Summary: If your family wonders why you think you should go all the way to Hawaii for drug rehab, you can tell them that you need the time, space, and professional support to learn practical skills and techniques that form the foundation of lifelong, sustainable recovery in a location that seems purpose-built for healing and growth.
Key Points:
- Evidence shows living in Blue Zones, i.e. near water, promotes overall health and wellness.
- Evidence shows living near greenspace, i.e. lush tropical jungle environments, promotes mental health and addiction recovery.
- In Hawaii, you’re surrounded by water and always near greenspace, making it a perfect place to reset, re-center, and regain control of your life.
- The culture of Hawaii prioritizes peace, balance, openness, acceptance, and gratitude – all essential components of an ideal recovery environment.
Go All the Way to Hawaii to Focus on You
If you experience severe or complex symptoms related to a substance use and/or a mental health disorder that prevent you from participating in or meeting your family, work, or school commitments, residential drug rehab at a high-quality treatment center can provide a safe, comfortable, structured treatment environment with the full-time support and care you need to move past the cycles of addiction and rebuild your life.
Residential treatment is the most immersive level of care you can find for addiction. During residential drug rehab, you receive a full day of treatment and support and live on-site at the treatment facility: this gives you the time you need to focus on recovery, while your treatment center staff focuses on the details that you’re typically responsible for during your daily life.
What’s Special About Hawaii?
What’s special about Hawaii is that it’s literally an island paradise.
Everyone knows that.
But what’s special about getting treatment there? And how do you explain to your family and loved ones that you need to go all the way to Hawaii for drug rehab?
It’s an island paradise, so the more skeptical members of your family may think that all you want is a luxury vacation in – that’s right – and island paradise.
First, we can clear up the “you just want a luxury vacation” critique right away:
Real addiction treatment is not a vacation. It’s hard work, physically, psychologically, and emotionally. You spend all day facing your fears, what you think are your shortcomings, learning from your past, and building hope for your future.
Therefore, step one in explaining why you need to go all the way to Hawaii for drug rehab is to find a high-quality treatment center in Hawaii that identifies the kinds of treatment and support they offer, provides a sample daily schedule of activities, and shows that the treatment plan depends on the proximity to water and access to greenspace that evidence shows promotes overall health and wellness and increases your likelihood of achieving long term recovery.
Change Begets Change: A Foundational Rehab Philosophy
In a moment, we’ll share details on the benefits of greenspace for recovery, as identified by researchers in the article “Using Greenspace and Nature Exposure as an Adjunctive Treatment for Opioid and Substance Use Disorders: Preliminary Evidence and Potential Mechanisms.” First, though, we’ll offer additional thoughts on the importance of a healing environment on addiction recovery.
- Environment influences emotion, emotion influences behavior, addiction recovery revolves around behavioral change.
- Many mainland/stateside treatment centers are in clinical hospital-type environments that feel cold, impersonal, isolating, and unfriendly.
- You can also find mainland/stateside treatment centers in office parks, strip malls, or small office buildings.
- What hospital and office spaces have in common, for the most part, is a distinct lack of natural light, an absence of greenspace, and no access to natural water, i.e. the ocean, lakes, rivers, or streams.
You may find a stateside rehab built in a coastal city, but unless the treatment center is right on the water, it’s unlikely water therapy or direct contact with natural water will be part of your treatment plan.
- Sometimes getting away means really getting away.
- One of the primary benefits of residential treatment for addiction is the complete change of environment, and spending time in a new place that’s nothing like your daily life.
- A hospital, an office park, or a strip mall isn’t much of a change in your actual environment: they’re everywhere you look on the mainland, unless you travel to a rural area, in which case the offices still look the same, and the only difference is that your view out the window changes.
- In Hawaii, there are drug rehabs located in former homes and other facilities that look and feel nothing like a clinical hospital environment: they’re repurposed to look and feel friendly, inviting, peaceful, and relaxing.
Yes, you will have to return to daily life – traffic, office buildings, strip malls – but that’s after you have time to set yourself straight and make a good plan for reintegration, called an aftercare plan.
- If nothing changes, nothing changes.
- That’s old-school, AA program talk, and it may sound cliché, but it’s true. If you don’t take action to address your addiction problem, you probably won’t resolve your addiction problem: recovery doesn’t just happen one day by accident.
- Most people who consider residential drug rehab have tried various types of addiction programs before. Maybe outpatient therapy, maybe an intensive outpatient program, or maybe AA or a 12-step program with a commitment to make lifestyle changes that promote recovery, like getting plenty of exercise, eating healthy food, and learning stress management.
- If you’ve tried that, you know how hard it is to do that while managing your full-time daily life. Some people can do it: for many of us, that’s simply too much.
In a residential drug rehab, your treatment staff plans and manages all the treatment activities, takes care of your daily essential needs, and makes the lifestyle changes you need part of your treatment schedule. When you consider the ideal environment Hawaii offers by default, drug rehab in Hawaii is a big change that can lead to very big changes.
What Does Research Say About Greenspace and Addiction Recovery?
The study we mention above, “Using Greenspace…for Opioid and Substance Use Disorders,” cites research indicating that, during drug rehab, the presence of greenspace and direct access to natural environments is associated with decreased stress, depression, anxiety, and impulsivity. In addition, they cite evidence that indicates that for people with opioid use disorder (OUD), previous research shows exposure to greenspace and natural environments may reduce frequency and intensity of pain.
Quantifiable decreases in these areas can improve treatment outcomes and reduce risk of relapse.
Therefore, the research team examined the available research on the impact of greenspace and natural environments on addiction recovery, with a focus on the areas we mention above: pain, mental health, impulsivity, as well as on additional factors that promote recovery, such as social connection and reduced drug cravings.
