News

Breaking Free

Date: 2021-09-21

A new digital support program offers free, 24/7 assistance for people living with addiction

September may be Recovery Month, but people living with addiction know that the recovery journey takes place 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. Now, there is a new free digital tool called Breaking Free that provides addictions support whenever they need it.

Breaking Free is an interactive, accessible and personalized tool that provides recovery support from a range of different substances, including alcohol, opioids, stimulants and prescription medications. It is a provincially-funded initiative geared towards helping Ontarians self-manage addiction issues. Anyone living in Ontario can visit www.breakingfreeonline.ca, enter their postal code, and create a free account. As well, mental health and addiction service providers, such as counselors and therapists, can register clients for this service to complement their addiction treatment program.

The program asks a series of questions to understand the individual’s goals, strengths and challenges to customize their interactive experience. “Every behaviour is influenced by a thought and an emotion, so if we want to change a behaviour, we need to look at what thoughts and emotions are driving it,” explains Ashley Palmer, a Social Worker at Sister Margaret Smith Centre and Project Lead for Breaking Free.

“The program looks at certain actions related to their addiction, and how they can change that action to make a healthier choice.” For example, if you have a craving, how do you feel and what do you usually do? Can you recognize that feeling and replace that action with a healthy behaviour, such as going for a walk, having coffee with a friend, reading or exercising? This “cognitive behavioural” approach looks at all aspects of the self: the thinking self, the emotional self and the behavioural self and how they all tie together. “Every time you log on, you can see your progress,” says Palmer. “There are a lot of motivation and incentive tools built in as you reach goals and complete tasks.”

There is also a Breaking Free Companion app for smartphones. The app has many functions geared toward helping a person in their recovery throughout the day. It can send wellness goal alerts and notifications for scheduled activities such as taking a walk. It also has a GPS feature that can trigger coping strategy suggestions in locations that have been identified by the person as troublesome. Coping tools can help manage big emotions, craving and urges. The app even has mindfulness videos that can be viewed without an internet connection.

Breaking Free isn’t designed for a crisis situation nor does it replace a counsellor, but it does provide round-the-clock assistance. In fact, according to Ontario Health, 46% of all activity on the program occurs during evenings and weekends. “The 24-hour availability of Breaking Free is really important,” says Palmer, “we know that people don’t just struggle between the hours of nine and five.”

If substance use is impacting your life, why not join us and others for Virtual Rockin’ Recovery on September 22, 2021, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm? Visit the Thunder Bay Drug Awareness Committee Facebook page for more information on this Zoom event.