Vangseter as a treatment facility

Since 1986, Vangseter has treated more than 6,000 clients for substance addiction. Our clients come from all stratas of society.

Vangseter’s treatment model is based on the Twelve Steps Programme and Recovery Dynamics. This means that the clinic views alcohol and pill addiction, as well as other forms of drug addiction, as a disease which the addict can not control, but which he or she can learn to cope with through abstinence.

Our initial treatment programme takes four weeks for alcoholics and six for pill and drug addicts, with group therapy as our basis. Also, Vangseter can offer the client a gradual reduction of medicament consumption before and during the treatment process, as well as long-term treatment, transference to our Half Way House close to the town of Hamar and after-care self-help groups through parts of Norway. In our basic treatment programme, the third week is cornered for family treatment. Hence, the co-dependents get to meet other people in the same situation, and they also learn to acknowledge their own situation and start doing something about it.

For more than twenty-five years, Vangseter has aimed to increase the public recognition of the Twelve Step programme. The therapists are trying to help the client and his or her relatives in establishing a process of development with the goal of staying abstinent. Since Vangseter's intake is continual, all the clients will be in different phases of their convalescence. In that way, the newly arrived will see that it is not futile, while those who have been in the programme for some time are reminded of their former life. The essential principles in Vangseter's treatment programme, are security and care for the client, as well as for his or her treatment process.

Most of our clients represent the average man or woman. The ones who run their daily life behind a seemingly happy surface, but who have developed a dysfunctional life for themselves and their families through substance addiction. None of our clients are put in the treatment programme with like-minded people only. From the first day, the client has to relate to a broadly defined group of people, with clients coming from all cultures and stratas of society. However, their recognition of sharing an addiction problem creates a feeling of security and a certain demystification of substance addiction. This recognition and feeling of security is an important part of Vangseter's integrity. Combined with our will to further develop our offers, it is one of the main reasons that Vangseter is so respected as a treatment facility today.

Vangseter is a rehabilitation clinic in continual development and renewal, but with a firm basis in Recovery Dynamics and the Twelve Step programme.