• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
 

Anaheim Lighthouse

Your Beacon of Hope!

Questions? Call Now(877) 959-5909
  • About Us
  • What We Treat
  • Treatment Options
  • Our Facility
  • Admissions
  • Learn About
  • Contact Us
  • Our Team
  • Awards & Recognitions
  • Yelp & Google Reviews
  • Client Testimonials
  • Accreditation & Licensing
  • Employment Opportunities
  • Press Releases
  • Alchohol Abuse
  • Drug Addiction
  • Dual Diagnosis
  • Trauma Victims
  • Veterans Program
  • Holistic Treatment
  • Specialties
  • Detox Alcohol & Drugs
  • Drug Rehab
  • Inpatient Rehab
  • Complete Residential Care
  • Partial Hospitalization
  • Intensive Outpatient
  • Intervention
  • Family Support
  • Verify Insurance
  • Financing Options
  • Coronavirus Safety Procedures
  • Alcoholism
  • Health and Wellness
  • Life in Recovery
  • Love and Relationships
  • Opioid Addiction
  • Parent Resources
  • Relapse and Recovery
  • Substance Abuse
  • Opioids
  • Sleeping Pills
  • Stimulants

The Importance of Peers in Addiction Recovery

Jan 31 2018
Categories:Articles

Recovering from a substance use disorder is a long journey. Coming out of addiction means moving past learned behaviors, battling triggers and cravings, and moving past trauma. It also means overcoming the habits and problems that led you to addiction in the first place. During this recovery period, peers can help you by offering support, motivation, and assistance.

Self-help and support groups like AA and 12-step are extremely common, because having peers to assist you in recovery works. Studies show that peers hold you accountable, help to motivate you to move forward, provide inspiration, and can offer the help you need to walk away from cravings. A friend who has also recovered from a substance use disorder may also help you to recognize your own failings, and to move them, give insight into something you're struggling with, and give you someone to talk to, whom you know will understand you.

Peers help in different ways depending on your personality, level of addiction, and your social status and family, but can benefit in numerous ways.

Types of Peer Support

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) strongly recommends peer support-based recovery solutions, including separate peer support therapy, self-help groups like AA, and other forms of peer-based complimentary treatment like SMART.

SAMSHA suggests that you should get a combination of emotional, informational, instrumental, and affiliational support from peers alongside mentoring and coaching.

Mentoring and Coaching

A peer who has been clean or sober for a long duration works with you to guide you on your journey to recovery. This is known as Sponsoring in AA, but is common in many types of peer-based support. Here, you are directly given knowledge, expected to learn, and are a student rather than an equal. Mentors and coaches can be crucial in situations where you have been addicted for a long period of time and need assistance, are confused or doubt yourself, or need help steering yourself away from cravings.

Friendship

Friendship is equally important in recovery. Having people, you can trust, whom you can lean on, and whom you can rely on to help you when you need it is a crucial part of the human experience. As a recovering addict, you miss a large part of the connection you would otherwise have with healthy people, because they cannot and often do not want to understand your experiences with substance abuse. Making friends who understand where you are coming from, your choices, and the cravings and trauma you face gives you people you can open up to, be honest with, and whom you can connect with, with no fear of judgment.

SAMSHA breaks this down into the following support levels:

  • Emotional – Peer-mentoring and peer-led support groups offer emotional support and empathy, often working to provide support, to undo the effects of poor self-esteem, and help recovering addicts to build the self-esteem to recover.
  • Informational – Classes, facilitators, coaches, and mentors offer support, learning, and knowledge which you can use to recover.
  • Instrumental – Peers offer physical aid, like transportation, housing assistance, child care, help accessing health and social services, etc.
  • Affiliational - Peers help you to meet new people, get involved with your community, and acquire a sense of belonging with others.

Peer support works because it offers a sense of belonging and accomplishment to those doing the teaching, and a sense of belonging and accountability to those just learning.

anaheimlighthouse-the-importance-of-peers-in-addiction-recovery-article-photo-supporting-a-group-member-in-a-clinical-room-319631531

How Do You Benefit from Peers in Recovery?

