- Published: October 16, 2026
- Last Updated: October 16, 2026
Sorry we do not accept Medi-Cal
Sorry we do not accept Medi-Cal
Rehab is a big word. It comes with a lot of scary connotations, especially when you have no idea what it’s actually going to be like. Sometimes just walking through the door and seeing where you’ll be staying can take a little of that fear away.
Group therapy can be a different story.
If you tend to keep things to yourself or you’re carrying a lot of shame about your substance use, the idea of sitting in a room and talking about your life with other people might sound awful. You may already be wondering how much you’ll have to say or whether everyone is going to be looking at you.
At Liberty House Recovery, group therapy is a regular part of residential treatment, but you’re not walking into a huge room full of strangers. The group is small because the house itself is small. These are the same people you live alongside and see throughout the day.
And while group might be one of the parts of treatment you’re most nervous about going into, it can also become one of the parts that surprises you most.
Group therapy isn’t really like what you see in the movies. It can be funny and moving. Sometimes it feels silly. Sometimes you may feel annoyed or distressed. But somewhere along the way, you might find yourself letting your guard down and realizing you’re not as alone as you thought you were.
At Liberty House, group is a facilitated conversation with a small group of people who are all in treatment at the same time. You might talk about something you’re struggling with right now or work on skills that can help when things get hard. Sometimes someone else will start talking about something you’ve been thinking about but haven’t known how to say yourself.
And you don’t have to walk in on day one ready to spill your guts. Participation is expected over time, but there’s room to get comfortable with the people around you before you start opening up.
There’s an expectation of confidentiality, too. People talk about personal things in group, and respecting what others share is part of the deal from the beginning.
Maybe the strangest part is how quickly a room full of people you didn’t know can stop feeling like a room full of strangers. You listen. You laugh sometimes. You get irritated sometimes. And eventually, you may realize you’ve started talking too.
You’ll sometimes hear addiction called the disease of loneliness in recovery communities, and it’s not hard to understand why. When you’re carrying a lot of shame and your thoughts keep circling back to the next drink or drug, your world can get awfully small. It can become surprisingly easy to believe that nobody else thinks the way you do or has done the things you’ve done.
Then you sit in a room and hear somebody else say the thing you thought was only true about you.
That can be powerful in any group. But at Liberty House, you don’t walk out of the room afterward and disappear into a crowd of people you barely know. The people in group are the same people you eat breakfast with and see around the house. You start learning each other pretty quickly, and there’s less room to put on a completely different face once group is over.
There’s a harder side to that, too. You don’t have much anonymity. If you share something difficult in group, you’re going to see those same people again at dinner. If you’re used to keeping people at a distance, being known that well can feel uncomfortable at first.
But that’s also where a small group can become something different. You begin to realize that the people around you know some of the messier parts of your story, and they’re still sitting beside you the next day.
And maybe you’re not quite as alone in this as you thought.
Liberty House aims to be a place of personal growth and health. Our hope is that through our drug and alcohol addiction treatment programs, we can support recovery and healing no matter what disorder you’re facing. Contact us to learn more about how we can tailor an addiction treatment program for you at our rehabilitation center in California.
Recovery would be a whole lot easier if there were one thing that worked every time. Do this when you’re anxious. Do that when you want to use. Follow these instructions, and you’ll be fine.
Unfortunately, people don’t really work that way.
Something that gets you through a rough day this week might do absolutely nothing for you next week. You may connect with one kind of therapy immediately and struggle with another one at first. That’s why it helps to have more than one way to work through things.
Individual therapy gives you a place to say the things you’re not ready to say in a room full of people. Group gives you the room full of people.
And sometimes you need that.
You might hear someone else explain the exact thought process you’ve been stuck in and recognize yourself immediately. Someone who’s a little further along might offer a perspective you hadn’t considered. And sometimes hearing something difficult from another person who has been in a similar place lands differently than hearing it from a clinician.
You don’t have to connect with every kind of therapy in the same way. The point is to find different tools you can reach for, because what helps you today might not be what you need tomorrow.
Group therapy for substance use disorder (SUD) can give you things you simply can’t get sitting one-on-one with a therapist. But there are also things you may need to work through privately before you’re ready to bring them into a room with other people.
That’s why group is only one part of treatment at Liberty House.
