Young Adult Treatment Program 

Classically, young adults enter a period from age 18 through 40 where their primary stage of development results in reconciling the polarities between a “life of intimacy verses a life of isolation” (Erik Erikson, 1950). Unfortunately, the pathway though substance use with its compounding mental health issues leads towards a life of social disconnection from family, friends, vocation, and self.  Our goal at NYCFL is to do all that we can to promote the “life of intimacy” since it is commonplace knowledge that “the opposite of addiction is connection.” 

Current thinking recognizes that within the past several decades the time between adolescence and young adulthood (ages 18-25) can be better viewed as the “in-between” stage.  This time of emergent adulthood occurs in more modern industrialized nations where people are more apt to receive graduate education, enter partnerships and childbearing during their 30’s.   

The fundamental characteristics of emergent adulthood (Arnett, 2004) are: 

• the age of identity explorations 
• the age of instability 
• the self-focused age 
• the age of feeling in-between 
• the age of possibilities 

At New York Center for Living, we blend empirical knowledge about addiction and mental health with developmental models of treatment. Our goals are to offer programming designing for your age and stage of life.  It is for that reason, that our young adult program offers several levels of treatment options: intensive outpatient treatment along with outpatient options. 

Embedded within these levels of care we aim to stabilize the addictive use of substances and the fluctuating mental health picture with a goal of restoring stability and growth within interpersonal and family relationship along with vocational and occupational goals. We have specialized programs to highlight the college years as well as the challenges faced by young professionals trying to remain sober in a world that fosters the use of alcohol and other drugs as part of day to day “doing business.” 

As with all of our programs, regardless of what program you are accepted into, you will receive individual, family and group therapy along with the option for engagement with additional supports through sober coaching. Our young adult program spans the ages of 18 through 35 with selective programming targeting the younger and older populations.  Our goal is to support a return from residential treatment or to avoid prolonged periods of seeking out-of-state treatment at the expense of personal goals.