Tag: substance abuse treatment

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What is Collegiate Recovery?

Posted on December 14, 2020 - 4:54 pm by

Long-term recovery from addiction starts with a supportive community. In recovery, some of the most successful programs not only give tools while in a controlled area like a recovery center or group therapy, but when actively involved in the outside world. A person also needs goals to work towards a better future. Enter: Collegiate Recovery. 

So, what is Collegiate Recovery?

Like the name suggests, a collegiate recovery program offers a supportive environment in a college or university campus culture. Collegiate recovery reinforces positive and proactive measures in helping a person with a problematic substance use history. While each collegiate recovery community (CRC) is unique, there are often a range of social workers/counselors, student volunteers, work study students, peer-support specialists, and academic advisors that are trained in this field to ensure a point of contact. 

Someone taking part in a collegiate recovery program may already be an enrolled student looking for additional support or a new student going to school to better their future prospects.

Collegiate recovery is unique in that it offers campus-based resources that focus on the college-age population, but of course isn’t limited to that group. Professionals working in CRC’s are often treating young men and women dealing with similar issues and struggles, which means they can focus on behavioral health needs that may differ from those exploring recovery outside a campus setting. 

Cassidy Conway LCAS-A, LCMHC-A, NCC, one of our primary therapists in the Green Hill Outpatient program, often interacts with clients who could benefit from collegiate recovery. She talked with us about how clients in this age group develop an identity around drug use and how it may affect them long term.

“Some unique challenges I assist clients with are finding their own identity. Typically, at the age of our clients, these young men are at the developmental stage of stepping into their voice, character, and are developing their own identity independently from peers. Because they have had a problematic relationship with substances during this developmental stage, their identity is strongly connected to their use.”

With the success of the collegiate recovery student in mind, both professionals and peers taking part in this program create visibility around the recovery process on the campus. 

What Kind of Support is Offered?

Making Contacts: When students are taking the first steps in collegiate recovery, this program would offer both general and specific information to get them involved as soon as possible. To start, you’ll often find CRCs include peer support groups, sober recreational outings, collegiate recovery sponsored events, sober tailgating events, and student counseling centers. The goal is to make college a successful experience for the recovering student.

Conway continues, “A collegiate recovery program offers a sense of community. Peer support is key to long-term recovery. With the unique stressors of being a student, having support at school is crucial. Each program is different, however, if the school has professional staff on campus, you have university employees advocating for you. That can look like helping get back into school after going to treatment, sober dorms/living, priority scheduling so your classes don’t interfere with any outpatient program you may still be involved in.”

Financial Foundation: One of the biggest stressors in a college experience can be financially related. While not universal, CRCs can sometimes offer resources that can directly help with financial aid, recovery housing, and a consistent space or room provided for support groups and one-on-one meetings. 

Emotional Support: When feeling vulnerable or challenged with something outside of your comfort zone, having a community of support is everything. Emotional support is offered by openness and inclusion through community gatherings, staff and peer interactions, and through community service projects. 

Though collegiate recovery is considered supplemental along with other types of support, experts often stress the importance of community as the cornerstone of long term recovery. One of the most meaningful contributing factors to long-term recovery is a reliable recovery network. This is especially true for the college-aged population, for whom connecting with peers who can relate to problematic substance use and now are exploring goals towards recovery is incredibly important. Connecting with other young people in recovery also creates the opportunity to learn you can have fun and a full life in a sober environment.

At Green Hill, we believe collegiate recovery programs and efforts are essential for our clients, as we’ve seen the impact they can have on young men’s lives. It is an incredible motivator to feel like they have a community and that they’re back on track, working towards goals. Both our Transitional Living and Outpatient programs offers opportunities for college-bound young men dealing with SUD to understand the nuances of recovery, the triggers, and the challenges of a college experience that can prove helpful in the recovery process. 

Want to learn more about collegiate recovery options in Raleigh or elsewhere in North Carolina? Give us a call at 984-204-1106 and we’ll help you find the right resources.

What is the Community-Reinforcement Approach (CRA)?