Individual therapy gives you space to focus entirely on what’s going on with you. Family therapy brings the people closest to you into some of the work, which can be especially important when substance use has affected relationships at home.
Treatment can also include approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) depending on what makes sense for the client. For people dealing with a mental health condition alongside substance use, dual diagnosis treatment addresses both at the same time.
None of these has to do everything.
You might talk about something privately before you ever bring it up in group. Something that comes up during group might give you something to unpack later with your therapist. And something you’ve been working on individually might eventually change the way you show up with your family.
It all overlaps a little. Because people are complicated, and naturally treatment and recovery will be too.
One of the things you learn pretty quickly in early recovery is that you’re not going to be perfect at any of this. That includes group therapy.
If you’re used to keeping things to yourself, talking about your substance use in front of other people can feel incredibly exposing. Maybe opening up hasn’t always gone well for you. Or maybe you’ve spent so much time hiding what was happening that talking about it openly feels completely unnatural.
You don’t have to get past all of that before you walk into group.
Participation is expected over time, but nobody is forced to start talking on day one. You can listen while you get a feel for the people around you. And at Liberty House, you keep seeing those same faces around the house, which can make it easier to slowly let your guard down.
If group is particularly difficult for you, individual therapy gives you a private place to work through that too.
Group therapy is included as part of residential treatment at Liberty House Recovery rather than being a separate service you sign up for or pay for on its own. When looking at insurance coverage, the bigger question is whether your plan provides benefits for residential treatment.
Liberty House Recovery works with a range of insurance providers, including Multiplan, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Carelon, TriWest, Humana, Aetna, Cigna, Magellan, Kaiser, TRICARE, ComPsych, and Blue Shield of California. What your insurance may cover depends on your specific plan and benefits.
If you are unsure what your plan says about treatment, you do not have to sort through the details on your own. Liberty House can verify your benefits for you. Verification is free and confidential, with no obligation to enter treatment.
This can help you understand what coverage may be available before deciding what you want to do next.
Group therapy can be an important part of treatment, but it’s still only one part. Because when you’re living somewhere while doing some of the hardest work of your life, what happens outside the therapy room matters too.
That’s a big part of what makes Liberty House different. Treatment happens in a small house in Redlands, where you actually get to know the people around you. There’s a pool and garden. A chef cooks several times a week. Owners Pat and Lacey are involved day-to-day. The same people you sit beside in group are the people you see around the house afterward.
Group is part of that experience, alongside the individual work you’re doing and the life you’re living in the house every day.
Liberty House serves adults 18 and older of all genders and is open 24 hours a day. If you’re wondering whether it might be the right place for you, you can verify your insurance for free and confidentially, with no obligation to enter treatment. You can also take a look at the independently collected results published each year on the Client Outcomes page.
Eventually, yes, participation is part of group therapy. But nobody expects you to walk into your first session and immediately start sharing the most personal parts of your life. It’s okay to listen while you get comfortable with the group and begin figuring out what you’re ready to talk about.
Liberty House is a small residential program, so the groups are small too. There isn’t a huge rotating crowd. You’re in group with the same people you see around the house every day, which gives you a chance to actually get to know one another.
Confidentiality is an expectation from the beginning. People are sharing personal parts of their lives, and everyone in the group is expected to respect that. Your clinician can also explain how confidentiality works and answer any questions you have before you share something you’re concerned about.
Group therapy is a clinical form of treatment facilitated by a trained professional. There may be discussion, skill-building, or time spent working through something that’s happening in your life or recovery. A support meeting is based on peer support rather than clinical therapy.
No. You’ll have individual therapy alongside group therapy at Liberty House. There are things you may be comfortable discussing with a therapist long before you want to bring them up in group, and that private space remains an important part of treatment.
Yes. Liberty House offers family therapy for clients who want loved ones involved in treatment. Substance use rarely affects just one person, and family therapy creates a separate space to work on the relationships that may have been affected along the way.
 | Authored By: Patt Ochoa – CADC III Patt Ochoa is a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor III (CADC III) passionate about helping people recover from addiction. His personal experience with addiction and his journey to recovery led him to pursue a career in counseling. Patt started by creating a Recovery Component for a sober high school and focused on treating the whole family to ensure a successful recovery. |
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