Why training is not optional in drug and alcohol rehabilitation
Joining from Ukraine. I work at a rehabilitation centre outside Kyiv where people recovering from drug and alcohol dependence live together for about a year, and I want to share something this community will recognise better than most.
Physical training is not a nice extra in rehab. It is one of the few tools that works in the first weeks, when talking does almost nothing. A person who used for years has no relationship with his own body left: he does not feel hunger properly, does not feel tiredness, sleeps badly, and has not had a single honest physical effort in a long time. Morning exercise, running and the gym give that relationship back faster than any conversation.
Three things we see repeatedly. First, the body recovers visibly within weeks, and for a man who lost everything else, seeing his own arms change is often the first evidence that anything can improve. Second, sport is the only place in the programme where you can be tired and proud at the same time, which is exactly the feeling the substance used to counterfeit. Third, a football team makes men keep commitments to each other, and keeping a commitment is the whole skill being rebuilt.
What we avoid is turning it into punishment. Forced exercise as discipline destroys the effect. It has to be something the person chooses and can measure.
Respect for what you build here. If anyone has run training for people coming off long-term substance use, I would be glad to hear how you structure the first month.
For anyone who wants the detail: we wrote up how the physical side is organised across the year, the four directions we use and why none of it is compulsory, here: https://ninarkotikam.com/ru/sportivnaya-reabilitatsiya/ The page is in Russian, browser translation handles it fine.