I am Mike Kelley, Director of Equine Therapy here at Spirit Lake Recovery in McKenzie, Tennessee.  Today I want to share the particulars of our program and my plan is to post often to share this remarkable therapy because it truly astounds us on a regular basis.  I hope you will find our approach to be both innovative and interesting. 

In the early stages of planning the programs for Spirit Lake Recovery we determined that we wanted to incorporate various horse activities into our equine therapy program to get the maximum benefit for our clients and from our animals and facilities.

Our research confirmed that there are major therapeutic benefits for individuals who are involved in the normal daily activities of caring for horses.  We decided to require each of our clients to participate in this basic activity that we call Equine Relationship.  Each client is assigned a horse when they enter the Spirit Lake program and they are responsible for the care of that horse during their stay.

Each morning at 6 am and again at 5 pm in the evening the clients are in the arena, cleaning stalls, grooming, feeding and watering their animals.  They are supervised by an equine specialist or a trained assistant as they perform their “Good Horse Keeping” duties.  According to each client’s physical and emotional abilities, they are involved in all elements of horse care, all the way to cleaning hoofs.  Clients who are unfamiliar with horses are carefully monitored as they learn the proper techniques and gain confidence. 

At first some clients are not excited to be shoveling “horse poop” before breakfast but within a few days the activity becomes almost fun and early morning becomes the most enjoyable time of the day.  The client’s relationship with their specific animal quickly grows into responsible affection and they look forward to their time together.

In addition, each weekday we conduct our Equine Assisted Psychotherapy activities using the EAGALA model (visit EAGALA.org to learn more).  These activities involve clients with their horse and with other horses so that they learn to deal with the various personalities, as individuals as well as in the herd.

We are careful to limit the dangers of duel relationships and keep our Equine Relationship activities separate from our Equine Assisted Psychotherapy activities.  The therapy team, which includes our licensed mental health therapists and our equine specialists, communicate daily regarding all events, comments, actions and reactions of individual clients that are relevant to their therapy.  This communication promotes a synergy between all treatment modalities and allows an individual treatment plan to be tailored to the needs and progress of the client.

The frequency of activities with the horses is allowing rapid progress in our clients.  Issues that are dealt with regularly include:

·         Responsibility

·         Boundaries

·         Risk management

·         Communication skills

·         Anger Management

·         Problem solving

·         Self-Esteem

Clients are able to confront these issues and develop skills that become habitual and natural which allows these skills to be used in their life after Spirit Lake. 

This work has proven to be life changing, and not just for our clients, but for me and our staff. I feel very blessed to be a part of this powerful therapy and I hope that those who read about it can glean a bit of what makes it so special and effective.

Obviously this is a new blog and I’ve been spearheading the movement, but I really wanted the staff here at Spirit to get involved in blogdom as well.  Our staff is passionate and committed to our mission and I’d love for visitors to our site to get a sense of that.  After a conversation about the blog, our office manager/insurance liaison/admissions coordinator/go to gal for everything, Katrina, sent me an email sharing some things she’s been thinking about so I asked her to share in blog form. She has worked in the A&D field before Spirit Lake and has a huge heart for this work.  Below is her post.  ~Ginger

So this will be my very first blog……not the first blog for Spirit Lake….my first blog EVER; needless to say, I am very new at this.  I just had a few thoughts on my mind that I wanted to share.  I worked in Outpatient before God pushed me down my path to Spirit Lake.  In Outpatient, I saw people(….clients, as we refer to them at work….family, as we think of them personally)……every day, 4 times a week.  I came to know and love these people like they WERE my family.  I still talk to several of them to this day, one of them being one of my very good friends or BFF’s, as we would joke (though meaning it deeply).  But to see these people every day, all day is a new world for me! 

