Introduction
New Paradigm Recovery is a high-quality private behavioral healthcare provider that treats substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders. Offering an unusually personalized treatment experience with tailored programming to meet a range of client therapeutic and extra-therapeutic needs, New Paradigm Recovery’s Intensive Outpatient Program can ensure better home environment support for recovery and assist in connecting clients to a range of supportive resources within their respective communities. The treatment facility serves those in the greater Washington DC Metropolitan area.
Challenge
Once a client leaves treatment, clinicians lose virtually all oversight making it increasingly more difficult to assess a client’s progress and adjust the level of support. Treatment professionals like those working at New Paradigm Recovery go from having full access to their clients each week to seeing them roughly 15 to 20 hours a week following discharge. For professionals, this sharp contrast in monitoring can make it difficult to help clients maintain accountability. New Paradigm Recovery clinicians invest in their clients’ well-being and success, so when a client with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is in crisis, their goal is immediate intervention with the goal of preventing triggers from turning into relapses.
Clients, for the past number of months, have been under the care of a treatment professional. Following discharge, they are tasked with learning how to navigate recovery with very few tools. New Paradigm Recovery professionals saw that with limited options, many clients returned to the same environments that contributed to their addiction(s). Understanding that increased triggers and a lack of clinical support can result in an individual slipping or relapsing, New Paradigm clinicians identified a need to incorporate an aftercare tool that would allow for increased oversight, improved client outcomes, and decreased stress amongst treatment staff.
Recognizing that treatment staff cannot monitor client progress to the degree they could while a client was in treatment, Chief Operating Officer of New Paradigm Recovery, Joshua Cagney, wanted to offer new resources for both the clients and his team through remote alcohol monitoring. He shares, “I wanted to create an extra layer of support so that when clients are in their natural environment, particularly in social situations, there is something that helps them when they feel like they're struggling; that gives them pause before they choose to pick up a drink.”
Solution
To set their clients up for continued success, New Paradigm Recovery introduced Soberlink Alcohol Monitoring as a method of aftercare. The system's Advanced Reporting capabilities allowed professionals to easily review and monitor client progress remotely. Soberlink’s real-time results improved clinician’s ability to monitor a client without compromising their freedom as the system includes a discreet and portable Device that would notify them instantly in the event of a positive test. Thankful for the system’s safeguards, Joshua Cagney shares, “Soberlink creates an opportunity to stop a problem before it becomes truly destructive. It's the knowledge that the client has something in their pocket that creates a link between them and me.”
No longer plagued by a lack of client oversight, Joshua Cagney and his team felt immediate relief having access to data that encapsulates client progress. He notes, “It makes my life a lot easier. I'm not having to call clients every hour on the hour and ask them how they're doing.”
New Paradigm Recovery clients embrace Soberlink as well. Cagney recalls ‘unsolicited feedback’ from clients who expressed their gratitude for the system and the accountability it offers. With Soberlink, clients can develop healthy habits and lifestyle patterns, helping to improve their life and decrease the likelihood of relapse. Cagney notes, “[Soberlink] creates a fundamental shift in terms of not just relapse rates, but qualitatively, it changes how clients deal with relapse, relapse behavior triggers, and challenges they face outside of the treatment environment.”
In one particular case, Cagney remembers a client who was chronically struggling with relapse. To increase accountability, he worked Soberlink into his treatment plan. Cagney explains how Soberlink ‘raised the bottom’ for this client, forcing him to look outside of alcohol for support in moments where he normally would have defaulted to drinking. Soberlink compelled this client to seek out attachment, connection, and compassion that, prior, he didn’t afford himself. Despite the challenges the client had to overcome, Cagney no longer worries about him slipping or relapsing. He explains, “I'd love to say his recovery success was due to some fundamental shift in our therapeutic approach. The reality was it was the introduction of Soberlink.”
External structures, like Soberlink, are critical for clients in early recovery from AUD and are often responsible for getting them from one moment to the next. “I'm not sure I've found a better tool to create external structure outside of the treatment environment than Soberlink,” shares Cagney.
Results
Soberlink has been critical to further elevating New Paradigm Recovery’s high-quality level of care. The system’s Advanced Reporting and real-time results features enable staff to maintain a pulse on client progress, improving their ability to support lasting recovery. Reflecting on past cases, Cagney mentions, “I have not taken anyone off of Soberlink after completing their treatment process where they have not done well.”
With Soberlink, New Paradigm Recovery treatment professionals are no longer limited by proximity. A client can leave treatment and remain connected to their clinician, where they can foster growth and continued healing. Cagney shares, “[Soberlink] is something that can actually be leveraged in a way that creates support, connection, and attachment. I'm convinced that that is the solution to Alcohol Use Disorder.”
Cagney continues, “[Soberlink] has become an invaluable tool in terms of how I deal with case management for all of our clients. It's made a fundamental difference in how treatment progress is achieved and evaluated,” says Cagney.
Soberlink is grateful to have New Paradigm Recovery’s trust and support and looks forward to helping its clients achieve lasting sobriety for years to come.