Posted on December 7, 2020 - 12:09 pm by

By Marcus Shumate, LCMHC, LCAS, Clinical Outreach Director, Green Hill

Community-Reinforcement Approach (CRA) is one of the more interesting clinical models for treating substance use disorders. It may lack the notoriety of other models, but it makes up for its lack of notoriety in its effectiveness. In the research arena, CRA has a strong evidence base to support its utilization (Resources: 1, 2).

What is the Community-Reinforcement Approach exactly? And, if it has such good outcomes, one could ask, why haven’t I heard of it? Hopefully this blog post can clear up some of those questions and introduce the approach to you. 

What is the Community-Reinforcement Approach (CRA)?


The Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA) is a psychosocial intervention for individuals with alcohol and other drug use disorders that focuses on helping individuals find healthier, more adaptive ways to meet their social and emotional needs than using substances.

Source: Recovery Answers – Community Reinforcement Approach

At the risk of removing some of the more interesting nuance about CRA, I’ll try to go beyond just a brief overview of what it is and how it works. That said, CRA is absolutely worth additional time and exploration so feel free to reach out to me or check out online resources to learn more about CRA (Such as 1, 2). Frankly, I believe more people in the substance use disorder treatment field should know about it and utilize it. 

Community-Reinforcement Approach relies heavily on assumptions found in behaviorism. Behaviorism is essentially the theory that human behavior is shaped by the environment through a process referred to as conditioning. CRA runs on the notion that a client can obtain sobriety through creating an incentive-rich environment that reinforces sobriety. It relies heavily on a tool called the Happiness Scale, which helps a client rate his/her level of satisfaction in various life areas (education, vocation, relationships, recreation, spirituality, etc.) during their initial sessions. From there a treatment plan is formed in which the client and therapist agree to focus on improving the level of satisfaction in agreed upon areas. 

How is Community-Reinforcement Approach (CRA) Different?

Unlike other modalities for addressing substance use disorder, CRA prioritizes improving quality of life independent of a person’s ongoing substance use. The great benefit in this difference is that, at some point, a natural tension is created where a client’s desire to keep using substances begins to interfere with his/her agreed upon life goals. In this way, an organic desire for change can begin to emerge while the client has been improving his/her life. 

Here is an example – imagine a scenario where a client rates their “overall satisfaction” with their education progress as “low”, and then working with them to identify the necessary skills that would allow them to elevate their satisfaction. However, their satisfaction here will likely meet an artificial ceiling if they can’t stop drinking excessively which leads to failing to complete assignments, or showing up to class hungover. Eventually, something has to change if they’d like to do better. On the other side of this process, they will have all the more reason to keep working on their sobriety because they are doing well in school and wouldn’t want to jeopardize that. 

The Community-Reinforcement Approach (CRA) Reward System

On a personal note, one of the reasons I love CRA is that I am skeptical about the amount of free will a person actually has. If you’ll indulge the notion that free will may be rather limited, I’ll build my case on why CRA does a good job of accounting for this. As humans we’re heavily driven by activities that we find rewarding and don’t have control over what we do find rewarding. 

In the case of addiction, that experience of “reward” can drive a person to ongoing and problematic use because of how intense the reward sensation can be. Over time, this can lead to a narrowing of priorities where a person’s brain is almost exclusively focused on obtaining that reward sensation through substances. 

CRA creates a system by which a client can focus on building other pathways for obtaining those reward sensations. Once an environment has been created that provides other rewarding experiences, substances start to lose some of their inherent appeal. 

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, CRA is focused on building a life that is more rewarding and meaningful than substance use. This meaningful and rewarding life then in turn helps pull someone towards a more sober life.

This emphasis on building a meaningful life is ultimately why this clinical model fits so perfectly with Green Hill’s approach to treatment and recovery. We remain focused on what we’re most passionate about: the work of helping our clients find purpose and flourish.

Upcoming Virtual Parent Support Group – Tuesday 12/8 at 7pm ET

Posted on November 20, 2020 - 3:30 pm by

Click here to register for the December Parent Support Group session

Green Hill is pleased to offer our Virtual Parent Support Group on Tuesday, December 8th at 7pm, open to any parent concerned about the substance use or abuse by their adolescent or young adult child. The main topic for the group this month is boundaries. 

