My wife is planning on entering a residential program for alcohol recovery in January. It turns out that finding the right facility is a nontrivial task. We found two locations that may work; are you familiar with The Haven at Pismo or Chapters Capistrano? Can you give us other recommendations or general advice? More info is inside.
Quality in the inpatient addiction seems to be pretty hard to assess and verify. Stories like this one make it hard to trust who we're working with, and online reviews haven't seemed to be helpful. Do you have particular advice you can share?
My wife has a somewhat complicated medical situation which has lead us to seek lots of doctors for a while now. It turns out that some things are more connected to each other than first thought. So, somewhat-to-fairly traumatic childhood (with a family history of alcoholism and abuse) led to intense insomnia (since she was five), which she began self-medicating with alcohol in her mid-twenties, which may have helped contribute to her fibromyalgia and chronic pain. It's a lot of things coming to a head for her this year. We finally found a highly recommended sleep psychologist, who told her that she would not work with her until she attended an inpatient rehabilitation program and stopped drinking entirely.
My wife has been uncomfortable about her drinking, which has not yet become a work or social issue, and is willing and actually excited to stop. It's very important to her that she does not wind up following the much darker paths of her relatives. It's vital, though, that she learns to sleep, and to do so without the drinks. If she keeps getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and crashing for 12+ hours on some days, she will not succeed in recovery. So we need a program that will help her break down the mental blocks that force her to stay awake, while also giving up alcohol for good.
The two listed above the jump have stood out to us after about three weeks of looking. They tick a lot of boxes, but it is hard to find a lot of reviews. It's also hard to know how their programs will really accommodate her needs; we know that they are selling us, which isn't bad, just sometimes a little disappointing.
Some criteria we're looking for:
- Expertise in alcohol. My wife drinks and uses CBD oils, but does not use other substances.
- Secular, non-12 Step options. She's an atheist and deeply uncomfortable with accepting a 'higher power', even one that is 'humanism' or otherwise spiritually. She feels strongly that her experiences with her mother in AA will not help her succeed her.
- Strong psychological focus. My wife's insomnia predates and led to her alcoholism, not the other way around. We need them both treated.
- Qualified medical staff. Not everyone needs to be (or could be) an MD, but we would rather have something fancy and professional than homespun. There are family history and class feelings here, but between us and insurance we can afford very good, if not obscenely expensive.
- A healing environment. She has never had the opportunity to work on herself like this, so it would be nice if this was also, like, a yoga and massage kind of environment. Oceans are a particularly good thing.
- We are West Coast dwellers, and would prefer to find somewhere west. We have not found anything we like in BC, WA, ID, or OR; we are planning on looking at MT and CO as well.
Thank you so much for reading and chiming in! If there are a lot of important points I made, I will make a sockpuppet account to respond, so feel free to ask for any vital information and I'll try not to threadsit. We are ready to start a new chapter in our lives, but we need some guidance!
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