Here’s what they found:
Greenspace, Green Light, Natural Environments, and Pain
- Studies show exposure to green light, designed to mimic natural light, can reduce pain reactivity and pain sensitivity.
- Green light can “elicit positive emotions” during migraine headaches, and reduce pain intensity for some patients.
- Post-surgery, patients that had a view of trees compared to those who had a view of a brick wall required less time in the hospital and fewer doses of pain-relieving medication.
Impact of Nature on Mental Health and Physical Health
Mental:
- Exposure to nature reduces stress and anxiety.
- Spending time in nature reduces levels of circulating cortisol associated with stress and anxiety.
- Exposure to nature reduces depressive symptoms.
- Daily exposure to nature and natura environments significantly improves life satisfaction and wellbeing.
Physical:
- Living near natural spaces increases frequency of physical activity.
- Exposure to natural environments “significantly reduces blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol levels.”
- Compared to taking a walk in an urban environment, taking a walk in a forest:
- Reduces hormones associated with diabetes, obesity, and heart problems.
- Reduces inflammatory chemical messengers in the bloodstream
- Decreases blood flow to brain areas associated with worry
Impact on Impulsivity
- Early experiments showed that when people were shown nature photographs, they were subsequently less likely to make impulsive decisions.
- Researchers replicated those results when substituting walks in nature for looking at photographs.
- In school age children, kids with more access to nature showed greater behavioral self-control than kids with less access to nature.
The causal relationship between greenspace is not well established, but the preliminary research cited in the study shows benefit for several factors that can reduce impulsivity, such as reduced stress, reduced anxiety, and improved attention.
Connection Between Greenspace, Nature, and Social Connection
- Exposure to natural environments and greenspace increases the desire for social connection.
- Exposure to natural environments and greenspace enhances feelings of social connectedness
- In experiments on prosocial behavior, exposure to nature/greenspace influenced subsequent decision-making, increasing the likelihood of making decisions that increase:
- Community
- Human contact
- Generosity
- Paying attention to nature increased positive emotions and sense of connection to others.
- In children, absence of greenspace is associated with increased aggression, i.e. antisocial behavior.
- Presence of greenspace, trees, and vegetation around apartment buildings is associated with less violent crime and property crime, i.e. vandalism
Effect of Nature and Greenspace on Drug Cravings
- Having greenspace visible from home can reduce cravings for things like nicotine, alcohol, food, and chocolate.
- Access to personal greenspace, i.e. a home garden, can reduce cravings for nicotine, alcohol, food, and chocolate.
- Visible greenspace and access to a home garden improves overall mood and wellbeing, both associated with reduced drug cravings.
Like the causal relationship between greenspace and impulsivity, a causal relationship between greenspace/nature and drug cravings is not yet well established. However, like the research on impulsivity, preliminary research on cravings cited in the study shows exposure to nature and greenspace has “…potential broad-ranging benefits of an adjunctive treatment…to target multiple aspects of craving and associated phenomenon.”
Overall, this study shows us the primary benefit of greenspace and access to nature appears in creating conditions that improve mental health, physical wellbeing, and general life satisfaction, which in turn promote the likelihood of a successful drug rehab experience. With that said, we should include the positive benefit on the experience of pain for people with opioid addiction. Hypersensitivity to pain increases risk of relapse, and studies show greenspace reduces that sensitivity. Therefore, a drug rehab for opioid addiction in proximity to nature – e.g. going all the way to Hawaii for drug rehab for opioid addiction – may increase the likelihood of a successful recovery.
What Happens in Residential Drug Rehab?
Upon admission to a high-quality residential treatment center for substance use disorder (SUD), i.e. a reputable residential drug rehab, you’ll most likely receive:
- A full biopsychosocial assessment
- Comprehensive medical evaluation
- Medication review and management
- Screening and treatment for co-occurring disorders and history of trauma
- Personalized case management
- A safe, healthy environment with comfortable living accommodations
- Time to think, reflect, and recover
- Three healthy and nutritious meals a day
Once your treatment program starts, you live at the treatment facility full-time with a group of recovery peers and treatment center staff. You spend your days in immersive treatment and therapy, monitored by skilled and experienced clinicians. Evenings often include workshops, peer support meetings, recovery homework, and time to journal, relax, and reflect on the progress you make during the day.
A high-quality drug rehab will collaborate with you to develop a personalized, integrated treatment plan that includes a combination of the following therapeutic approaches:
Psychotherapy:
- Individual therapy
- Group therapy
- Family therapy
Medication-supported detoxification:
- For patients in detox from:
- Alcohol
- Opioids
- Ongoing medication for patients with:
- Opioid use disorder (OUD)
- Alcohol use disorder (AUD)
Experiential Therapy:
- Yoga
- Mindfulness
- Meditation
In Hawaii, experiential therapy can include:
- Water therapy
- Surf therapy
- Mountain hikes
- Waterfall hikes
Expressive Therapy:
- Music
- Art
- Writing/journaling
Community and Peer Support Groups
- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
- Narcotics Anonymous (NA)
When you go all the way to Hawaii for drug rehab, you’ll also experience:
- Daily exposure to greenspace/immersion in healthy green environment
- Daily access to natural water in the form of the ocean, lagoons, rivers, streams, and waterfalls
In residential drug rehab, you work with your treatment team to integrate all the modalities we list above into an approach to recovery that works for you. Residential treatment gives you the time to rediscover who you are without the presence of drugs or alcohol in your life. You take stock of where you are, determine where you want to be, and we give you the tools it takes to get there.
When you choose rehab in Hawaii, you get all the benefits of an immersive nature experience: reduced stress, reduced anxiety, reduced depression, an enhanced sense of social connectedness, and improved physical health.
