What We Do

The Bridge to Recovery, with residential programs in Bowling Green, Kentucky and Santa Barbara, California, are designed to assist individuals and affected family members suffering from codependence, trauma and a wide range of addictions. Additionally, we work with family members affected by abuse, neglect, abandonment, enmeshment and other issues that hinder personal growth, relationships and vocational effectiveness.

At The Bridge, codependence is viewed as the underlying “dis-ease” beneath the surface of many addictions and counterproductive patterns of thinking, feeling and doing. If left untreated, the following underlying issues can compromise a family’s sobriety:

  • Lack of Identity and self esteem.
  • Lack of ability to do things in moderation.
  • Toxic, pain-producing shame.
  • Lack of mature coping skills.
  • Deeply repressed, backlogged emotions.

Our program is designed for all members of the addictive family system (but not concurrently). Our groups consist of people with a wide array of negative behavior patterns, including substance issues, relationship problems, sexual compulsivity, eating/food issues, workaholism, perfectionism, control and caretaking, misery and martyrdom, rage and anger, and anxiety and depression. We apply twelve-step principles to all of these self-defeating, unmanageable habits.

We strongly recommend that family and significant others participate in our intensive family program, a three-day, dynamic, education and therapeutic blend designed to facilitate and motivate each person’s entry into his/her own recovery.

Codependency, Trauma & Process Addictions

At The Bridge, codependency is defined as the pain in adulthood that comes from being wounded in childhood and leads to a high probability of relationship problems and addictive/compulsive behavior. It is a combination of immature thinking, feeling and behaving that generates an aversive relationship with the self (self-loathing), which the codependent individuals acts out through self-destructive or unduly self-sacrificial behavior.

Trauma and traumatic experiences result from highly stressful events that shatter a person’s sense of safety, security and serenity. In many cases, trauma renders one helpless and vulnerable or hardened and volatile in a world perceived as dangerous. In many cases, traumatic experiences entail a threat to life or overall well-being, but any situation that leaves a person feeling overwhelmed and alone can be traumatic, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective facts that determine whether an event is traumatic, but one’s interpretation of the event. The more anxious, panicky and paralyzed a person feels, the more likely the persona has been traumatized.

Addiction is anything a person makes highest priority in life, over and above other priorities, doing it to his/her own detriment to the detriment of others who are closest to him/her and continuing to do it even in the face of obvious negative consequences. Two broad categories of addiction are Ingested Substance Addictions and Process Addictions. Ingested Substance Addictions include any synthetic or natural substance one might frequently ingest in excess for the purpose of medicating physical, emotional and/or mental pain. Process Addictions include any activity, thought, feeling or relationship one might use to alleviate the personal pain one experiences as intolerable reality. People suffering from codependency walk the fine line of being addicted to any mind or mood altering substance or process.

As individuals and collective families address their codependency issues, they are more likely to obtain the long-term recovery they desire. Therefore, a significant part of our program focuses on core historical issues that create and/or contribute to present day relationship problems, heightened levels of anxiety, unchecked anger issues, depression, obsessive thought patterns and compulsive behaviors that manifest as addiction.