Last Updated on April 19, 2023 by
Making the decision to come to Alternative To Meds Center is the best decision I have ever made. Yes, it is a treatment center but it is so much more.
Those of us who walk through the doors of Alternative to Meds Center are wounded in some way. We have reached the point where all of our coping techniques no longer work. If you have reached that point, my hope is that my story will lend you the courage to choose to come to Sedona and Alternative to Meds Center.
24 years ago I started taking Valium to stop crippling panic attacks that left me unable to leave my house except for doctors appointments. At first it works and to some degree worked for almost twenty years.
Before coming to Alternative to Meds Center, I was experiencing extreme dizziness and tunnel vision as well as vertigo for 6 months while trying to reduce my medication on my own. For 7 months I was lucky to get 3 hours of sleep a night and most nights I would be up the entire night. There are no words to describe the nausea that I reached the point of severe dry heaves daily for 5 months. I went to the emergency room 6 different times. The doctors there did not explain that I was having anxiety-induced nausea. The ER doctors kept prescribing me anti-nausea medication which actually gave me real nausea. The nausea caused me to lose 35 pounds.
When I first came to Alternative to Meds Center I was in survival mode. Making it through each day was a major feat. I would like to say that I did the detox part of the program with grace but this was not the case. I despised hot closed-in places so the sauna was not my friend for the first month, until it become clear that it did in fact have a calming effect.
The sauna taught me a valuable lesson — it is our own fears that are our worst enemy, once we face them they no longer have any power.
The diet, supplements, and Detox Shoppe work on changing our physical bodies. For me the emotional healing was the key. Alternative to Meds Center has some cutting edge therapies that worked on my PTSD for the first time after years of trying without success. Art and music therapies were a creative way for me to express myself and helped my on a profound level. I went from being scared to do drumming to wanting to do it every week.
When I finally began to heal and really take in all that was around me, I was in awe of how much each and every person on the staff cared. Most are trained in some healing art, from massage, reiki, or yoga and they share these healing arts with us. They are firm but kind and always willing to do whatever they could to help. I arrived from a world with no laughter to a place where I found myself laughing several times a day. The power of laughter has been shown to have a great healing effect. I bear witness to that fact. My goal now is to find something to laugh at every day.
PTSD, anxiety disorder, and depression (I was blessed to never have depression) are diseases that are just as real as cancer, MS, or heart disease. Until the root cause is discovered they will not heal. In my five months at Alternative to Meds Center I met over 40 residents. I discovered some of the most talented and amazing healers. Like myself, they were wounded by life and could no longer dull the pain with medicine or alcohol. I believe with every fiber of my being that those of us who are born healers come into this life and must experience our own pain and suffering, walk through that pain to the other side of it. Our journey builds compassion and understanding that cannot be learned in books or school.
Choosing to come to Alternative to Meds Center is the first step in your healing journey. Always believe that miracles are possible and that no matter what we have done in the past today is the perfect day to start anew.
~ Laura