It is amazing to me to see our clients/family after getting sober.  You originally see them, the trouble they have encountered, the pain they have felt and caused, the shame they feel like they will never get over…….but you give them 40 days of sober time, 40 days of the hardest work you will never know if you have never been in that situation, 40 days of accomplishments, of accountability, of FREEDOM……you see a different person.  You see them talking, and laughing, and sharing…..HEAD HELD HIGH.  They learn to embrace these things they did, the people they hurt, the lies they told; not PROUD of them, but ACCEPTING them.  They realize that those things don’t make them a terrible person, those things are just something they did while struggling with a disease!  And there’s much more to them than the negatives and they start seeing the good in them.  All those things make you better able to help the next person.  Those things make you a story to save the next person’s life.

So imagine…..if 40 days could give you a sense of hope, a sense of “maybe I CAN do this”, a sense of “I am NOT alone in this disease”…..just imagine what 60 days or 90 days of sobriety can give you……..I guess what all this babbling is about is this: IF YOU DON’T HAVE IT, YOU CAN GET IT…..& IF YOU HAVE IT, YOU CAN HOLD ON TO IT……JUST FOR TODAY!

Katrina

Just think, how many people were at your local high school graduation?  I went to my niece’s graduation in a small town recently and there seemed to be about 150 students there.  That would make 30 of her classmates in need of treatment and only 3 of them receiving the treatment they need.  The acting administrator for SAMHSA, Eric Broderick, had a great quote saying, “Substance use disorders are preventable and treatable yet we continue as a Nation to allow the lives of 1 in 5 young people and their families be torn apart by substance abuse.  As a nation we must redouble our efforts to prevent substance abuse in the first place and ensure treatment is available to those in need.”   I hope we can turn the tide.

Blessings,   Ginger

 Young Adult’s Need for and Receipt of Alcohol and Illicit Drug Use Treatment: 2007 is based on 2007 data drawn from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, involving responses from 22,187 persons aged 18 to 25.

The full report is available online at http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k9/157/YoungAdultsDrugTxt.cfm.  Copies may also be obtained free of charge by calling SAMHSA’s Health Information Network at 1-877-SAMHSA-7 (1-877-726-4727) or at   http://ncadistore.samhsa.gov/catalog/productDetails.aspx?ProductID=18140.  For related publications and information, visit http://www.samhsa.gov/.

I received a comment from a blog reader, Michael, asking if I was going to blog about Michael Jackson.  I must say he has come up in so many conversations lately and especially within the treatment community.  I won’t comment on any specifics because I’m not sure what really happen, nor am I sure any of us ever will.  But all the reports I’m seeing now point to dependence on prescription drugs.  I know he suffered injuries in his work and had a doctor with him almost constantly.  So often, people in legitimate medical need of prescription pain pills find themselves on a very slippery slope that leads to substance abuse and dependence.  The fact that these pills are legal when prescribed gives a false sense of safety. to many.  We think these pills are “safe” or “safer than street drugs” simply because they have brand name and prescription bottle.  Even before I worked in the treatment community I saw so many friends and friends of friends who simply got injured, were prescribed pain pills and then they found themselves out of control.  They are good people, not seeking a “high” but seeking to feel a sense of normalcy they can no longer feel.  Again, as I’ve said in other posts, I am not a therapist or counselor; I am speaking from my own life experience when I share here.  However, I am an equine specialist here at Spirit Lake and I often have the opportunity to work with clients and our horses here.  Often an activity as simple as walking a horse through an obstacle course can trigger a client to share an experience from their own life.  Obstacles may represent friends, feed buckets represent the temptation of alcohol/drugs, a spooked horse now represents their own fear of relapse.  It is so moving to be a part of it and see the clients apply the lessons they learned through their own experience.  So when I see someone in my life or even on TV struggling or sadly, losing the battle with addiction, I think of how lessons can be learned and lives recovered.  I’ve been blessed enough to see it happen.  To bring it back to Michael Jackson, I pray for peace for him and his loved ones and I wish he could have gotten the treatment he needed.  But I do hope, as I always do when I see famous people splashed in the headlines dealing with addiction and its dire consequences, that it will move others to seek help.  Maybe the veil of shame associated with this disease will be lifted even more and those struggling will realize, like in Michael’s song,  “you are not  alone” and go to a meeting, start or restart treatment, and never, ever give up.    Blessings, Ginger