For many addicts and alcoholics, they have spent much of their time while actively drinking and drugging in active denial, oftentimes shutting down their feelings and never being honest with themselves or anyone else about their actions and behavior.

Once they have made the decision to seek recovery, the very idea of opening up to complete strangers about their lives at residential treatment centers is a scary proposition. For years they sought to bury their true feelings by medicating themselves, and now faced with the prospect of being honest with themselves and others, the walls that they have built up within themselves seem almost impossible to break through.

Many residential treatment centers include group counseling sessions as a way to help break through those walls, but 12 Palms Recovery Center is a Florida rehabilitation center where group counseling sessions encourage clients to be honest with themselves by listening to their peers. Once they hear from others in recovery talk about their own issues, they begin to understand that their own experiences are not unique. Peer-to-peer groups can be oftentimes be a turning point in a client’s recovery, as they begin to see how their experiences during their addiction can be identified with by other clients.

The walls begin to slowly come down, as clients start to open up with others who have walked in their shoes. Oftentimes in group counseling sessions, clients can identify with what another addict is talking about, and they can then use what they’ve heard in group sessions to identify their own feelings and start to properly deal with those feelings.

In addition, each counseling session at 12 Palms Recovery Center are led by a group of certified therapists who are also recovering addicts and alcoholics themselves. They too understand the feelings of their clients, having had similar experiences in their own lives. By understanding what their clients have gone through, they can facilitate group sessions in a way that allow clients to feel like their problems are not unique, and that their issues can be understood with empathy and compassion.