Having clear boundaries with a young adult in active addiction and/or early recovery provides a framework for expectations on both sides.  Learning which boundaries to set, how to communicate them and the healthiest ways to enforce them are some of the hardest questions for parents. 

Join Matt O’Connor, Green Hill’s Clinical Director and boundary expert to learn effective strategies for setting and enforcing boundaries in the family system.

Here are some additional questions we’ll explore in the Parent Support Group:

  • What is an effective and ineffective boundary?  
  • What are the differences between personal and contact boundaries? 
  • How do we set boundaries as a family unit vs personal boundaries? 

The Parent Support Group offers psychoeducation by highly trained clinicians from the Green Hill staff and community of collaborators, along with opportunities for peer support, Q&A and resource-sharing. There is no cost or commitment to participate; just an opportunity to find support and guidance. 

Click here to register for the December Parent Support Group session

Dr. Sara Koenig Joins the Green Hill Team as Medical Director

Posted on November 2, 2020 - 12:11 pm by

We are excited to announce that Dr. Sara Koenig has joined the team as our first Medical Director. This is a major step in bringing full-time integrated care to our clients, by offering medical treatment within our organization. 

As the Medical Director, Sara will provide and supervise direct medical care for all our clients, and help us to continue to build a true integrated and integrative medicine practice.  Sara brings years of training and experience in traditional clinical management of addictions and co-occurring disorders to the Green Hill team. 

Our CEO Tripp Johnson said “I couldn’t be more thrilled to have a true leader and innovator joining the team. We’ve worked together for the past year, sharing a number of clients between Green Hill and Triangle Wellness and Recovery. Dr. Koenig has a nuanced, sophisticated understanding of substance use and mental health disorder and even more importantly, she is aligned with our values and vision for what treatment can look like.” 

Dr. Koenig graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill in 2006, and is triple board certified in Addiction Medicine, Clinical Pathology and Transfusion Medicine. She has held various positions as an addiction medicine physician, clinical faculty member at multiple universities, and medical director.

Sara now owns her own private practice, Triangle Wellness & Recovery with the vision of providing personalized, evidence-based integrative care for substance use disorders, behavioral addictions, and chronic pain in a compassionate and innovative multidisciplinary setting. She is a national consultant on the topics of addiction and harm reduction and is a member of both the American Society for Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and the American Association of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP)

Keep an eye out for an upcoming Meet the Team feature on Sara for an opportunity to learn more about her other professional ventures and what motivates her personally. 

Culture Is Why I Joined Green Hill – by Marcus Shumate

Posted on October 19, 2020 - 12:53 pm by

I am currently writing this entry from the comfort of my home office. That strikes me as an odd sentence to write; I never envisioned myself as the “home office” sort of fella. I am almost one month into this new career path and I think I may have finally gotten some footing so it seems like now would be a good time to reflect further on what pulled me to join the Green Hill team. 

Clinical work in recovery and after-care settings is unique in that you can really feel as though you are joining a client’s family system in some capacity for a short period of time. When this happens, it is natural to feel some allegiance to the client and family that can make referring them to a different program, at least for me, an anxiety-provoking experience.  But that said, I was uniquely interested in Green Hill as a referring clinician from my first meeting with their staff. It was truly exciting to make my first few referrals to them. 

Almost immediately, I found my anxiety alleviated by the amount of thought and care Green Hill put into building individual “scaffolding” around each client we referred to them. The anxiety was further removed by watching those same clients begin to flourish.  We loved hearing the positive feedback from the clients and their families about Green Hill. 

On a personal level, I knew from my first meeting with Tripp Johnson and some of the other members of the team that we shared a lot of mutual interests. Some of these interests were podcasts, books, and contemplative practices; but the interests were also things more intrinsic. I recognized a deep interest for innovation, curiosity, and willingness to “live on the cusp of failure.”

The early interactions with Green Hill offered an opportunity for serendipitous conversations with Tripp and others at Green Hill that continue to this day. I got to watch from outside the Green Hill leadership team innovate and build clinical models with which I was deeply aligned. I have long found it curious that the substance use treatment field has such little risk tolerance when it comes to helping young adults in addiction and mental health treatment. No one arrives in our care because they are having their best moment or making the best decisions. As such, I think we as a field tend to focus entirely too much on “symptom-reduction” in the form of chasing silly power struggles. I believe this has the unfortunate effect of defocusing on helping a client truly flourish and limits the ability to help a client achieve something truly meaningful.  

