Welcome to Fishtown Wellness Center

Fishtown Wellness Center helps individuals and families create, cultivate, and sustain the life they want to live.

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Flexible appointments, offering day/evening/weekend sessions based on clinician availability
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inquiries@fishtownwellness.com

1-267-764-1997

430 Belgrade St. Philadelphia, PA 19125

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Addiction & Recovery

Addiction

Substance use and addiction affects millions of Americans.  The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that the U.S. addiction rates are on the rise. Beyond addiction to alcohol and drugs, millions of other people have addictive behaviors including: food addiction, gambling, technology use, and more. Unfortunately, few people get support for their addiction because of stigma. Fishtown Wellness Center is proud to offer support for both substance use and addiction.

What is Addiction?

Addiction occurs when your brain and body crave and compulsively engage with a drug or addictive behavior. These cravings can become overwhelming and difficult to control, significantly impacting one’s behavior and daily life.

Substances and addictive behaviors can do the following:

  • Change the way your brain works
  • Change your behavior and personality
  • Cause memory loss
  • Reduce the ability to feel pleasure
  • Reduce problem-solving abilities
  • Cause problems with decision-making
  • Cause erratic behavior
  • Affect your ability to manage anxiety and stress

Substances and addictive behaviors can become more important to people suffering from addiction than eating or sleeping and can affect their decision-making skills and how they live their lives.

Clinical Addictions Counseling
"this is the sign you've been looking for" in neon lights
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Addiction Therapy

The American Psychological Association says that the best treatment approaches for addiction include cognitive-behavioral therapy, contingency management, and motivational interviewing. The counselors at Fishtown Wellness center combine these approaches to support people during recovery.

Our counselors will work with you to help identify the thoughts and behaviors that support your addiction so you can regain a sense of control in your life. This might include: identifying triggers that cause you to crave your substance or behavior of choice and ways that you can cope when these cravings arise. Our counselors use motivational interviewing to help you identify manageable goals that feel realistic and attainable.

Addiction counseling can help you learn what started these addictive behaviors and what continues to feed them. Once the sources have been identified, we can work together to figure out the best way to help you manage these behaviors.

Having a support system is one of the most important aspects in recovery. Your loved ones play an important role in your recovery. Our counselors work together with them to create a supportive environment to help you in your recovery journey.

Harm Reduction

What is harm reduction?

Harm reduction is a method for addiction treatment that involves minimizing the challenging impacts of addiction in everyday life. It is a non-judgemental approach that allows you to identify the changes you want to make that best fit with your overall health goals.

Harm reduction values the autonomy and agency of the individual. Within this model, the quality of individual and community life (as opposed to abstinence-achievement) is the criteria for successful interventions and approaches. Your provider will work with you to identify the positive changes you want to make in your life and support you in making the best individual and relational decisions for yourself, whatever that may look like.

multi-colored hands
Source: Tim Mossholder via Unsplash

Principles of harm reduction

According to the National Harm Reduction Coalition, harm reduction incorporates a spectrum of strategies that includes safer use, managed use, abstinence, meeting people who use drugs “where they’re at”, and addressing conditions of use along with the use itself.  The Coalition considers some of the following principles central to harm reduction practice:

  • Works to minimize harmful effects of both licit and illicit drug use, rather than simply ignoring or condemning them
  • Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being- not necessarily cessation of all drug-use- as the criteria for successful interventions & practices
  • Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination, and other social inequities affect both people’s vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug-related harm
  • Understands drug use as a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon encompassing a continuum of behaviors from severe use to total abstinence
  • Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger that can be associated with illicit drug use

Contact Us

Get help from Fishtown Wellness Center

To start your journey to recovery, call Fishtown Wellness Center today to be paired with an addiction recovery specialist. If you need a structured setting or a higher level of care, we work with treatment providers in the area to find you the best possible care.

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