Groups

Why attend groups

Groups have many rewarding benefits, they are especially suitable for treating problems that commonly accompany problematic substance use, such as depression, anxiety, isolation, and shame.

Groups help people gain knowledge and awareness, and develop the skills essential to recovery and improved mental health and well-being.

Participation in groups helps foster:

• Identification – ‘I am not the only person with this/these issue(s)’
• Validation – ‘Other people struggle as well therefore I am not weak, stupid or crazy’
• A sense of belonging – ‘These people understand me, do not judge me, and I am accepted and welcome here’
• Reciprocity – ‘When I help others, I am also helping myself’
• Visible Recovery – ‘If they can do it, just maybe I can too’

It is proven that people who attend groups alongside one-to-one support are far more likely to achieve their recovery goals. Here are a few examples of why groups help:

• Groups raise knowledge and awareness; developing skills essential to recovery, promoting changes in cognition, emotion and behavior,  and providing a forum for mutual support.
• Groups provide positive peer-support and encouragement to abstain from substances.
• Groups reduce the sense of isolation that most people who have problematic substance use experience.
• Groups can add needed structure, discipline and a sense of purpose and achievement.
• Groups help to lower the stigma surrounding substance use issues and lower the accompanying guilt and shame.
• Groups instill hope, a sense that, “If they can make it, maybe I can too.”