Support Groups
An international fellowship of relatives and friends of alcoholics who share their experience, strength, and hope in order to solve their common problems.
Al-Anon
Family of psychoactive drugs used to produce sedation, to induce sleep, to relieve anxiety and muscle spasms, and to prevent seizures. (Xanax, Valium, Ativan, and Restoril are some examples of this type of drug).
Benzodiazepines
A maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to impairment or distress as manifested by one (or more) of the following, occurring within a 12-month period:
Substance Abuse
A searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.
Step 4
A type of therapy in which the therapist helps the patient learn new skills to cope with problems and to change harmful behavior patterns. In addiction treatment, CBT is used to help patients learn and practice recovery coping skills such as refusal skills, dealing with cravings, and identifying drug using cues.
CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
A fellowship founded in 1935 and concerned with the recovery and continued sobriety of the alcoholic who turns to the organization for help. The AA program consists basically of Twelve Suggested Steps designed for the personal recovery.
Alcoholics Anonymous
Chemical substance that can distort perceptions to induce delusions or hallucinations. Examples are LSD, Mescaline, and PCP.
Hallucinogen
The term used to describe the condition of a person who has been diagnosed with an addiction and a co-occurring mental/emotional disorder such as depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder.
Dual Diagnosis OR Co-Occuring Disorders
The absence of the use of any mind or mood altering substance.
Abstinence of substance use
The use of medications in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies for the treatment of substance use disorders.
MAT or Medicated Assisted Treatment
A Christian program that helps people recover from a variety of behaviors and challenges. It's based on the 12-step program.
Celebrate Recovery
An opiate drug that is synthesized from morphine.
Heroin
A compulsion to use a drug for its pleasurable effects. Such dependence may lead to a compulsion to misuse a drug. A craving and compulsion to use a drug that is psychologically rather than physiologically based
Psychological Dependence
Making amends "except when to do so would injure them or others."
Step 9
A structured program of outpatient psychiatric services as an alternative to inpatient psychiatric care. It’s more intense than care you get in a doctor’s or therapist’s office. This treatment is provided during the day and doesn’t require an overnight stay.
PHP or Partial Hospitalization Program
What is Step One from the AA Big Book
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Drugs legally sold without a prescription
Over-the-counter-drugs (OTC)
Concurrent use or abuse of multiple substances (e.g., drinking alcohol as well as snorting cocaine or using narcotics).
Polysubstance abuse (cross-addicted)
The injectable form of a medication that is used in combination with counseling and other psychosocial services to treat opiate or alcohol addiction. The effects of the injectable drug last up to one month and act by blocking opiate receptors in the brain thus blunting craving for the drug.
Vivitrol Injection
A structured outpatient program that requires two to three hours of group therapy sessions, combined with substance abuse counseling and random drug testing.
Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP)
An evidenced-informed recovery method grounded in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
SMART Recovery
Psychoactive drugs whose primary action is to alter cognition and perception. Likely to produce hallucinations. LSD and Mescaline are typical examples.
Psychedelic
Condition in which tolerance of one drug results in a lessened response to another drug. Thus, patients addicted to one drug will most often become addicted to a similar drug once tried-alcohol dependent patients will more rapidly develop a dependence on a cross- tolerant drug like a benzodiazepine.
Cross-Tolerance
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Step 11
A structured recovery program that requires a minimum of two group therapy sessions per week in combination with random drug testing and substance abuse counseling.
Outpatient Program (OP)