Video: Camino Recovery
Family involvement improves long term recovery
George talks to Don Lavender of Camino Recovery about its 12 step programmes, and the particular success of its family therapy. Involving the family in confronting addiction and mental health problems has been shown to substantially increase the probability of getting well and sustaining recovery. Family therapy also helps family members to overcome the fear that they were the cause of the problem, and strengthen the bond of mutual support.
The Camino Recovery Centre is an intimate and homely 8-bed facility, based near Malaga in Southern Spain, which specialises in the treatment of addiction, including alcohol, drugs, food, gambling and sex.
Camino treats addictions, as well as associated conditions, known as ‘dual diagnosis’, such as trauma, depression and anxiety, offering medically supervised detoxification, and residential primary care based on the Minnesota Model 12-Step approach, plus eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing, equine assisted psychotherapy and family therapy. The centre also offers 30 to 60day secondary care, weekly aftercare and one-to-one counselling and psychotherapy.
The treatments aim to prepare individual to return to the world and maintain long-term sobriety, peace of mind and quality of life. Group therapy, underpinned by a 12-Step programme, forms the core of the programme because group therapy allows more issues to be covered in a short space of time; and reliable studies have shown that the 12-Step approach is the most effective pathway for the largest number of people.