Group Therapy

Wealth of Shared Experiences

For many alcoholics and drug addicts, the thought of going through a drug addiction treatment program is daunting enough. As well, the idea of opening up to others in rehab group therapy can be even more frightening.

At the 12 Palms Recovery Center, group therapy is just one of the many services recommended in the recovery treatment of alcoholics and drug addicts. As a leading Florida rehabilitation center, the 12 Palms Recovery Center believes strongly that group therapy benefits clients by exposing them to others who share similar problems and issues in addiction recovery. Group therapy for drug and alcohol addiction also helps those in recovery to realize how their addictive behaviors may have harmed others.

Experiences, Hopes and Fears

“The 12 Palms Difference” encourages clients to actively engage in their own recovery. Drug or alcohol group therapy can be a very useful tool for clients to learn more about themselves while listening to the experiences, hopes and fears of others who are on the same journey to recovery.

Many alcoholics and addicts self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol to suppress their thoughts and feelings. So, the very thought of opening up to room full of strangers is definitely not something an addict looks forward to in the early stages of recovery. However, the trained staff of counselors and therapists at 12 Palms Recovery have all been down the same road—they too are recovering alcoholics and addicts. They know full well the pains and struggles that clients face in early recovery and are equipped to guide patients through the steps of recovery.

Group Therapy and The Journey of Recovery

In rehab group therapy, clients at the 12 Palms Recovery Center gather with other addicts and alcoholics to share their experiences. In sharing their innermost thoughts, these individuals help themselves and others to heal. Clients in rehab group therapy commonly identify with the experiences that other clients share. Group therapy sessions offer a wealth of shared experiences that the client can draw upon to help themselves heal. These shared experiences also serve to remind clients that they are not alone in their journey of recovery.

Group therapy helps clients at 12 Palms Recovery Center recognize that their problems and behaviors while actively using are not so unique. Surrounded by fellow addicts and alcoholics in recovery, many in group therapy will relate to the addictive behavior patterns that are discussed.

Drug rehab and alcohol rehab centers across the country have a suite of programs in place that utilize group therapy. The drug and alcohol group therapy of the 12 Palms Recovery Center utilizes counselors and therapists who often share their own experiences. In doing so, counselors demonstrate how sharing one’s past can open the door for healing and recovery.

Time-Tested Drug Addiction Treatment Programs

Early on in the drug addiction treatment program at the 12 Palms Recovery Center, the counselors explain that sharing one’s innermost feelings in individual and group therapy swill greatly aid the process of healing. In group therapy, clients witness firsthand the benefits of sharing their innermost thoughts and listening to the stories of other alcoholics and addicts. In group therapy, addicts can become emotionally available for the first time.

For so many years, alcoholics and addicts worked to suppress what they were feeling by using their drug of choice to bury their feelings. Through group therapy and time-tested drug addiction treatment options, clients at 12 Palms Recovery Center are given the support needed to maintain a clean and sober lifestyle.

Support & Long-Term Recovery

Clients at the 12 Palms Recovery Center also learn that rehab group therapy continues in after-care. Addicts in recovery should establish a commitment to an outside support group such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) where they can continue to share their experiences with other recovering addicts after treatment at the rehabilitation center ends. Ongoing rehab group therapy is an essential step to support long-term recovery.

Group therapy does not have to be a painful experience. At the 12 Palms Recovery Center, clients witness the benefits that group therapy provides firsthand. After completing the drug rehab program, clients will leave equipped with the coping mechanisms and support needed to live a sober and drug-free life.

Numerous Advantages of Group Therapy

Advantages to using groups in substance abuse treatment are described below (Brown and Yalom 1977; Flores 1997; Garvin unpublished manuscript; Vannicelli 1992).

• Groups provide positive peer support and pressure to abstain from substances of abuse. Unlike AA, and, to some degree, substance abuse treatment program participation, group therapy, from the very beginning, elicits a commitment by all the group members to attend and to recognize that failure to attend, to be on time, and to treat group time as special disappoints the group and reduces its effectiveness. Therefore, both peer support and pressure for abstinence are strong.


• Groups reduce the sense of isolation that most people who have substance abuse disorders experience. At the same time, groups can enable participants to identify with others who are struggling with the same issues. Although AA and treatment groups of all types provide these opportunities for sharing, for some people the more formal and deliberate nature of participation in process group therapy increases their feelings of security and enhances their ability to share openly.


• Groups enable people who abuse substances to witness the recovery of others. From this inspiration, people who are addicted to substances gain hope that they, too, can maintain abstinence. Furthermore, an interpersonal process group, which is of long duration, allows a magnified witnessing of both the changes related to recovery as well as group members’ intra‐ and interpersonal changes.


• Groups help members learn to cope with their substance abuse and other problems by allowing them to see how others deal with similar problems. Groups can accentuate this process and extend it to include changes in how group members relate to bosses, parents, spouses, siblings, children, and people in general.


• Groups can provide useful information to clients who are new to recovery. For example, clients can learn how to avoid certain triggers for use, the importance of abstinence as a priority, and how to self‐identify as a person recovering from substance abuse. Group experiences can help deepen these insights. For example, self‐identifying as a person recovering from substance abuse can be a complex process that changes significantly during different stages of treatment and recovery and often reveals the set of traits that makes the system of a person’s self as altogether unique.


• Groups provide feedback concerning the values and abilities of other group members. This information helps members improve their conceptions of self or modify faulty, distorted conceptions. In terms of process groups in particular, as specific themes emerge in a client’s group experience, repetitive feedback from multiple group members and the therapist can chip away at those faulty or distorted conceptions in slightly different ways until they not only are correctable, but also the very process of correction and change is revealed through the examination of the group processes.


• Groups offer family‐like experiences. Groups can provide the support and nurturance that may have been lacking in group members’ families of origin. The group also gives members the opportunity to practice healthy ways of interacting with their families.


• Groups encourage, coach, support, and reinforce as members undertake difficult or anxiety‐provoking tasks.


• Groups offer members the opportunity to learn or relearn the social skills they need to cope with everyday life instead of resorting to substance abuse. Group members can learn by observing others, being coached by others, and practicing skills in a safe and supportive environment.


• Groups can effectively confront individual members about substance abuse and other harmful behaviors. Such encounters are possible because groups speak with the combined authority of people who have shared common experiences and common problems. Confrontation often plays a part of substance abuse treatment groups because group members tend to deny their problems. Participating in the confrontation of one group member can help others recognize and defeat their own denial.


• Groups allow a single treatment professional to help a number of clients at the same time. In addition, as a group develops, each group member eventually becomes acculturated to group norms and can act as a quasi‐therapist himself, thereby ratifying and extending the treatment influence of the group leader.


• Groups can add needed structure and discipline to the lives of people with substance use disorders, who often enter treatment with their lives in chaos. Therapy groups can establish limitations and consequences, which can help members learn to clarify what is their responsibility and what is not.


• Groups instill hope, a sense that “If he can make it, so can I.” Process groups can expand this hope to dealing with the full range of what people encounter in life, overcome, or cope with.


• Groups often support and provide encouragement to one another outside the group setting. For interpersonal process groups, though, outside contacts may or may not be disallowed, depending on the particular group contract or agreements.