Conditions · Dual diagnosis
Trauma and addiction.
Almost every story of addiction has trauma underneath it somewhere. Trauma-informed outpatient treatment that takes the underlying material seriously — without forcing processing on a calendar.
The trauma underneath.
Most of the time, the substance was the solution. The trauma was the problem the substance was solving — by numbing intolerable feeling, by giving the nervous system a temporary off-switch, by dampening hyperarousal so a normal life felt navigable.
The trauma comes in different shapes: a single overwhelming event (acute trauma / PTSD), repeated chronic adversity (complex trauma), childhood attachment ruptures that shaped the nervous system (developmental trauma), grief that never got named. The shape matters less than the fact that the substance was doing a job — and any treatment plan that doesn’t replace what the substance was doing will leave the underlying engine running.
Trauma-informed without trauma-forcing.
A trauma-informed program means the clinical team understands how trauma shapes presentation — withdrawal, hyperarousal, dissociation, mistrust of clinicians. It means we don’t mistake trauma responses for resistance.
It does not mean we push trauma processing on day one. Forcing trauma disclosure before someone is ready creates harm. Our model lets people stabilize first — substance use, sleep, basic safety, the nervous system — and then approaches trauma material at the pace clinically appropriate to each person.
How we treat it
Substance use and trauma, integrated.
PHP and IOP at Glass House integrate substance-use treatment, trauma-informed process work, individual therapy, and experiential modalities (creative process, somatic awareness, group repair) under one clinical team. We coordinate with outside trauma-specific therapists when more intensive trauma processing is clinically appropriate — but for many people, the structured outpatient work is exactly the container their trauma needed.
Ready to stop running the loop?
One short message. We’ll help you figure out whether trauma-informed outpatient treatment is the right starting point.