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GROUPS, LECTURES, AND ASSIGNMENTS
The client's primary counselor will assign groups, lectures, reading, writing, and experiential exercises consistent with the issues identified in the client's personalized assessment. Clients generally attend twenty or more lectures during their stay, complete the written assignments for each, and attend the accompanying process groups. Clients are also provided the guided journal, My First Year in Recovery, which they will fill out daily and process in group.

LECTURES
In order to individualize treatment and coordinate the timing with regard to addressing the client's particular therapeutic issues, the counselor may assign the client to attend any of the scheduled lectures.

GROUPS

Towards the end of treatment, the following additional/supplemental lectures and groups become available to clients as deemed necessary and appropriate by their primary counselor:

ASSIGNMENTS

Assignments are an integrated combination of reading, writing, and physical activities designed to correlate with clients' needs and status on a continuum known as the “stages of change.” The assignments are designed to facilitate progress from one stage of change to the next. Assignments provide structured opportunities for clients to practice applying the knowledge learned in order to build and strengthen recovery skills.

Clients will:

• Complete Step Working Guides One through Five (including a complete life inventory or Fourth Step), process each with staff and his or her primary counselor and be able to verbalize a clear understanding of the patterns in life that have contributed to and resulted from addiction.
• Write a “loss list” of personal qualities, values, relationships, and material resources that he or she has lost or risks losing as a result of active addiction.
• Write a commitment statement about taking the actions needed to live in recovery versus active addiction.
• Write a vision statement about what his or her life will look and be like in recovery, starting at the end of treatment and continuing through his or her first year of recovery.
• Write a “life resource” list that includes all the personal qualities and strengths, people, materials or other external resources in his or her life, as well as potential resources which he or she has not yet called on that support recovery.
• Read and highlight Chapters Five and Eight in the Narcotics Anonymous basic text.
• Daily writing in the guided journal, My First Year in Recovery.
• Review twelve-step meeting lists for home area and, taking into consideration family, work, aftercare requirements, and commitments, develop a written meeting attendance plan to be reviewed and discussed with primary counselor and temporary sponsor.
• Write a sponsor-sponsee job description that addresses the following questions: What is a sponsor? What is a sponsee? What do clients expect to contribute to this relationship? What do clients expect to get from this relationship?
• Compose a description of the three external or environmental factors and three internal factors, characteristics, attitudes, or behavior patterns that are the most active threats to maintaining

Areas of concern and need will be addressed with clients on an individualized basis. Clients may be asked to repeat certain activities or assignments that are relevant, based on where clients are in treatment and recovery. In many cases, repeating activities refreshes and enriches clients' awareness of the information covered. And because of attention, concentration, and memory challenges that are normal to post-acute withdrawal, many people benefit from attending these activities a second time. Post-acute withdrawal is a process that can last anywhere from a few weeks to as many as six to nine months, as body and brain go through a process of re-balancing themselves to life without mood-altering substances. As a result, repetition in early recovery can be helpful in clarifying and reinforcing new information. Another reason clients may be asked to repeat certain activities is to participate in the capacity of mentor or role model for new clients in an area in which the mentoring client is are doing well.

PREPARATION FOR DISCHARGE AND RE-ENTRY
Groups, lectures and assignments will be geared towards re-entry during clients' final phase of treatment in order to normalize, validate, and process the issues, concerns, and emotions natural to transitioning from the safety and security of the inpatient setting to returning to the community (Re-entry Preparation Group).

Alumni Aftercare Group-Mentoring
An individualized strategy will be developed for clients to be involved in a process for mentoring other clients. This process will include:

• Orienting newly admitted clients.
• Providing leadership in group settings.
• Demonstrating a solution-oriented attitude and responsible recovery-supportive behaviors.

Off-Site Passes
An individualized strategy will be developed for prearranged day and weekend passes as appropriate. These can help reinforce progress clients have made, as well as give clients more responsibility for handling some of the outside logistics as they prepare for discharge. This also provides opportunities to practice the knowledge and skills clients have learned in treatment by applying them in such areas as:

• Responding to home/community upon return.
• Dealing with drug-using acquaintances.
• Structuring and using free time.
• Spending time with family/significant others/friends.

Reading/Writing/Activities

• Continue daily writing in the guided journal, My First Year in Recovery.
• Read and highlight Chapters Nine and Ten in the Narcotics Anonymous basic text.

Time-Use Charts
This assignment requires clients to make an hour-by-hour chart of their last two weeks of active addiction (to the best of their memory) prior to admission to LVRC. Activities that should be addressed include, but are not limited to:
Active drug use.

• Acquisition of drugs.
• Work and the extent to which drugs were used while working.
• Time spent with family and friends and whether drug use was part of the activity.
• Exercise and the extent to which drug use was part of the activity.
• Recreational activities and the extent to which drug use was part of the activity.
• Sexual activity and the extent to which drugs were used by client or partner(s).
• Meals and the extent to which drug use was involved.

Clients' addiction time-use chart will be processed with client's primary counselor. As part of this review, the counselor will assign clients to complete a recovery time-use chart to represent what clients' use of time will look like after the completion of treatment at LVRC. Activities that should be addressed include, but are not limited to:

• Outpatient/aftercare treatment attendance.
• Exercise.
• Meeting attendance.
• Employment.
• Step- or writing-assignment time.
• Sponsorship contact.
• Recreational activities/hobbies/leisure time.
• Time with family and friends.

Identifying Character Defects (Steps Six and Seven)
Clients will make a list of character defects, after reviewing their life inventory and Fifth Step and indicate how each contributes to and results from clients' addiction.

Identifying Relapse Risk Factors
Clients review their written description of three external/environmental factors and three internal characteristics or behavior patterns that clients identified earlier in treatment as the most active threats to maintaining their recovery. Clients add three more external/environmental factors and three more internal characteristics or behavior patterns that they identify as the next most active threats to their recovery.

Generating Solutions/Strategies for Overcoming Relapse Risks
Using the list of risk factors, clients will develop at least three solutions or strategies they can use to overcome each risk factor. These should be detailed, directly related, and behavior-specific. For example, if external threat Number One is a partner who drinks in the home, then “Go to meetings regularly” is important, but not specific enough to be very helpful. A more detailed, action-specific strategy would be, “Ask him or her to get a separate fridge to keep alcohol in so I don't have to reach past the beer to get food to make dinner,” in combination with, “Go to a meeting whenever I find myself uncomfortable at home when my partner is drinking/using.”