FAQ About Lighthouse Christian Program

The Lighthouse Christian Program is non-denominational. We believe in the accuracy of the Holy Bible, a Triune God of the Father, Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. We believe we are all lost and need a Savior, Jesus, to die for us so we can be forgiven and reconciled back to God for the healing of our spirit, mind, and body to occur.

Our goal is to teach practical theology, which is how to apply a relationship with God and the instructions from the Bible to our lives. We allow you to develop your own beliefs regarding academic theology about the more complicated parts.

Addiction is a disease, but way more than just a disease. Most traditional treatments focus on the physical disease, some will address the mind and emotions as well. In this faith-based Christian approach, the spirit of an individual receives significant attention and treatment as well, harnessing the power of faith in Jesus Christ to bring healing and recovery to those whose lives have experienced pain, hurt, and destruction. Research has shown the powerful benefits of engaging a person’s faith when one struggles with addiction, trauma, depression, or anxiety, especially when requiring a more intensive residential level of treatment.

We believe the best treatment for individuals involves the freedom and advantage of choosing a Christian path to recovery.  Ours is a strength and wellness approach that will build new skills in you through a mind-body-spirit model, and not focusing only on the traditional disease model of addiction.

We know the Bible to be a great instruction book given by God to tell us how to make decisions and manage our life here on earth. But for most people, understanding how to apply this instruction is hard. The Lighthouse Christian Program’s curriculum uses the clinical expertise of the Christian staff to help you apply these wise and practical instructions to overcome addictions and heal core wounds and cracks that led to the addictions.

The Lighthouse Christian Program will combine important cutting edge science about psychological therapy with Biblical Principles to identify and start healing your core issues that led to the faulty decision-making that fuels your addiction and struggles. Then you can bring God’s healing, forgiveness, grace, and love into your everyday life to give you the best chance at lasting peace and transformation.

Church on Sunday is a very small part.  This is so much better and more than church. At times you will certainly have some of the elements of church, like prayer, Bible study, and worship music, but more importantly, our goal is practically helping you understand and apply God, Christ, and the Bible to your everyday battles to be victorious and grow closer to God.

The multidisciplinary treatment team is made up of psychiatrists, therapists, nurses, mental health technicians, and other allied health professionals (like recreation therapists).  Our staff members are well-trained and skilled in integrating proven clinical therapy techniques (like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Mindfulness, Relapse Trigger Awareness, Emotion Focused Therapy, and Individual/Group Therapy) with Biblical principles that promote wholeness and wellness in a Christ-centered community setting.  The Lighthouse Christian Program has it’s own programming elements to teach specific skills from a specific Biblical vantage point.

As part of your treatment, you will have a Sunday church service off site, and go to during the week go to Celebrate Recovery (a Christian AA) meetings as well either on or off site. Prayer will be an important part of your treatment also.

Our primary goals are

• Helping you heal your relationship with God,
• Have access to His power in your recovery, and
• Understand how to practically apply His instruction book, The Holy BIBLE, to your daily decisions.

Even though Lighthouse Christian Program (LCP) and some other programs teach the Bible, some major differences exist.

• In LCP, your treatment is delivered by trained clinicians, not only teaching you the Bible, but using their clinical expertise to help you understand how to apply the Bible to your psychological core struggles. The long-term facilities are inexpensive because they don’t provide this level of expertise, so they usually only teach Bible memorization and study, but struggle with life application.
• LCP has medical services, the others do not. This allows LCP to:
  • Treat acute addicts who used substances that day and detox them as needed. The longer-term programs need them detoxed and clean for 5-14 days before they can accept them.
  • Treat people on psychiatric meds. Long term programs often don’t philosophically agree with psychiatric medications and don’t have psychiatric staff to evaluate and monitor them/
• You are in treatment programming throughout the day, everyday. In the long-term programs, you spend 4-8 hours working at a job in some way to learn work ethic, keep busy, and keep costs lower.
• Because of the higher intensity of treatment, LCP is a shorter 28-day program, although some choose to stay longer. The longer-term programs can be from 3 – 16 months.
• LCP has licensed professionals providing spiritually based clinical care, so insurances will often cover substantial portions of the treatment costs.
• Due to the inexpensive nature of the long-term programs, a long waiting list often exists for admission.
• Given these differences, sometimes the best treatment is to go to the Lighthouse Christian Program for 28 days, then step down to the longer term Christian program if a continued, but less clinical environment is needed as they both are valuable in very different ways.

No. The cost of treatment in the Lighthouse program is the same as any other treatment program in the facility.  Many private insurances will cover most of the costs, and self-pay are accepted as payment for this program.

If it is clinically appropriate, families are encouraged to be a vital part of a person’s treatment.  Lighthouse believes that families need help as well because addictions are contagious and can infect the surrounding people. Also, a family system is healthier when all members can participate in promoting healing and wellness with one another. You will discuss this and strategize with you primary therapist.

