Open Sky Wilderness Therapy
Durango, CO

Open Sky Wilderness Therapy's Nicola Kettle, ND and Joanna Bettmann, PhD presented a lecture entitled "The Importance of Nutrition in Addiction Treatment" at the National Association for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADC) annual conference in Salt Lake City on August 19th.

Co-sponsored by NAADAC and four other professional substance abuse organizations, the annual conference brought together a variety of addiction and mental health professionals from around the country to share information and workshops on prevention, co-occurring disorders, current research and outcomes, clinical techniques, and professional development.

Dr. Nicola Kettle, a Naturopathic Doctor and Open Sky's Wellness Director said, "The presentation was received with a lot of enthusiasm and feelings of optimism for a new and effective approach to addiction, which is traditionally a difficult issue to treat." Presenting to a standing room only group of professionals, the lecture focused on simple, affordable interventions like adding a multi-vitamin or fish oil to treatment. They spoke about how specific nutrients are depleted by certain drugs and how dietary habits can further contribute to nutritional deficiencies.

In conducting research on the presentation, Dr. Bettmann, Open Sky's Research Director said, "What was most interesting is how quickly nutritional deficiencies can form, as soon as 3 weeks, and how much impact they have on mental health issues specifically." Dr.'s Kettle and Bettmann believe that if professionals develop a deeper understanding of additional factors that might be intensifying clinical mental health issues, the co-morbid states can be more effectively treated, thereby reducing the amount of substance abuse and relapse.

Dr. Nicola Kettle is a licensed naturopathic doctor with an honors BA in International Health from Brown University in 1997. Between undergraduate and medical schools, she worked as a case manager for people with HIV, addiction and mental health. She currently serves as Wellness Director for Open Sky Wilderness Therapy. Dr. Joanna Bettmann, PhD, is a licensed clinical social worker and Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, College of Social Work. She serves as Research Director of Open Sky Wilderness Therapy researching outcomes of the program's effectiveness as well as attachment issues as it relates to treatment in a wide range of settings.

Open Sky's holistic wilderness therapy program is the most comprehensive and clinically sophisticated wilderness therapy program in the industry, and the only one that is supported by continuous outcome-based research. Open Sky sets the standard in the industry and employs the widest range of empirically supported interventions for young adults and adolescents in crisis.

For more information, please visit www.openskywilderness.com