Everything You Need to Know About Addiction and PTSD

Slate Recovery has a staff with extensive knowledge of many backgrounds and therapies to find the perfect fit for your needs. Your first step on your clinical healing journey is being connected with our team of thoughtful and trusted professionals. We are dedicated to providing a profound and life-changing recovery experience for every individual. 

Ray Wolber, Slate Recovery’s founder, interviews another staff therapist to bring more understanding about addiction and treatment.

Raylee Rushing, LADC/MH is our staff therapist specializing in trauma, women in therapy, and Prolonged Exposure Therapy. 

Today, she explains the link between addiction and PTSD (post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Raylee is available to see patients in person at the Slate Recovery Offices in Oklahoma City, OK and virtually throughout the state of Oklahoma.

For someone who may be struggling, what are some early signs of substance use or mental health challenges that loved ones should pay attention to?

Raylee: Keep an eye out for isolation, noticeable changes in physical appearance or personality, mood changes such as increased irritability, tearfulness, combativeness, reservation, or seeming to be emotionally numb.

What advice would you give to someone in the very early stages of recovery who may be feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to start?

Raylee: Focus on small increments of time, compared to the whole day or months ahead. Recovery community is key, so finding a recovery focused group where you can connect with others who are navigating similar challenges can increase hope and a sense of strength. It will take time for your body and mind to find balance again depending on what you were using, how much, and for how long.

Remember to give yourself grace in the daily struggle and know the intensity of emotions in the early days of recovery will become more manageable over time. If you don’t notice progress on your own, remember there are counselors, doctors, and all kinds of helpers who can support you in finding a place of stability.

How do trauma and addiction often intersect, and why is it important to address both in treatment?

Raylee: For many, addiction is a means of coping with past experiences that have been traumatic. Symptoms of traumatic stress, or the ways we can be affected long term if not supported in processing what has happened immediately, cause mood changes, changes in our perceptions, hyperarousal, and avoidance. Addiction can be a primary means of avoidance, numbing, or mental escape from what happened.

Although it initially seems helpful, as the addiction progresses, an individual’s life becomes increasingly unstable, and the symptoms of traumatic stress remain because nothing is being done to address the underlying problem.

When supporting a loved one in recovery, what are some healthy ways to offer support without enabling?

Raylee: Support their attendance in treatment and meetings, attend an open meeting with them, communicate how you notice them progressing, don’t use substances around them, consider fun activities to do together that don’t involve substances, get your own support through individual therapy or support groups for the loved ones of people struggling with addiction to process your own experiences. 

You specialize in PTSD, can you explain what PTSD can look like in day-to-day life for someone who may not realize they’re experiencing it?

Raylee: PTSD looks like a persistent combination of intrusive symptoms, avoidance, negative changes in perception and/or mood, and increased arousal after having survived a certain type/or combination of traumatic experiences. Practically, this can look like difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, being bombarded with mental images or memories of what happened, self-blame, shame, guilt, trying hard not to think about or feel the emotions of what happened, increased irritability, increased anxiety and/or depression, and increasing isolation from the outside world.

Long-Term Exposure therapy is a powerful but sometimes misunderstood approach. Can you walk us through what it is and how it helps individuals process trauma?

Raylee: Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) is a process of learning about what PTSD is and a way to treat it. PE reduces fear and avoidance by having clients safely revisit traumatic memories, simply working with the memory that’s already there, as well as by completing challenges outside of session to help the client not have to continue the avoidance behaviors caused by the trauma. It helps the brain process the event that happened and the trauma survivor to feel increasingly confident, in control, and stable.

For someone who is hesitant or fearful about starting trauma-focused therapy, what would you want them to know before taking that first step?

Raylee: It really is possible for you to feel better, and you are in the driver’s seat of this healing process. Appropriate trauma therapy doesn’t start by jumping into the deep end of the swimming pool on your first session. It involves lots of trust building up front, as well as learning about your personal symptoms and the ways to get those symptoms down so you can feel better.

It is important that you have stability and support in your personal life as you go through the process.