Treatment at a drug or alcohol rehab involves a different set of listening skills that in normal conversation. The groups or lecture situations in a rehab may be where you recieve some of the most useful information to your recovery. Some people have had difficulty learning in a formal situation like school in the past and this should be addressed so as to get the most out of the time spent in rehab. Here’s some suggestions:

What affects listening in a formal learning setting?

The subject matter

Is it new or have you a lot of experience with it?
Will it be difficult to understand, or simple?
Is it important to you, or just fun?

The speaker

What are the non-verbal cues of the speaker?
What frame of mind are they in?
How experienced, comfortable with the topic?

The message presentation

Visuals or examples?
Is technology used effectively?
Are concepts introduced incrementally?

The space

Conducive to listening?
Conducive to interaction or exchange with the speaker?
Are there avoidable distractions?

Prepare to listen with a positive, engaged attitude

Focus your attention on the subject
Stop all non-relevant activities beforehand to orient yourself to the speaker and the topic
Review mentally what you already know about the subject
Organize in advance relevant material in order to develop it further (previous lectures, TV programs, newspaper articles, web sites, prior real life experience, etc.)
Avoid distractions
Seat yourself appropriately close to the speaker
Avoid distractions (a talkative neighbour, noise, etc.)
(Active Listening, Study Guides and Strategies, http://www.studygs.net/index.htm)

Your recovery and your life depend on you receiving and understanding new ideas to change and replace the old ones of your addictive patterns. It does matter how good the ideas are in a rehab if you don’t hear and understand them.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 8th, 2005 at 8:06 am and is filed under Drug Addiction, Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.