When a person decides to seek addiction treatment, they will find a wide range of treatment options. From various addiction therapy services to rehabs that offer holistic treatments, how do you know which one to choose?
At 449 Recovery in Mission Viejo, California, we offer various addiction therapy services and other treatment resources to help people suffering from addiction successfully recover and get their lives back on track.

Addiction therapy is a diverse form of treatment. Although there are different types of addiction therapy services, they have several common goals, including:
- Stopping the use of drugs and/or alcohol
- Maintaining recovery from drugs and/or alcohol
- Addressing all underlying traumas and mental health disorders such as depression or anxiety
- Understanding negative behaviors and how substances motivate them
- Developing stress management tools
- Increasing self-esteem
- Rebuilding personal and professional relationships
Substance abuse interferes with the way people think. For example, it makes people impulsive and interferes with their ability to pay attention, learn new things, and their memory. For therapy to be effective, it must help manage all the symptoms of addiction.
Addiction therapy services help people adjust their attitudes, learn how to relate to people, and appropriately react to situations. In other words, therapy helps undo the disordered thinking of addiction and replace it with positive, productive, and healthy thinking.
Addiction Therapy Statistics in the United States
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) states 10% of adults in the United States have a substance use disorder. While drug abuse and alcohol addiction is a growing epidemic, many people achieve recovery with the help of addiction therapy services.
- 5 million Americans over 18 are using addiction therapy services to recover from addiction
- Only 11.2% of people struggling with addiction receive specialized treatments.
- Only 7.7% of people struggling with alcohol use disorder seek treatment.
With the help of addiction therapy services, almost 21 million adults with a past substance abuse disorder and 39 million with mental health issues consider themselves in recovery.
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What Addiction Therapy Programs Are Available?
With the variety of addiction therapy services in California, people can find a range of options. At 449 Recovery, our clients receive personalized treatment plans and addiction therapy services to help them achieve lasting recovery.
Behavioral therapies help clients fully engage in their recovery by changing negative attitudes and behaviors to positive ones. They also help clients manage stress, triggers, and craving by teaching clients stress management tools and coping skills.
Many types of therapies are used in addiction treatment programs, like partial hospitalization (PHP) and outpatient programs. Each therapy type is different; depending on the client’s needs, one may be more effective than another. If you or a loved one is entering addiction treatment, you may participate in some of the following addiction therapy services.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is based on the principle that psychological disorders like substance use disorder are partially the result of negative and harmful thinking patterns, learned behaviors, and coping skills. Instead of focusing on the past, CBT is centered on the present and helping people build a positive and healthy future.
A form of talk therapy, CBT helps clients understand how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors work together. With the help of a therapist, clients discover how unhealthy thinking patterns negatively affect beliefs and behaviors.
Once clients identify these negative patterns, the therapist helps them change negative habits into healthy ones. As a result, clients learn how to react positively to situations, people, cravings, and triggers.
The great thing about CBT is change can begin right away, and the skills learned will benefit clients for life. Some of the many benefits of CBT include the following:
- Focusing on the present and setting goals
- Developing the tools to cope with cravings, stress, and triggers
- Working in both individual and group therapy
- Building the client/therapist relationship by working together to change negative thinking to positive
- Build the healthy skills and tools to positively affect everyday life
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a type of CBT. Dr. Marsha M. Linehan developed it to treat severe mental disorders such as chronic suicidal ideations. The biggest difference between CBT and DBT is that BDT focuses on accepting and validating uncomfortable feelings rather than avoiding them.
Today, DBT is one of the addiction therapy services used to treat substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health disorders. Therapists commonly use DBT in both individual and group settings.
DBT is a multidimensional and comprehensive therapy. It teaches healthy skills to change unhealthy thoughts and behaviors. Therapists help clients learn behavioral skills by giving them instructions, telling stories, coaching, practicing, and giving feedback.
Common techniques and strategies therapists use in DBT include:
- Mindfulness – Mindfulness is the core of DBT. Clients learn to bring awareness to the present moment. Clients can slow down and focus on healthy coping skills by observing thoughts, feelings, sensations, and impulses along with the environment around them.
- Interpersonal effectiveness – Many people struggling with addiction also struggle in their relationships. Therapists use this technique to repair, maintain, and establish healthy relationship behaviors. This also means unhealthy ones. Clients learn to enforce boundaries and communicate effectively.
- Emotional regulation – This technique focuses on unhealthy emotional responses. By identifying and naming the negative effects of an emotional response, clients learn to create opposite actions for positive emotional experiences.
