Residential Care

As noted in “Is Nine Months Really Necessary?” outcome studies demonstrate that residential treatment affords the alcoholic or addict the greatest chance for laying a foundation for life-long recovery. A variety of factors uniquely provided by residential treatment contribute to these positive outcomes:

·       Active long-term participation in a community of people who embrace sobriety as normal and desirable.

·       Support and nurture from a highly trained staff of professionals experienced in sobriety and well acquainted with the numerous impediments to recovery.

·       Daily participation in 12 Step meetings and methodologies as an ongoing atmosphere of living.

·       Day-today engagement and interaction with peers who experience many of the same emotional and behavioral challenges as the person new in recovery.

·       The establishment of relationships with other students who have advanced in their own recovery.

However, life at Shadow Mountain is designed to provide purposeful benefits and incentives to recovery that go beyond those offered by many other residential treatment facilities.

Students at Shadow Mountain have daily access to Staff members who are not only trained professionals in the field of addiction and recovery, but who themselves are in recovery. Interestingly, the current Staff at Shadow Mountain, collectively, has more than100 years of sobriety.

Students are in continual contact with behavioral health professionals and have regularly scheduled appointments with our medication management personnel. Our Clinical Staff alone has, collectively, more than 30 years of graduate and post-doctoral training in their respective fields and are fully licensed in their disciplines by the State of New Mexico.

The development of life skills is one of the highest priorities at Shadow Mountain. All too often, the skills that an alcoholic or addict develop while in their active addiction are detrimental to the practice of living well. Money, rather than being a resource to be managed and preserved, becomes simply a method for obtaining one’s drug of choice. The ability to derive the greatest benefit from one’s education is set aside in the pursuit of drugs or missed entirely in a fog of intoxication. Personal relationships are violated as the addict or alcoholic learns to manipulate the emotions (and resource)of those around him. Personal hygiene and the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle including adequate exercise and appropriate nutrition are abandoned as the addict or alcoholic spends escapes from the demands of healthy physicality. Recreational pursuits that build a healthy body and a healthy mind or that add to one’s own skill set fall by the wayside.

At Shadow Mountain, students participate in culinary classes supervised by experienced chefs. They spend time in our music studio acquiring or further developing musical training and audio production skills. A full woodworking shop provides all of the tools necessary for the production of everything from craft projects to furniture construction. Effective money management becomes a day-to-day necessity as students learn to establish and maintain a personal budget. Personal hygiene and the orderly maintenance of one’s living space is expected.

The abundance of recreational pursuits at Shadow Mountain offer more than sober fun – they provide sober fun with a purpose. Unfortunately, the abuse alcohol or illicit drugs by adolescents frequently interferes with normal brain development, and the addict or alcoholic new to treatment often exhibits signs of cognitive or developmental impairment. The recreational activities at Shadow Mountain are designed to assist the brain in the establishment of new neuronal pathways in the brain that have been diminished by the detrimental effects of chemical interference. Snowboarding, skiing, fly fishing, baseball, Frisbee golf, hiking, daily exercise in our gymnasium – all of these activities help rebuild healthy minds as well as healthy bodies.

However, as much as the above makes residential treatment at Shadow Mountain sound like a vacation, make no mistake that the young men in our program are doing the hardest work they have ever done in their lives. Our goal at Shadow Mountain is to incorporate every resource possible to help our students lay a foundation for life-long recovery. 

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