Humans are social creatures at heart. Even when we're loners, we still crave attention, love, and care. Unfortunately, addiction causes us to withdraw from the same social support we need to stay mentally healthy. Recovering means stepping back into a social circle where family and friends don't understand you or how you've changed – and that can make reconnecting with them extremely difficult. Recovery groups and peer support services offer social benefits from people who do understand.

No Judgement

If you're in a recovery group, you know that everyone there is a recovering addict. You may face social stigma and judgment outside, but in the group, everyone is equal. This makes it easier to share, to talk about problems, and to discuss trauma so that you can move past it.

Sharing

Most peer groups focus on sharing and problem solving, using personal stories to discuss things you learned or what motivated you – and sharing your problems so that you can get support as a group.

Learning

Most peer support groups give you the opportunity to learn new skills, like social skills, dealing with cravings, and taking care of yourself. Many also encourage you to learn new life skills, and may host classes on budgeting, cooking, nutrition, and much more.

Helping Others

Peer-support groups allow you to get help from others, but asks that you help others in return. This can help you to feel needed, valuable, and to feel good about yourself. You can help people in the same way they are helping you, by listening, offering your story, and eventually, guiding a newly clean or sober person towards their own recovery.

Accountability

Knowing that you have a group of people trusting you to stay clean or sober, whom you have to report to, and who are also struggling with their own cravings can be immensely helpful in pushing you to stay clean or sober. Just like many people find exercise motivation in social media, social support and accountability through a support group of your peers will keep you accountable, because you know that if you slip up, you aren't just letting yourself down.

Social Interaction

Recovering addicts are often left with large gaps of time, where it's difficult to spend time with friends or family and you would previously have been using or drinking. For example, when regular friends and family go out drinking, when family members haven't forgiven you, and when you would have gotten high or started drinking in the past. Social interaction with sober peers gives you a productive and healthy way to spend your time, while preventing you from becoming lonely.

The benefits of peers in addiction recovery can change dramatically depending on you, your friends, and your social situation, but everyone benefits from having a social group and peer support.

Getting Help

The first step to recovering from substance abuse is detox. Afterwards, you likely have to approach your psychological behavior and emotional distress to learn how to live without substances, learn how to deal with cravings and triggers, and learn to heal the problems that led to substance abuse in the first place. A good rehab program will include medical detox to prevent dangerous withdrawal symptoms, cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy, and group support for peer therapy and socializing.

Studies show that peer support and peer groups can be beneficial as part of or following a recovery treatment program. However, support groups are not therapy. You need both to make a full recovery.

No matter what form of peer support you seek out, good luck with your recovery.

If you are looking for a modern and effective addiction treatment center in Southern California, feel free to contact Anaheim Lighthouse today , we’re here to help.

Confidential Contact Form

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Privacy Policy

Learn About Lighthouse

  • Affordable Drug Rehab and Detox Center
  • CARF Certified
  • Homelike setting and world-class facilities
  • State licensed and certified
  • Most PPO insurance accepted
  • Specialized Alcohol and Drug Treatment Programs
  • Licensed and well-qualified professional staff
KNOW MORE

BLOG CATEGORIES

All Categories Alcoholism Drug Facts Health and Wellness Love and Relationships Opioid Addiction

Recent Posts

Valentine's Day When You're Single And Sober

How To Spend Valentine's Day When You're Single And Sober

February 6 2023
Ketamine Addiction

How Long Does Ketamine Stay In Your System?

January 23 2023
Mixing Prescription Drugs With Alcohol

Mixing Prescription Drugs With Alcohol Can Be Dangerous Because: 5 Reasons

January 17 2023
Benefits of Dry January

Benefits of Dry January: 7 Reasons To Quit Alcohol

January 11 2023
You after successfully completing Dry January

23 Funny Dry January Memes For 2023 To Keep You Going

January 3 2023

WHY CHOOSE LIGHTHOUSE

  • Affordable Drug Rehab and Detox Center
  • CARF Certified
  • Homelike setting and world-class facilities
  • State licensed and certified
  • Most PPO insurance accepted
  • Specialized Alcohol and Drug Treatment Programs
  • Licensed and well-qualified professional staff

Google Reviews

Christopher Tamburello

Absolutely loved this place. Great counselors- my counselor was Johnny. Great Alumni aftercare program that helps keep you connected. I highly recommend Lighthouse for anyone struggling with alcohol or drug addiction.

Josh Mugol

When I first stepped in to fill out the paper work to get admitted to housing, I immediately felt welcomed. If you treat the staff, therapists, and doctors with respect and use common courtesy, you will get more in return. The staff is run by former addicts/alcoholics so they...

Teresa Egan

The Lighthouse saved my life. I was willing to do whatever it takes to learn how to live a new way of life. Before I came into the program I was a hollow shell just wanting to die.. The staff loved me until I could love myself, and taught me how to deal with myself. I have a...

Related Posts

Sep 12 2018

Does Hypnosis Work for Drug Addiction?

Hypnosis or hypnotherapy is the process of using relaxation techniques to induce suggestions on the mind, which then affect the conscious mind, which is thought to be effective in treating substance use disorders related to behavioral problems. While often a subject of contention in medical circl...
Aug 29 2018

7 Bad Habits That Will Affect Your Recovery

Whether you’ve recently left rehab or have been in recovery for some time, relapse is always a risk. Taking the time and care to build good habits revolving around keeping your mental and physical health in a good place, helping you to cope with cravings, and building a support network so that wh...
Aug 22 2018

Drug Use at Raves and Club

Clubs and raves are almost as well-known for their drugs as for music and dancing, with millions of people around the world participating in a culture of use and abuse while out. These drugs range from the well-known MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine) to a range of less-identifiable drugs known...
Aug 15 2018

How I Forgave Myself for My Drug Addiction

When the time came in my recovery to apologize to and make amends with all of the people I hurt during my using, I expected I would finally be free of all of the guilt I carried. It didn't quite work out that way. The Value of an Apology First of all, not everyone accepted my apology or wanted t...
Aug 09 2018

Setting Healthy Boundaries with an Addict

Boundaries are an incredibly healthy part of any relationship, but when your loved one is addicted to a substance, good boundaries can mean the difference between a toxic relationship that harms you and them and one in which both of you can benefit. Addiction changes people, damaging the ego and ...
Aug 01 2018

8 Ways to Teach Yourself You Deserve Love in Recovery

After I hit my bottom and came into recovery I realized that I had super low self-esteem, and that those feelings would need to change somehow. I thought once I got sober that it would be a piece of cake. After all, my drinking was what caused all of my problems. I was clueless. GETTING TO KNOW ...

We Accept Insurance

Don’t see your provider? Contact us to confirm coverage.

3 Easy Options to Get Started or Learn More

You Call Us

We are here to answer your questions. Learn about detox, treatment, costs, or anything else. Give us a call now.
(877) 959-5909

We Call You

Complete this secure form to receive a fast response from our support team
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Verify Your Insurance

Quickly confirm your coverage using our fast & easy verification system. We accept most insurances (and financing).
Verify My Insurance
  • About Us
  • What We Treat
  • Treatment Options
  • Our Facility
  • Admissions
  • Learn About
  • Contact Us

Connect With Us

(877) 959-5909

1320 West Pearl Street, Anaheim, CA 92801

Licensed and Certified by the State Department of Health Care Services 300188AP Exp. 5/31/2024
Licensed by the State Department of Health Care Services 300188CP Exp. 5/31/2024
Certified by the State Department of Health Care Services 300188FP Exp 5/31/2023

Copyright © 2022 Anaheim Lighthouse. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Web Accessibility