The Freedom Model

The Core Methodology and Basis of Our Approach.

Methodology

What is The Freedom Model?
The Freedom Model is the learning process to becoming aware of the three human attributes that free you from the addiction and recovery trap. They are: Free Will, the Positive Drive Principle, and Personal Autonomy. If you notice, all of these attributes are mental attributes. They are products of your mind and your thoughts. The Freedom Model also covers how to put these attributes into action in your life. With the knowledge of your natural attributes you can choose to either see yourself as "addicted" and hobbled by substances and their use, or you can free yourself completely by seeing yourself as a proactive self-changer who has the capacity to choose to move past addiction and endless recovery to a free state of mind and emotions.

The Freedom Model addresses more than just the challenges of addiction on a personal level. It is constantly raising questions about the misleading American addiction culture as a whole. We call this culture of misinformed and often dangerous addiction mythology, the Recovery Society. The Recovery Society includes treatment, recovery, 12 Step dogma, and any method that attempts to stave off addiction through some external means such as therapy, rehab, support meetings, etc. In contrast to the Recovery Society, The Freedom Model works internally within you - so you ALWAYS HAVE CONTROL. The Freedom Model is also focused on motivating you past addiction, rather than you being fearful of addiction or feeling deprived of your wants and desires.

• Positive Drive Principle (PDP) - the natural drive toward happiness behind all human behavior. People do what they believe is their best feasible option for achieving a satisfying, happy existence at any given moment of time.
• Free Will - the unique human ability to choose. It is also an imperative. If a man doesn't choose, then he doesn't behave in any way. All behavior is chosen.
• Autonomy - the independent nature of the human mind. It is why we can't be forced to think or feel (emotionally) in any particular way by any one or thing outside of ourselves. It is also why personal change is a choice, we choose to think, and we choose what to think, which in turn directs our actions.

At our retreats, we present a learning experience with information and exercises that provide a proactive way to tap into these attributes as tools for personal change. With The Freedom Model, you are already fully capable of solving your problems. Think about that. Does any methodology within the Recovery Society assume you have decision making power and that you will make the correct choice for yourself? Recovery Society charades are dominated with the idea that someone else can force you to change. Judgments of what choices you "should" or "shouldn't" make are avoided at the retreats, and are left up to the individual. We focus on providing factual information and solid self-evident theory in every Freedom Model experience or exercise. You can then use these exercises as tools to make the choices that will serve you best, according to your own preferences and judgment - not ours, nor society's preferences.

As a Freedom Model participant, your role is easy to follow: do your best to grasp and consider the information and theories presented and then choose to apply those lessons or not, whatever suits your needs better. As you challenge the habits of thought and action that have left you troubled, depressed, anxious, confused, and frustrated you will become more active and motivated to positively and confidently change them. If you stick with fear and external control based methods that are promoted in 12 step idealogy, treatment ideology and the recovery community, you'll miss out on what can be gained by understanding The Freedom Model.

The Saint Jude Retreats and The Freedom Model would be totally unnecessary if the treatment industry and the recovery movement didn't exist. The reason is simple: most of what keeps people stuck in their substance use habits are the ideas that treatment programs and recovery groups have spread into our culture. Most of what you learn at a drug and alcohol treatment center or support meeting is wrong and lowers your chances at positive lifestyle change. We know this from firsthand experience, having been led astray by the recovery myths ourselves, and from decades of research. Because these myths of addiction and its recovery are so prevalent in our culture (and now abroad) and have caused damage to the lives of millions, it became our goal at Saint Jude's to build a model that would undo the damage caused by this addiction mythology that permeates our culture today. This is what has enabled us to be the ones who effectively help those who've been in and out of dozens of treatment programs for decades. We can assist the toughest cases, see through the myths that keep them stuck, and we will help you too. We use the umbrella term, the "Recovery Society" throughout The Freedom Model and our websites. This term describes the addiction and recovery myths, the so-called experts, recovery groups, and activists who propagate these myths, and the formal systems of treatment and support that our society now forces substance users to participate in. Unfortunately they are causing damage (often unknowingly) to the very people they're intending to help. The Saint Jude Retreats and The Freedom Model have helped thousands avoid the pitfalls of the Recovery Society.

Freedom - the New Choice

Addiction is a fundamental lack of mental and emotional freedom. It is that horrible feeling that you are stuck and unable to change. It is a mental cage, a boxed mindset, a fearful belief that something else controls your mind and your body. The new choice is freedom, the undoing of those misinformed mental, emotional and physical shackles. Most of what we address throughout The Freedom Model deals with how and why we think the way we do, and how that affects our lives.

If you want to be free-truly-free, then The Freedom Model is the right fit for you. If you want to hang onto a victim mentality and go to recovery meetings, then it's not. Our goal is simple - clear away the misinformation so you can see just how powerful you are and always have been. As we clear the myths away, an intuitive understanding of your inherent ability to create and direct the course of your own life will become the core of your power.

It's a wonderful thing to know you no longer have to live in fear and remorse. You can move on and be free! You can change all your troubling emotional and behavioral patterns - even those that may have felt out of your own control. You can be happy, fulfilled, and energized. You can grow out of the Recovery Society and into your own version of self-created happiness.

THE FREEDOM MODEL CAN BE FURTHER DEFINED THROUGH THESE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

• To help individuals understand that there are no "causes" for addiction or substance use, but, rather, individuals find reasons to explain their heavy substance use habits to themselves and/or to others. These reasons may include traumas, stress, enjoyment, relief, etc.
• • To demonstrate how the reasons for their substance use are controlled by the individual, and, as such, the reasons can be separated from the substance use habit. For instance, a traumatic event in one's life does not have to lead to substance use. Separating life's stresses, difficulties, and traumas from the choice to use substances is an incredibly powerful aspect of The Freedom Model. As no one can ever be sheltered from stress, this separation empowers people who may have previously believed in the causal effect to work through and overcome natural life stressors and events while choosing not to get high or drunk. This unique aspect of The Freedom Model is found in no other program. This is one of the many reasons The Freedom Model is a more effective method than any program methodology in the world.
• • To educate individuals on how to self-change through self-analysis and positive reinforcement, rather than through a therapist "telling the individual how they should behave", or through controlling, manipulative, and punitive approaches, common to counseling and therapeutic methods.
• • Throughout the process, The Freedom Model Certified Presenter provides tools so the substance user may examine their specific reasons for substance use, become fully aware of them, and then make informed choices. This process is called separating the learned connections.
  
  The primary purpose of The Freedom Model is to help the substance user to examine his/her thoughts, choices, motivations, and goals, and then build new habits that are more in line with their goals. It also upends the entire addiction and recovery constructs, so the individual can grow past these self-limiting and damaging ideals.



IN SUMMARY

The Freedom Model is a method that enables you to rethink behaviors and habits associated with drug and alcohol use, on your own; not by coercion, manipulation, and moral judgments of a therapist or counselor who barely knows you. Our experience shows that many therapists and/or counselors are well-intentioned professionals with misinformation and questionable tactics that result in patients developing a more dependent lifestyle and poor long term results. To rectify this inherent problem with treatment programs across the country, the research staff at the Saint Jude Retreats created The Freedom Model's roots of education in 1989, and spent the last quarter century measuring the method to ensure The Freedom Model continues its track record of providing tools for self-change and positive life transformation.

Other information about Saint Jude's you might find relevant:

• The Freedom Model Philosophy
• Differences between Treatment and our Non Treatment Approach
• The Freedom Model