La Hacienda’s 40 acre campus is located 75 miles northwest of San Antonio on the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country. La Hacienda offers patients a peaceful, natural environment conducive to the full recovery of body, mind and spirit.
La Hacienda provides a three and a half day program for patients and family members to gain insight into the disease process and how it impacts the family unit. Whenever appropriate, each patient is encouraged to have family members participate in the family program. Our primary goal is to help each member acquire knowledge about chemical dependency issues, gain an understanding of how he/she has been personally affected by this disease, to improve communication skills, and to begin behavioral change. The educational/process group format provides information on alcoholism and other drug addictions, family dynamics, communication, recovery, and relapse prevention.
Addiction (substance dependence) is a complex physical, emotional, and spiritual phenomenon. The brain is the primary target for substances of abuse and dependence. Understanding the structure and function of the brain is key to developing new therapies and medication. La Hacienda’s Katie McQueen, MD, is a nationally recognized expert in the field of addiction medicine and she discusses these topics in a presentation for the Clarity Child Guidance Center located in San Antonio, Texas.
The last ten years produced an explosion of research in neuroscience and great advances in our understanding of how our brains enable the capacities we equate with being human such as reward, memory, stress, free will. In his lecture, Dr. McCauley brings his audience right to the edge of what is currently known in neuroscience about addiction—research that explains how the brain constructs pleasurable experiences, what happens when this process goes wrong, and why this can have a dramatic impact in our ability to make proper choices. He also explains how this research reveals new and more effective methods to help addicts achieve lasting recovery and resume normal, happy, productive lives as full and valued members of society. Anyone struggling to understand and help a loved one struggling with addiction will find this information invaluable and encouraging.
