Encinitas-Based Shoreline Recovery Center Seeing Increases in Patients Post Holiday Time

For those looking to recover from substance abuse and alcoholism, the holidays are often a cold and sober reminder of the friends and family they're lacking. Encinitas-based Shoreline Recovery Center receives an increase of male patients for treatment around this time, many of whom have been in and out, not finding true recovery until after they've experienced devastating outcomes, said Shorelines' Director of Business Development Craig Burson.

While these consequences are often what forces them into treatment, the majority of these men have an ongoing inner battle with the addiction they genuinely want to be free of. However, coming from affluent or even middle-class families, their addiction is often enabled. 

"Everybody has a different rock bottom," said Shoreline Clinical Supervisor and Therapist Max Kubota. "It can include legal issues such as an imminent divorce and/or custody battle or the threat of being cut off and having nowhere to go."

Meanwhile, they're trying to figure out how to start their recovery process. Unfortunately, it's often not until clients lose relationships and jobs that they're more willing to go into treatment for themselves. 

"But even when the client is hopeless and depressed, they can begin to take responsibility for what they did and take steps to find solutions," Kubota said. "In my experience, intrinsic motivation is something that's more of a foolproof way of having a successful recovery. That's because external motivation eventually wanes."

Patients often find themselves at this point once they begin to surrender to the powerlessness they have with substance and succumb to humility, which leads to willingness and motivation.

"At Shoreline Recovery Center, we aim to foster and support the client by helping them find intrinsic motivation, especially with younger clients who don't have a grasp on their identity or purpose and life," Kubota said. "On the clinical side, our approach is about rebuilding each human being and getting them to a place where self-worth and efficacy is rebuilt." 

Sober living is about accountability—things like getting up in the morning, making your bed and taking care of yourself. These simple things help establish self-worth and when it's happening is a good indicator of someone who has a solid chance of getting sober.

Patients come to Shoreline after living in fight-or-flight mode every day just to survive. Once they've come out on the other side, they begin to have a real sense of gratitude and reverence for what they put their family through.

"It's when we see those things from clients that there begins to be a turn for the better and they start to regain the relationships that have been affected, including the ones with themselves," Kubota said.

Since Jan. 1, 2018, Shoreline Recovery Center has seen 376 graduates with roughly 91 percent of patients reporting intrinsic motivation for treatment.