Addiction support groups are effective. In fact, they work so well that all addiction treatment plans include group therapy. Because they are available everywhere, patients are all but guaranteed to find support groups where they fit in. Anyone can find a specialized therapy group that caters to their particular combination of demographics, substance use disorder, mental health needs, and more.  

Group therapy appears in every type of treatment, from inpatient to outpatient to intensive rehab. Patients adapt better to a new environment when they have familiar and effective treatment options readily available. 

Group therapy works because other members understand patients better than everyone else. They find people who understand their experiences, building a support network of sympathetic people with common goals. They encourage one another to improve and continue the fight even if cravings threaten to bring them down. Group members watch other members recover and learn they, too, can accomplish sobriety—with help. 

What is Group Therapy? 

Group therapy brings people with common problems together in a private space to share their experience. A counselor presides over the session, keeping the attendees on-topic and mediating conflicts. This approach lets trained counselors see multiple patients at once, which mitigates medical scarcity in high-addiction areas. Their professional connections help patients access resources they couldn’t attain on their own, in addition to group therapy’s own benefits. 

Learning About Addiction 

Group therapy offers opportunities to rework patients’ perspective on addiction to match the modern psychiatric opinion: addiction is a brain disease. They remove any sense of personal failures from cravings and symptoms and instead teach patients how addiction alters brain chemistry and structure. The altered depersonalized perspective helps them reframe their addiction as an external, physical problem, which they can treat, fight, and heal from. 

Familiar Treatment in Strange Settings 

Group therapy organizations organize meetings with no other treatment, but intensive rehab, sober living communities, inpatient, and outpatient treatments also adopt their approach. If patients attended meetings in the past, the familiar-feeling meetings, which use the same techniques, help them adapt during transition. 

Finding People Who Understand 

Group administrators tailor memberships to people from the same walks of life. Patients can find women’s groups, religious groups, groups focused on dual diagnoses and more. Conversations with doctors or priests who've never experienced addiction may feel unhelpful. Some might even seem condescending or dishonest; they don’t “get it” or see how addiction impacts other parts of their lives. 

Therapy sessions that bring people of similar identities together don’t have that issue. Those people do understand, as they’ve experienced the same thing. These common experiences wipe out the sense of isolation common in addiction patients. Instead, they learn that others like them share their experiences and can achieve what seems impossible. 

Leveraging Peer Pressure 

Education materials often associate peer pressure with substance abuse. Others push people who haven’t tried drugs to experiment, whether by intentionally offering or by association. Peer pressure is a natural response to social integration, and support groups use it for positive results. They surround patients with people who want them to stop abusing substances and seek help. They hold themselves and one another accountable through their presence and shared goals. 

Collaboratively Building New Coping Mechanisms 

In addition to reactive treatment and advice after the fact, many groups offer proactive coping skills education. Patients build a skillset they can utilize in everyday life. They learn ways to overcome cravings and have difficult conversations with people they need to cut out of their lives. When a few people try new coping mechanisms, they share their experience with the rest of the group. When they make mistakes, they can avoid the same pitfalls as their peers and try alternative paths forward. 

Seeing (and Being Part of) the Results 

Group members give advice, ask questions, and learn and grow together. They watch their peers overcome the same obstacles they face and watch what seems impossible become possible. 

They participate in that recovery process through encouragement, questions, and advice. Their self-esteem, a vital component of recovery, grows as they help others. The process also gives them evidence-founded hope. They see recovery as possible and have a roadmap to get there. Their peers’ journey gives them a model—they know what mistakes to avoid and how to work around them. 

Rebuilding a Support Network 

A support network is a vital part of recovery, but people with substance use disorder tend to drive their loved ones away. Their meetings with strangers give new patients a rare opportunity to challenge their cognitive biases about themselves. These strangers have a common ground that makes them sympathetic, but they have otherwise objective impressions that combat the new member’s distorted self-image.

Post-group members who stay in touch fight the same battles and understand others’ experiences better than anyone else. The bonds they forge, and their shared goals make their new friends feel better-understood than anyone else. 

Simultaneous Psychiatric Treatment 

Psychiatrists use group therapy to treat mood disorders and other mental illnesses. Mental health problems fuel substance use disorder and vice versa. Support groups can therefore create a holistic treatment plan by treating both at the same time. The patient saves time and resources in this dual-diagnosis treatment setting, designed specifically for their needs. 

Explore Group Therapy From the Comfort of Your Home With Never Alone Recovery’s Online Support Group

The Never Alone program offers a free online support group to start experimenting with the many benefits of group therapy. For more intensive care, consider calling its experienced addiction recovery consultants. Though partnered with Indiana rehab programs, Never Alone has connections with group therapy and inpatient/outpatient rehab facilities all over the country. They connect patients to affordable, insurance-approved rehab facilities designed for them.