Benjamin and Alia Kaneaiakala like to think of the treatment center they run as a family. If that’s the case, Ben and Alia are the parents at Phoenix Rising, a behavioral health center in Southern California. Like many parenting duos the couple has different approaches that work together to benefit the kids, or in this case, the clients.
“It’s been a really good balance,” says Ben, the CEO of Phoenix Rising, who has been sober and active in a twelve step program for 28 years. While Ben brings personal experience with recovery and intimate knowledge of the benefits of fellowship and group work, Alia, a psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, and chief clinical officer at the treatment center, brings a more clinical approach to treating addiction.
“She comes from the psycho-medical model of dealing with addiction,” Ben says.
The combination allows the treatment team, lead by the Kaneaiakalas, to give clients the best of both worlds, providing them with clinical and social tools to fight addiction and let go of unhealthy coping mechanisms.
“Ben has a natural way of responding to issues, where I can clinically explain it,” Alia says.
Alia, who is about to finish her second doctorate degree, has studied attachment theory and its role in addiction extensively. Her work has allowed her to help adults in recovery understand how their childhood experiences influence their behaviors and how to relearn healthy patterns of attachment. She understands the topic on a professional level, but her expertise also allowed her to recognize a combination of healthy and unhealthy attachment styles in her own life. Although she is less inclined to share her personal stories than Ben is, Alia says that her personal experience allows her to connect to clients on a deeper level.
“My whole path circled to understanding this strange dichotomy within me,” she says. “It helps me be stable for individuals and understand where they’re coming from.”
Alia has developed a 90-day curriculum for around attachment theory and addiction, which forms the basis of treatment at Phoenix Rising. At the same time, Ben incorporates daily meetings and 12 step recovery.
Together the Kaneaiakalas have also developed the Sobriety Scale, a system that uses five areas to show how a patient is doing with managing his or her recovery.
“It’s used to identify the areas they might be struggling with and work on that for next week,” Ben says.
The scale is meant to provide a foundation for a life in sobriety. The focus areas include getting to meetings, entering a service position, pursuing spirituality (whatever that means to the client), getting a sponsor or mentor, and working some sort of step system.
Clients at Phoenix Rising score themselves between 0 and 20 in each area. The goal is to have an overall self-reported score of at least 75 points out of 100.
“If you’re in that range you have a really good chance of responding to life rather than reacting to life,” Ben says.
Clients at Phoenix Rising use the scale about once a week as a way to check in on themselves and see what they are doing well and what they could be doing better.
“It gives them an idea of where they’re at in their recovery,” Ben says. He stresses to clients that the scale is for their own reference and that honesty is an important part of the exercise.
“We’re not judging you, we just want you to know where you’re at in your recovery. The only person who is benefitting from this is you, and if you’re not being truthful it will tell in your walk and your actions.”
The sobriety scale, twelve-step meetings and attachment theory are all tools that the Kaneaiakalas use to shape individual treatment plans that will help clients thrive in sobriety.
“Although we have a similar intensive outpatient program for everyone we really push for an individualized wrap-around approach for each client,” Alia says.
Phoenix Rising provides behavior health care services in southern California. Find out more at https://phoenixrisingbehavioral.com/ and follow them on Facebook and Twitter
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