“Trauma degrades the victim; the group exalts her. Trauma dehumanizes the victim; the group restores her humanity. Repeatedly in the testimony of survivors there comes a moment when a sense of connection is restored by another person’s unaffected display of generosity. Something in herself that the victim believes to be irretrievably destroyed—faith, decency, courage—is reawakened by an example of common altruism. Mirrored in the actions of others, the survivor recognizes and reclaims a lost part of herself. At that moment, the survivor begins to rejoin the human commonality…”
Virtually all well-designed recovery programs stress the need for structure and follow-on community support. The Project New Day Program model offers community support via online (Zoom) sessions that can begin around the time of the final coaching session.
Project New Day weekly community sessions operate on the premise that it is important to create an environment in this world where you are valued for who you are. The PND model supplies [this] environment and encourages participants to choose it over social networks whose members still use the problem drugs.
Trauma in its various forms typically leads to a loss of connection with oneself and one’s community. This loss of connection diminishes the brain’s production of opioids, specifically µ-opioids, which are responsible for feelings of pleasure and satisfaction felt from social bonds.
This is the landscape of our modern society, and it leads to a sense of hopelessness when coping with our complex life problems. Turning to external sources of opioids can alleviate pain and create a feeling of warmth and relief, but our brains are not designed to receive opioids in this way. Our neurotransmitter receptors start to shut down or even burn out, requiring more and more stimulation for the same sense of well-being. As dosages increase, so does the risk of death from an overdose.
To maintain and enhance the effects of coaching sessions, the Project New Day Program model suggests weekly group Zoom community sessions. Social integration and abstinence-specific functional support have been shown to reduce the risk of relapse in this study: Social support and relapse: Commonalities among alcoholics, opiate users, and cigarette smokers, (E. Havassy, Sharon M. Hall, David A. Wasserman, 1991).
“People need people – for initial and continued survival, for socialization, for the pursuit of satisfaction. No one – not the dying, not the outcast, not the mighty – transcends the need for human contact.”
The healing benefits of group sessions are well known. In his classic work, Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Irvin Yalom identifies 11 primary “therapeutic factors” present in all group therapy, and particularly present in ongoing longer-term groups. They are as follows:
