What is a typical day at Sage Recovery Villa?
All time is scheduled and organized, helping clients build new structure and routine and increase accountability. Each day, clients attend wellness programming in the morning, such as yoga, acupuncture detoxification, or time with a personal trainer in the gymnasium, as well as participate in a period of mindful reflection or meditation. Clients attend several hours of group therapy each day, divided between process groups and psychoeducational groups. Additionally, all clients receive two, one-hour individual therapy sessions per week.
Meal times are scheduled, with dietician-planned and chef-prepared meals that are locally-sourced, and organic when available. In the evenings, clients attend either an on-site or off-site sober support meeting, attend a house meeting, and have down time, where they can relax with a number of healthy options, such as journaling, swimming, spending time in the recreational center, gym, or the library. Down time is also when clients can schedule personalized services, such as massage, acupuncture, and cosmetology or esthetician services. Week days are typically more structured than weekends, with group outings usually occurring on Sundays.
Does Sage Recovery Villa accept insurance?
Sage Recovery Villa is an out-of-network provider. An out-of-network provider is one which has not contracted with your insurance company for reimbursement at a negotiated rate. Some health plans, like HMOs, do not reimburse out-of-network providers at all. If you have a PPO policy that offers out-of-network benefits, your policy may cover a significant portion of mental health and addiction treatment costs. Our Admissions team is happy to provide clients with a “super bill” for out of network claims that the client can submit to his or her insurance company for reimbursement.
What are the living arrangements like?
Getting though the first stage of recovery is challenging enough, without the added discomfort of camped and unpleasant living arrangements. We’ve designed Sage Recovery Villa with your loved one’s comfort in mind. The property is located on a 24-acre estate just east of Austin, Texas. Clients are housed in a beautiful eight-bedroom home, that has been renovated to meet the needs of a treatment facility. Clients feel relaxed and comfortable in a home-like, luxurious environment, instead of cramped and uneasy in a more institutionalized setting.
Each bedroom is semi-private and has an attached bathroom, meaning that two individuals share a bedroom and bathroom. Private rooms are available for individuals who prefer a more exclusive experience.
Are clients responsible for chores while at Sage Recovery Villa?
We encourage all our clients to take responsibility for their personal space, in order to create a sense of accountability and ownership, as well as a new, healthy routine. All clients are expected to make their beds each morning and keep their living quarters neat and orderly. We have a daily housekeeping service that takes care of deep cleaning, and chefs who are responsible for meals.
How long will my loved one be at Sage Recovery Villa?
The typical treatment stay at Sage Recovery Villa is 35 days. We’ve added an extra week to the traditional model of 28-day residential treatment for a couple of reasons.
We’ve found that even for individuals who have successfully completed an inpatient detoxification process, the first week of residential treatment is often “foggy”, with individuals not functioning at their full capacity yet. When stopping the use of drugs and alcohol, it takes time for the brain to readjust. And while this readjustment period typically lasts much longer than one week, the first week of the process tends to be extremely difficult. It’s normal for clients to get through their first week of treatment feeling a little confused and “out of it”. To make up for the muddled period, we’ve added one week of treatment, so individuals can receive and process information when they’re feeling more clear and receptive.
Secondly, research indicates that the longer an individual stays in residential treatment, the better the chances are for long term success in sobriety. We recognize the difficulty in getting away from work, family, and personal obligations for an extended period of time, and believe that 35 days is the perfect amount of time for beginning to reset old, unhealthy patterns, while still being a realistic period of time for a “time out” from daily stresses.
What is the average age of residents at Sage Recovery Villa?
Sage Recovery Villa works with adult clients, ages 18 and up. Our clinical team is equipped to work with a wide range of ages and maturity levels. We have found that having a larger range of ages and experiences in the client population often helps facilitate a more dynamic conversation. Individuals can gain a more accurate representation of the disease of addiction when they are exposed to varying ages and viewpoints.
With that in mind, therapy groups can be divided by age groups if necessary, for more personalized age-relevant conversation, such as creating a young adult process group.
Is Sage Recovery Villa a ‘lock down’ facility? Can clients leave at any time?
Sage Recovery Villa is not a ‘lock down’ facility. Clients come to treatment on their own (although there may be several contributing circumstances or factors that intensify the need for treatment), and they can leave on their own. Sage Recovery Villa does not operate as an incarceration institution or psychiatric hospital, where clients can be mandated to attend. Every effort will be made by staff to deter clients from leaving before their discharge date, but ultimately, the decision to leave is up to the client.
What is ‘aftercare’?
Aftercare refers to continued support and structure at a lower level of care, and in this case, after discharging from residential treatment. Aftercare includes programs such as an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), sober living, individual therapy, couples therapy, family therapy, sober support meetings, and self-care. These aftercare options are an important part of continuing the habits formed while in residential care. Any structured activity that promotes wellness can be considered part of an aftercare plan.
While at Sage Recovery Villa, clients learn about the importance of aftercare and developing their own personal strategy for success after treatment. For family or support members, it’s important to be familiar with with available aftercare programming options, so the client can be best be supported and encouraged.
Is addiction really a disease?
