RETURNING FROM WILDERNESS TREATMENT
There are times when young people become so entrenched in self-destructive behaviors that a drastic change becomes necessary. Wilderness programs offer immersive therapeutic environments in which young people can form a new trajectory for their lives. In my experience, young people generally have very positive experiences in these programs and come home full of expansive hope and good intentions. The transition back to the grind of every day life, with the pull of its old temptations, is an extremely vulnerable time; it is critical that they have a place to keep these new experiences alive and to learn to integrate them into their actual lives. In addition to extensive experience in working with the age group, I have great familiarity in supporting Twelve Step oriented treatment. Furthermore, my graduate education was supported by a federal grant designed to explore and disseminate the highest level of care for addictive behaviors.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live and could not spare any more time for that one."
– Henry David Thoreau
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"Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it."
– Maya Angelou
"If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life."
– Abraham Maslow