- Distress tolerance – This part of DBT teaches clients to sit with the discomfort and accept their negative emotional experiences. They learn techniques such as distraction and self-soothing to empower them to handle future emotions with a positive outlook.
Contingency management is an addiction therapy that rewards clients for making positive life changes. It is based on the principle that positive rewards increase positive behaviors such as recovery. For example, rewards can include prizes for negative drug tests and vouchers for making positive relationship changes.
Benefits of Contingency management include:
- Increases the length of time people stay in treatment
- Increases the chance of lasting recovery
- Helpful for a variety of people and addictions
- Works alongside other addiction therapy services
In motivational interviewing, the therapist motivates recovery in clients by identifying their motivations and values and focusing treatment around them.
Instead of being forced into recovery or facing legal trouble, motivational interviewing helps clients find their motivation for change.
Benefits of motivational interviewing include:
- Improves the length of stay in treatment
- Motivates clients to make positive changes that encourage lifelong recovery
- Increases participation in treatment
- Reduces the risk of relapse
- Encourages developing self-actualization goals
Individual therapy is often called psychotherapy or talk therapy. Individual therapy aims to help clients identify harmful thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Clients work one-on-one with a therapist who may use a variety of techniques.
Individual therapy helps clients uncover the root of their addiction and learn the tools needed to maintain their recovery. A therapist may use behavioral therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing. Individual therapy also addresses any co-occurring mental health disorders.
Benefits of individual therapy include:
- Confidentiality
- One-on-one attention
- Intense level of treatment
- Personalized addiction therapy services
- A strong client/therapist trust
- Developing a deep sense of self-awareness
- Flexible scheduling
- Building healthy communication skills
Group therapy is at least one therapist and more than one client. Group therapy sizes can vary depending on the type of therapy. For example, couples therapy is a type of group therapy consisting of two people. But other groups like Alcoholics Anonymous or AA can have 10 or more people in a group session.
Group therapy as part of addiction therapy services offers clients insight and guidance. By sharing struggles and wins, clients can receive and give support.
Benefits of group therapy include:
- Not feeling alone
- The chance to give and receive support
- Developing healthy communication and relationship skills
- Developing self-awareness
- Building self-esteem
- Building a support system
- Modeling others’ positive behaviors
Family therapy addresses the client’s addiction issues and their effects on the family unit. Therapy involves those affected by the client’s addiction, including immediate and extended family members.
The goal of family therapy is to improve relationships. Therapists will address things like stress, enabling behaviors, and communication to improve the family unit and home environment.
Benefits of family therapy include:
- Helps motivate clients to be active in their recovery
- Provides addiction education
- Gives a safe space for family members to express their thoughts and concerns
- Helps family members develop skills and strategies to encourage recovery
- Improves communication
Addresses mental illness in the family
Benefits of Addiction Therapy Services for Drug and Alcohol Addiction
Therapy can be beneficial for people struggling with addiction. Here are some ways it helps:
- Finding out why people started using drugs or alcohol – Therapy helps people figure out why they started using drugs or alcohol in the first place. This can help them find better ways to deal with their problems.
- Learning new ways to deal with problems – Therapy teaches people new ways to deal with problems without using drugs or alcohol.
- Getting help with other problems – Sometimes, people struggling with addiction have co-occurring mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, or PTSD.
- Making new friends: Therapy helps people make friends who understand what they’re going through.
- Staying sober: Therapy gives people tools to help them stay in recovery. This includes making plans to prevent using drugs or alcohol again and having people to talk to when things get hard.

What Is the Best Therapy for Substance Abuse Treatment?
Addiction therapy services and helpful resources depend on the client’s needs, circumstances, and addiction experiences. Clients often participate in multiple levels of care to achieve optimal results.
To receive the best therapy, seeking a treatment facility that provides personalized treatment plans like 449 Recovery is important.
Finding the Right Addiction Therapy Services
There is still a stigma surrounding therapy. As a result, people do not know where to find the right addiction therapy services. It can also prevent some people from seeking help to recover from addiction.
Therapists specializing in substance use disorder typically work in detox facilities and rehabs or receive referrals from community programs. If you want to learn more about addiction treatment, ask your doctor or call 449 Recovery for more information.
Find Evidence-Based Addiction Therapy Services in California
Addiction therapy services are crucial to lifelong recovery. If you or a loved one are struggling with an addiction to drugs or alcohol, recovery is possible with evidence-based therapy 449 Recovery in Mission Viejo, California. Contact us today for more information on treatment options and how we can help you.