The clinical model at Green Hill is totally focused on helping a client achieve his respective goals and start to explore paths of deep meaning and substance. It is not simply about being sober. That part, while difficult, is doable.

The part that is really tough is figuring out how to build a life filled with passion, curiosity, and meaning. The fact that Green Hill is in downtown Raleigh, NC and surrounded by career and educational opportunities is a reflection that it is not simply about “symptom-reduction.” The clinical model is designed to help a client explore and develop his passions and curiosities that can provide a lifetime of meaning. 

Leaving my former place of employment was a remarkably difficult decision for me. I loved the team that I worked with. We spent years building close relationships that were a daily source of enjoyment and laughter for me. Yet, when the opportunity to join Green Hill became an option, I could not resist. At the end of the day, there was just too much alignment and too much opportunity for personal and professional growth. I am a big believer in the significant personal growth that can happen through a developed professional culture.

Before I joined, I sensed a chance for growth at Green Hill. Now that I am on the inside, I have experienced a culture that exists all the way from clients to the leadership team, and which is focused on flourishing –  personally and professionally. I am excited about all that the culture of Green Hill can bring to me, and those that we serve. 

And if you couldn’t tell, my favorite co-worker is equally excited about getting into the work.

Green Hill Increases Accessibility to Substance Use Treatment by Joining Aetna as In-Network Provider

Posted on October 12, 2020 - 1:20 pm by

PRESS RELEASE: October 12, 2020, Raleigh, NC – Green Hill Recovery, a Raleigh-based treatment provider for young adults grappling with substance use disorder (SUD), announced today that it has become an in-network provider for Aetna. This announcement marks a monumental step forward in Green Hill’s effort to make high quality treatment more affordable and accessible for families in North Carolina and beyond.

Aetna is the nation’s third largest insurance provider, and in-network status will provide Green Hill’s clients and families more stable insurance reimbursements and lower our cost of care. Going in-network is for Green Hill a reflection of the company’s desire to operate as a values-based, mission-driven organization. As an in-network provider, Green Hill can build further financial transparency, and achieve a greater level of unity with clients and families. 

Green Hill CEO Tripp Johnson was excited about what this meant for the future, saying “Our first in-network contract is a major step in our mission to provide quality, affordable healthcare. There’s often a tension between providers and insurance companies, especially in the substance use and mental health field. Providers think insurance companies should cover more services and insurance companies don’t want to pay for ineffective treatments. Forging partnerships with insurance providers will help us change that narrative and achieve the goal of increasing access to quality care.”  

Green Hill has set a goal for 2021 to become an in-network provider for United, Anthem, Cigna, Aetna, and Humana. 

Tripp Johnson also added “We would really like to thank our team and our mentors in the behavioral health field for helping us to navigate this process. We could not have achieved this without them.”

The continued rise in SUD and co-occurring mental health conditions needs to be met with innovation and creative solutions. Organizations like Green Hill must continue to play a role in making high quality treatment more accessible and affordable. 

About Green Hill: Green Hill is a nationally recognized treatment provider for young adults grappling with substance use and other co-occurring mental health disorders. Green Hill prepares clients for success beyond their days in treatment through sophisticated addiction, mental health, and executive functioning treatment; intentional community integration, experiential, and wellness offerings; and individualized academic, career, and personal growth curriculum. At its core, Green Hill empowers individuals to live with profound purpose.

Cassidy Conway Joins the Green Hill Team as Primary Therapist

Posted on September 28, 2020 - 2:07 pm by

Green Hill is excited to announce that Cassidy Conway LCAS-A, LCMHC-A, NCC has joined the team as a Primary Therapist for our Outpatient program. Cassidy conducts individual and group counseling for our Outpatient clients, helping them along their journey of growth and development through the Green Hill curriculum. In addition to counseling, Cassidy is actively working to expand the Green Hill curriculum to an online platform. 

