding employment, housing, and transportation in recovery. Parents in recovery experience additional challenges with childcare and fear of losing custody of children in recovery as well. Often, the structural barriers to recovery are intertwined with SUD stigma. Therefore, greater awareness and understanding of stigma and other structural barriers to recovery can help build recovery capital. With greater awareness of barriers, you can engage in self-advocacy to utilize supportive recovery services and resources to reduce and dismantle the barriers you experience. Moreover, access to support resources can help you build tools to help you overcome other challenges and effectively parent in recovery.

Overcoming Challenges to Parenting in Recovery

Engaging in your treatment center’s alumni program can help you work through parenting in recovery challenges like:

• Helps you take ownership and apologize to your children
• Supports setting healthy boundaries and positive discipline 
• Seeking professional support to address your absence together 
• Provides resources that make it possible for you to be present and rebuild trust
  • Engaging in things that are important to your children
    • School activities  
    • Picking them up on time
    • Scheduling quality time 
• Lean on your support network to care for your children while you attend recovery programming
• Learning from your peer’s parenting experiences
• Engage in self-care for yourself and model healthy behaviors for your children

With alumni support, you can continue to build on the tools you learned in treatment to be the best version of yourself for yourself and your children.

Healing the Parent-Child Relationship at Driftwood Recovery

At Driftwood Recovery, our alumni family is a peer-driven network designed to support recovery for you and your loved ones. Through attachment-focused treatment and a peer-driven alumni community, we provide support for the whole family to heal together. From services and resources like our online family support group to the courageous family program, meaningful connections can flourish. Together, you and your children can learn and grow toward each other in recovery. With support, parenting in recovery can be more than sobriety; it can be an opportunity to lead a fulfilling life as a family.

Your relationship with your children is important for healing the whole family. However, parenting in recovery comes with a variety of challenges and barriers that can impede healing for the whole family. It is understandable to feel guilty about the impact your substance use and absence have had on your children. For example, you may find it difficult to set healthy boundaries and discipline your children because of your guilt. Moreover, you may also face challenges with other recovery barriers like employment, housing, and childcare. Therefore, at Driftwood Recovery, we provide a vibrant alumni program where you can find community, services to reduce barriers, and build on tools to connect with your children. Call us at (512) 759-8330 today.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), between 40-60% of individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) experience relapse. Despite awareness of SUD as a chronic condition, the thought of relapse can feel understandably frightening. However, relapse does not have to be a guaranteed future for you. There are several factors within your life that can contribute to the risk of relapse. Thus, understanding recovery capital can be vital in giving you the knowledge and tools you need to prevent relapse and lead a courageous life in recovery. With support in recovery, you can continue to build on your recovery capital throughout your life.

At Driftwood Recovery, we believe the tools you need to thrive are supported by engagement in the community and services of your alumni family. Engagement in the recovery community can be vital to recovery capital and maintaining recovery as it supports various elements of wellness. Thus, going to and participating in meetings, sober events, and service opportunities can help you heal as a whole person. In your alumni family, you can find renewed strength in your accountability, passion, and connection with yourself and others. 

We believe everyone deserves access to the support tools needed to live a meaningful and satisfying life. Recovery should never end in relapse because you lack the support you need to thrive. With the support of alumni, you can dismantle barriers and expand your recovery capital to sustain recovery. Yet, you may still have questions about what recovery capital is. How can recovery capital support your sustained recovery? 

What Is Recovery Capital?

Recovery capital is invaluable to healing in treatment and maintaining recovery post-treatment. As noted in Addiction, recovery capital is formed from an ecological model that refers to all the internal and external resources an individual can access to support their recovery. More specifically, recovery capital is defined as the set of resources and capacities that enable you to grow and flourish. At its core, recovery capital looks towards all the strengths at your disposal to thrive in recovery. Further, as stated in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, recovery capital typically encompasses five domains. 