The consensus of medical and psychiatric professionals is that addiction is a brain disease, and follows the same chronic and progressive patterns as other medical diseases, such as diabetes and asthma. Like many diseases, there are several identified contributing causes or risk factors associated with developing an addiction, including biological, environmental, and psychological factors. While there is no “cure” for addiction, there are methods that have been proven to help get the disease into remission, such as psychotherapy and medical interventions. This change takes time, commitment, and patience for everyone involved.
We encourage you to attend Sage Recovery Villa Family Visitation and Family Retreat Weekend as well as psychotherapy and family support meetings in your community for continual support and to help educate yourself on the disease of addiction.
Why is addiction considered a family disease?
In addition to affecting the individual struggling with a substance use disorder, addiction affects the entire family unit. Eventually, the addiction becomes the organizing principle for the family, with everything revolving around the addict and the addiction. Families are systems, and when something changes within a system, the change reverberates.
Family units all strive to maintain an internal level of homeostasis. When one member’s behavior is out of sync with the behavior of the rest of the unit, the entire family system makes behavioral changes in an attempt to maintain a level of balance. Meaning that when one member of the family begins to struggle with a substance use disorder, the other members feel the changes, and in turn alter their own behaviors to match the addict’s behavior and regain a sense of normalcy.
In all family systems, specific features exist that make up the “culture” of that family, such as family roles, rules, values, beliefs, and shared history. When addiction comes into play, the culture of the family changes. Roles shift, rules are broken, values and beliefs are no longer aligned with behaviors, and communication changes. The family system becomes chaotic and unpredictable, mirroring the behaviors of the addict. The other family members develop their own coping strategies as a result, which are often maladaptive, and inadvertently further the addiction’s negative effects on the system. Effective treatment of addiction involves the entire family.
Why do a residential treatment program?
The development of a substance use disorder exists on a spectrum, ranging from abstinence to addiction or dependency. As substance use continues and progresses on the continuum, higher levels of care are required. When use becomes moderate to severe, and an individual is having difficulty stopping their use on their own, inpatient or residential treatment may be required.
Drug use continuum
Non-use 
Use Risky use Abuse Dependency
Residential treatment has the unique capability to temporarily remove the individual from their environment, ending access to drugs and alcohol. Residential treatment is an immersive experience, where the individual is living a life of recovery 24/7. For 35 days, the client is exposed to nothing but how to live a life of new, healthy habits, almost “rewiring” the brain. Residential treatment at Sage Recovery Villa is a methodical, organized, evidenced-based approach at learning the beginning steps of recovery from addiction.
Through intensive individual and group therapy, psychoeducation, and experiential activities, clients start build new, healthy habits and empower themselves make and sustain the changes necessary for long-term change.
What does ‘holistic’ mean in terms of addiction treatment?
Because one size doesn’t fit all with addiction recovery, presenting several paths towards healing is key. Our goal is to help your loved one build a personalized recovery plan, pulled from a variety of sources. In addition to the more “main stream” approaches to addiction treatment, such as 12-Step involvement and attending psychotherapy, several holistic, alternative approaches to healing exist. Holistic healing is a comprehensive approach of looking at the whole health of an individual, taking into account several dimensions of health, including physical, emotional, and spiritual. From a holistic view point, mind, body, and spiritual health are connected. Looking at only one dimension of an individual fails to see the entire picture, leaving the individual more susceptible to relapse. Supplementing an existing recovery plan with alternative or holistic approaches can help create a well-rounded and exciting plan for wellness.
What are acupuncture detoxification, qigong, and yoga therapy?
Acu detox, qigong, and yoga are holistic or alternative health practices that can be great supplements to an individual’s recovery plan.
- Acupuncture Detoxification (Acu Detox)
Acudetox is based on the idea that there are points representing the entire human body mapped out on the ear’s surface. The points at which the needles are inserted each correspond to major organs and the mental and emotional processes associated with them. Studies have shown numerous benefits from acu detox, including the temporary relief of acute and post-acute withdrawal symptoms, reducing cravings, easing stress and anxiety, improving sleep, lessening depression, and helping to alleviate aches and pains. During an acu detox session, a trained Acupuncture Detoxification Specialist applies fine gauge, sterilized, one-time use stainless steel needles just under the skin in five designated points in each ear. A typical session includes placement of the needles to which they remain in the ear for 30-45 minutes. Clients will receive treatment while seated in a group.
- Yoga
Yoga Therapy promotes wellness through encompassing a physical, psychological, and spiritual healing. Traditional yoga positions, breathing exercises, and relaxation/meditation techniques are used to explore psychological issues to create a pathway to inner and outer balance. It can be particularly helpful with chronic conditions included but not limited to mental health concerns, addiction, and chronic pain.
- Qigong
Our qigong provider (pronounced “chee gong”) uses the “Sheng Zhen Gong” method: a system of standing, sitting, and lying qigong forms and contemplations that are designed to open the heart. Qigong has been shown to improve the lives of those who practice it by harmonizing the body, quieting the mind and balancing the emotions. The practice is designed to bring about a feeling of well-being, harmony with one’s surroundings, and a feeling of divine contentment.
What does dual diagnosis or co-occurring disorders mean?
People who have a substance use disorder as well as mental health disorder are said to have co-occurring or dual disorders. Research is showing that integrated treatment approaches, where both the mental health and substance use disorders are treated concurrently, are yielding the most effective treatment results. Sage Recovery Villa is a dual diagnosis treatment center, meaning that clients are receiving treatment for both substance use and mental health issues while in our care.