Cassidy graduated from Drexel University with a dual-degree in Psychology and Behavioral Health Counseling and received her Master’s degree in Counseling from UNC Charlotte. Cassidy believes her professional calling for providing substance use counseling found her, rather than the other way around. While working in a hospital, Cassidy recognized for the first time a clear stigma against the disease of addiction in a medical setting. 

Such experiences drove her passion to educate and advocate for the recovery community.  Cassidy uses a person-centered, trauma informed, and systemic approach, adjusting her treatment plans to account for the individual life journey of each client. She finds the power of community and collaboration within counseling to be essential components of treatment.

Green Hill’s Outpatient Director Brandon Robinson had this to say about Cassidy: “Cassidy is someone who sees recovery as a process and knows her role is to support that process, whether it goes forward or backwards.  Her sensitivity, quirky humor, and creativity set her apart from other professionals, but most of all, her ability to role model how the female gender can influence and relate to young men in early recovery is paramount.”

Check back soon to see our Meet the Team feature on Cassidy for a chance to get to know her even better.

Welcome to the team Cassidy!

Green Hill’s Why: A Look at What Inspires Us

Posted on June 23, 2020 - 4:24 pm by

The most powerful question an organization can answer is why.

Why did we start this company? Why do we serve the people we serve? Why do we get out of bed each morning to do this? Most companies are attempting to solve some problem in our world. These problems can be as large as world hunger, or as small as getting the most out of a toothpaste tube.

The problem a company sets out to solve is most closely linked to their why statement. The Golden Circle model, popularized by Simon Sinek in Start with Why, argues that we must analyze the What, How, & Why of an organization. In this post, we will use this framework to explain why we do what we do, and why it is so critical. 

The Problem 

The statistics on substance-use disorder (SUD) and the opioid epidemic are grim. The population it is impacting continues to get younger, and the small percentage of people that are attending treatment are entering a system that simply isn’t working. From any angle you analyze this, the current treatment model has flaws. 

Here are a few of the more alarming numbers: 

Treatment in many cases is either not affordable, not accessible, or not high enough quality to fix this problem. Studies increasingly show that length in treatment dramatically decreases the percentage of relapse, and a more deliberate and meaningful transition back to “normal life” is essential in recovery. 

Let’s be very clear, addiction is a costly, dangerous, and growing problem in America that every treatment center is trying to solve. What we’ve learned is that this is more closely associated with the what (we do) instead of the why (we do it). We had to look deeper within our organization and ourselves. 

This problem hits home and is a personal one for Green Hill’s owners, Tripp and Jake. Their initial bond was formed during their time at West Point and largely centered around drinking. In his early twenties, Jake struggled to find his academic footing after alcoholism interrupted his college career. He learned that by committing himself each day to building a strong foundation, success in recovery, school, and professional life was possible.

For Tripp, it wasn’t until he returned from a deployment to Afghanistan that he took a serious look at the direction of his life and his substance use. Tripp soon committed to self-inquiry and personal development mainly through the daily practices of meditation and yoga which have allowed him to live a confident, grounded life while pursuing his dreams. 

Jake and Tripp have learned through experience that a successful recovery and life are possible when one takes intentional steps on the paths of self-discovery and personal development.

What, How, & Why 

Green Hill offers clinically-driven transitional living and outpatient programs for emerging adults in early recovery.  Founded in 2017, Green Hill serves young men in early recovery from across the nation. Our curriculum focuses on academic, career, and life skills specifically designed to help prepare emerging adults for wellness beyond treatment. Our program helps residents discover their core values, empowers them to take ownership of their own recovery,  and connects them with their sense of purpose and the broader community.

During the first few years of Green Hill’s existence, we focused almost exclusively on the what (we do). Green Hill’s what consists of clinical and executive functioning modules, academic lessons, and activities facilitated by our front line team.

Our what is in essence the various activities and programs our clients undertake during the course of their time with us. Our mission was to help change lives, and our program was accomplishing just that, so we stayed the course. 

Towards the end of 2019, we started to take a step back to really take a look at the how (we do it well). Our core processes, our policies and procedures, and our training schedule. How is the thing that makes an organization sustainable. The how level was the first major leap in making our organization robust and sustainable. We figured out what we did really well and how to replicate it. 