While some frameworks may only include four domains, each domain focuses on supporting understanding of how factors inside and outside of you impact your recovery. The five domains of recovery capital include human, social, financial, cultural, and community capital. Each domain plays an important role in understanding the factors that influence the well-being of individuals. Moreover, the value of the five domains of recovery capital can be particularly valuable in understanding the domains that impact underserved groups in recovery. With more knowledge of recovery capital, you can explore how each domain benefits sustained recovery. 

Positives of Different Types of Capital in Recovery

Through recovery capital, support services work to meet you where you are on your recovery journey. To truly meet you where you are, support must encompass and address your existence within the larger contextual environment of your life. Listed below are the different domains of recovery capital and their importance in your recovery:

• Human or personal capital: Personal characteristics that enable goal achievement
  • Health and healthcare
  • Your abilities, skills, and knowledge
    • Problem-solving skills
    • Interpersonal skills
    • Education and credentials
    • Self-esteem
    • A sense of meaning and purpose in life
• Social capital: Resources available through relationships
  • Ties with family and friends
  • Supportive peer network
  • Availability of recovery-related social events
• Financial capital: Material resources
  • Safe housing
  • Stable income
  • Employment
  • Reliable transportation
• Cultural capital: The behavior, norms, and attitudes that arise from your cultural group membership(s)
  • Healthy family dynamics
  • Sensitive and responsive support resources for marginalized groups 
  • Support resources for different faiths
• Community capital: The community treatment resources, attitudes, and policies related to recovery
  • Quality professional guidance, treatment, and post-treatment
  • Access to assisted living 
  • Peer-led support meetings
  • Recovery high schools, colleges, and housing
  • Employee assistance programs
  • Recovery community organizations

Recovery capital can highlight the elements of each domain that can help facilitate recovery. Each element of recovery capital helps increase your support system to sustain recovery. In addition, recovery capital also showcases how the lack of certain elements can impede recovery. Thus, looking at negative recovery capital can be as valuable to recovery as the resources you do have.

Understanding the Impact of Negative Recovery Capital

Negative recovery capital reflects the various barriers that can impede sustained recovery. Listed below are some examples of negative recovery capital that can exist in the domains of recovery capital:

• Sensitive to peer pressure
• Poor coping skills
• Substance abusing network
• Rejection from family
• No social network
• Unemployment 
• Homelessness
• SUD and mental health stigma
• Poor transitional support
  • Inpatient to outpatient care

The barriers to building your recovery capital can feel daunting. However, overcoming the barriers to recovery is made possible through the recognition and management of negative recovery capital.

How to Overcome Barriers to Recovery Capital

Dealing with employment and housing challenges or ending substance-entangled relationships in recovery can be painful. However, the removal of those barriers helps fill in the gaps and accelerates the growth of recovery capital. One of the paramount factors that can contribute to overcoming barriers in multiple domains is connection. Through connection found in mutual support social networks comes a sense of hope and belief that recovery is possible. With the hope and belief found in connection, you can build key skills and find meaning and purpose in your life to heal.

Finding Sustained Healing in Alumni at Driftwood Recovery

Active engagement in alumni to foster lasting connections is an invaluable part of sustaining recovery. Through connection and access to other resources, you can find the support, encouragement, and accountability you need to thrive. Therefore, at Driftwood Recovery, we are dedicated to providing the community support and accountability you need to sustain recovery and transition into a meaningful role in your life. We are invested in working together to uphold the compassion and growth found in mutual support.

Engagement with alumni is valuable for building recovery capital and maintaining recovery. However, there are countless negative recovery capital barriers that try to impede recovery. Whether you experience challenges with employment and housing or repairing relationships in recovery, closing those capital gaps is possible. With access to a recovery community built on mutual support, you can find the hope and self-belief you need to sustain recovery. Through a strong alumni family, you find support in peers and other resources to find employment, housing, and make meaningful sober connections. Therefore, at Driftwood Recovery, we are dedicated to providing a vibrant alumni community for your recovery. Call us at (512) 759-8330 to learn how you can start growing your recovery capital.