You will be provided printed materials during treatment that will act as a roadmap to begin your recovery. You will be encouraged to discuss the events in your life that contribute to your addiction and the areas of your life that will help you heal. The main areas we help you focus on are:

• Faulty thinking leading to unhealthy lifestyles;
• Making healthy decisions;
• Dealing with and healing from past hurts and losses;
• Improving your self-image by seeing ourselves as God sees you;
• Education on compulsive addictions and how to begin and maintain recovery;
• Developing new, healthy coping skills regarding stress, feelings, and fear;
• Appreciating who God is and who He isn’t;
• Connecting with Christian community resources after leaving residential treatment to further continue the healing process; and most importantly
• Developing practical, life-long skills for healthy and Godly living!

Absolutely not.  We respect a person’s right to choose their own beliefs, and will not force any belief on any person.  We will encourage you to examine whether long-standing beliefs have worked well for you, and we will offer you some new, transforming perspectives to consider when it comes to understanding how your spiritual beliefs affect your mind, your brain chemistry, and the rest of your body. Our approach is truly holistic and focuses on assisting a person in resolving conflicts and situations that led to their addiction and residential treatment. Our goal is to extend God’s love and forgiveness to all.

With that being said, the program will not be a forum for religious or theological debate. The program is firmly rooted in what the Bible teaches, the true God of the Bible, and that Jesus left heaven to come to Earth as a man, led a perfect life, and died for our sins so we could be free of our baggage if we believe in Him, then follow His teachings. These are the foundational spiritual principles that our teachings of practical life management and coping skills grow from.

With a doctor’s order and staff support, clergy and those who have been a spiritual support can be allowed to visit you or call at designated times during your hospital stay. We are looking to add a chaplain to our staff soon for you to have access to as well.

If you decide that Lighthouse is not the treatment program you want or need, you may ask your doctor to transfer you to another unit in the hospital.  But please give this decision careful, fair consideration before making your request. Try not to make it based on what you are exploring inside, peers in other programs, or the amount of effort we are asking you to invest in your growth.

When you leave LCP, you should have these following questions clearly answered as you worked with your treatment team:

1. Do I have a stable home base where I will be living?
2. Do I have a clear logistical strategy for ongoing recovery?
   • Follow-up therapy appointments,
   • Medication management with a psychiatrist if necessary,
   • Christian Recovery Meetings,
   • A bible teaching church where I can get involved,
   • Sponsor/family/supports to call when I am stressed or need support?
3. Do I have a biological strategy?
   • No substances at all – no nicotine or caffeine if possible,
   • I am clear about my medication regimen,
   • Guard my schedule to get regular sleep 7-9 hours/night
   • I will eat 3 healthy meals per day
   • Exercise 3x / week (or more) – can even be just walking
4. But most importantly: Do I have a Psychological (Decision-Making) strategy that I know well, I have practiced a lot, and I can use in any situation to assess my options and be a good decision-maker. Here are what you need and how you will get it:
   • I have SPEARS, which is the Godly decision-making strategy LCP teaches.
   • I can give an example of being faced with a past trigger for relapse and use SPEARS to motivate and convince myself of a better option for long term survival and transformation.
   • I will understand how SPEARS uses the Bible and brings God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit into your life to empower and guide your Decision-Making and transformation.
   • I will get this psychological strategy through:
     • Constant repetition of SPEARS by my Christian treatment team,
     • Go through many examples of applying SPEARS in real life situations and stressors
     • Frequent opportunities to practice SPEARS so it is committed to muscle memory

Note: With a psychological strategy, they will be able to address numbers 1-3, but without a well-honed psychological strategy, the other 3 will quickly fall apart.

Lighthouse Network will assist your LCP treatment team in referring you to less intensive follow-up treatment, such as partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient treatment, or outpatient counseling. We will also help you find Christian support groups and a church as well.

Upon being discharge from the Lighthouse Christian Program, you, your treatment team, appropriate family and other supports would collaborate to make a decision regarding the next best steps to continue your growth process.

Important factors:

• Do I need supervision to stay sober and away from my addiction objects?
  • If so, how much supervision?
    • More longer term residential treatment
    • Recovery house
    • Family living with me
    • Alone with supervision and check ins
    • Unsupervised
  • What is going to provide the best structure for moving forward?
  • What do I need to continue to grow my skills for Godly Decision-Making?
  • Who will be the people I can report to that can hold me accountable and help me move forward?
  • What church can I plug into for further spiritual nourishment and healthy friends and fellowship?
  • What kind of therapist or coach do I need to work on my skills?
  • What support groups can I attend to keep me accountable and growing?
    • What Christian ones are available in my area?
    • I need to get a sponsor or mentor ASAP
  • Who or what do I need to avoid, so I am not tempted to fall back into old traps and habits.

In the Lighthouse Christian Program, like AA or other 12 Step programs, we will similarly have a spiritual focus that helps a person take a deeper look at why the addiction started and how to stop it. As a Christian, we are already agreeing to Steps 1-3.

Unlike AA or other 12 Step programs, we identify our God or higher power to be the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit and believe no other omnipotent Higher Powers exist.

Some other differences:

• Your treatment will be delivered by trained professionals as you work with interested peers but not led by interested peers like a Recovery Group would be.
• A regimented format is not followed.
• We will be looking to address the psychological core struggles more practically and deeply
• We will look at specific Biblical (spiritual principles) and apply them specifically to your daily battles to help you live victoriously in Christ

We do use the AA 10^th step to help people take a personal inventory at the end of each day.

In summary, our goal is to teach you how to practically be successful at applying the 11^th Step all the time: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.