It wasn’t until 2020 that we realized a clearly articulated why (we do it) was largely missing from our Green Hill brand, company materials, and communications. As individuals, we all know more or less why we chose to work at Green Hill and why the company mission matters. However, there was never enough emphasis on putting words to the backdrop (the context) on which all of our efforts occur. Green Hill exists to empower young adults to build better lives: we give our clients what they need to experience true flourishing. 

So, about that ‘why’? 

We have come to discover that our why is more of a reflection of our views of treatment models. Our long-term vision is to continue to develop a new approach to treatment, which will be the Green Hill Model. We are tired of seeing our friends, siblings, parents, and children go off to treatment and come back without a foundation for a life in sobriety.

Too many times in our experience does treatment seem like a break from addiction rather than the foundation for a new meaningful life. In our view, we exist to bring passion, energy, and a new perspective to addiction treatment. We hope to serve as pioneers and innovators in this field, and to make gradual shifts in how we approach care and measure outcomes.

What is the Green Hill Model?

Our model is based on a very simple assumption. One must replace a life of addiction with a more desirable life in recovery. Individuals in active addiction are passionate people. The passion we had for getting high and drunk would have made us zealots in another context. Our entire lives revolved around our addictions, and substances were the gravitational center of our universe. Every part of our lives existed to help meet our desire to continue using.

It pains us to say this, but it is an important admission. You may not be an expert in the SUD field, but in a simple sense, does this sound like a change that takes less than 30 days? Most treatment models start and end with the 30-day inpatient program, known as “rehab”.

This analogy may seem dramatic, but it is important. We have to create a new more and powerful gravitational center to our lives in recovery. Oftentimes, it is the notion of recovery itself that becomes that passion. Working in the field, helping others, making amends. What we use as our new center is not as important as the acknowledgement that the void we are attempting to fill is that large. Our entire program is built around this. 

Problem Solvers

So what are the primary problems the Green Hill Model solves? Individualized care, gradual transition, and foundational focus.

Individualized Care: 

Many programs say they provide individualized care. What that generally means is that they take the individual mental health situations into account while providing a more broad based substance-use disorder treatment plan. The Green Hill Model expands this individualized approach to life.

Discovering what makes you happy and what you want to do with the rest of your life is a foundational element of our curriculum. Finding a passion project, resuming academic studies, or starting a career are all unique to the individual, and an important part of filling this void created by leaving our addiction behind. 

Gradual Transition: 

As our Development Director talked about in our post Recovery Isn’t Linear, we believe that life and recovery are a series of successes and setbacks. Our curriculum lets individuals transition from treatment to a fulfilling life in a deliberately slow way. It always amazes us to see this in action with our clients. Some clients will come to Green Hill dead set on pursuing a particular path, only to discover three to six months later that they really want to do something else entirely.

You would be blown away at the number of would be accountants or lawyers that go back to school to become therapists after entering recovery. Taking your time and building space for curiosity, self discovery, and mistakes is a part of our curriculum. We acknowledge that this is not an overnight fix. 

This Isn’t Summer Camp: 

An unfortunate truth about this field is that many treatment centers substitute fun for progress. While learning how to have fun in recovery is necessary, it does not solve the problem. Fun is a temporary solution in the same way alcohol and drugs were.

We love when our residents have fun, we encourage it in programs like our Passion Projects initiative, but we have not built our entire program around it. We spend our clinical hours tackling foundational elements of a fulfilling and successful life in recovery. Treatment is not summer camp, and we cannot treat it as such. We are making an investment in a sustainable lifelong future in sobriety. 

Where We Go From Here 

These are only a few of the problems Green Hill solves, but any treatment program that focuses on building a lifelong foundation for a meaningful life is a compelling solution to the problems this field faces. We urge other programs to take a step back and look at why they are in this field instead of what they do on a day to day basis. 

If you are a treatment / therapy or education professional who believes in the importance of solving the problems of existing treatment models and helping young people to reach their potential, we’d love to connect with you. We hope to discover, collaborate and partner with professionals and programs in the country who share this philosophy and passion for quality care.

Drop us a line, follow us on Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter. We look forward to hearing from you and learning about your why.

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