“Archangels gave me my life back. Their team is the most amazing, caring people I have ever met. The housing they sent me to was amazing, the groups are amazing, and this whole project is amazing. If you're tired of being sick and tired, reach out and save your life.”
“This facility is run by some of the best people you could ever ask for. They are extremely professional and truly dedicated to helping those struggling with mental health and addiction. They truly saved my life. I will be forever grateful for everything they did for me.”
“I had the honor of touring this facility, and it was absolutely beautiful, clean, and thoughtfully designed. But more than how it looked, you could feel the love in every detail. Watching the staff interact with clients genuinely touched my heart.”
Plain, fact-first answers about how care works here. Want to talk to a person? Call (888) 464-2144.
A 60-second walkthrough of the Tinton Falls clinic, the space where the program actually runs.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most studied and most widely used psychotherapies in addiction medicine. The core idea is simple: thoughts, emotions, and behaviors influence one another, and changing the pattern at any point can change the rest. In practice, CBT for substance use disorder teaches clients to identify the thoughts and situations that drive use, build alternative coping responses, and replace use behaviors with patterns that work better long term. CBT is well-suited for outpatient treatment, evidence-based across substances, and central to the clinical program at The Archangel Centers.
CBT for SUD blends several core techniques:
The client and therapist map specific use episodes in detail: the trigger (a feeling, a place, a person, a time of day), the thoughts ("I deserve this," "I can't sleep without it," "Nothing else will work"), the use behavior, the immediate consequence (relief, escape, connection), and the longer-term consequence (shame, broken commitments, escalating use). Naming the pattern is the first step in changing it.
Thoughts that drive use are often automatic and feel true in the moment. CBT trains the client to slow down, identify the thought, examine the evidence for and against it, and develop more accurate or useful alternative thoughts. This is not "positive thinking." It is precise thinking.
Many people in SUD have shrunk their lives to a few patterns that orbit use. Behavioral activation systematically rebuilds a wider set of rewarding activities, so the brain has alternatives to the use behavior.
Specific skills the client practices and applies:
CBT is an active treatment. Between sessions, clients complete thought records, behavior logs, exposure exercises, or behavioral experiments. The work outside the session is where most of the change happens.
A typical individual CBT session runs 45 to 60 minutes and follows a loose structure:
1. Brief mood and use check-in. Recent use episodes, current mood, any high-risk moments since the last session. 2. Review of homework. What the client tried, what worked, what didn't. 3. Today's focus. A specific situation, thought pattern, or skill to work on. 4. In-session practice. Working through a thought record, role-playing a refusal scenario, planning a behavioral experiment. 5. New homework. Clear, specific, achievable for the coming week.
Group CBT sessions follow a similar arc, with peer practice and discussion replacing some of the individual back-and-forth.
Group rooms, private therapy offices, the medical office, family programming rooms, and the wellness space, designed for clinical depth and nervous-system regulation.
CBT has been studied across alcohol use disorder, opioid use disorder, cocaine use disorder, methamphetamine use disorder, and cannabis use disorder. Findings consistently show:
The combination of CBT plus MAT is the closest thing to a "gold standard" in opioid use disorder treatment, recommended by SAMHSA, NIDA, and ASAM. For alcohol use disorder, CBT combined with FDA-approved medication (naltrexone or acamprosate) similarly produces the strongest results.
CBT is woven across the clinical program:
CBT is applied across all levels of care: Partial Care, IOP, and OP at our Tinton Falls clinic; the equivalent levels at our Charlotte clinic.
CBT does not work in isolation. It combines with:
Treatment integrates cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), motivational interviewing, narrative therapy, and trauma-informed care with EMDR available in individual therapy. The medical provider manages MAT (Suboxone, Vivitrol, Sublocade) and psychiatric medications when indicated.
Intake uses the full evidence-based battery: ASAM Criteria, LOCUS for mental health acuity, PHQ-9, GAD-7, the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale, plus biopsychosocial, nutrition, and pain screens. The assessment drives the treatment plan from day one.
See Our ModalitiesSeveral CBT variants have particular evidence in SUD:
The Archangel clinical team uses the variant that fits the client.
Most clients with SUD also have a co-occurring mental health condition. CBT is well-established for:
Treating both the SUD and the co-occurring condition with a CBT framework allows the work to compound rather than compete. See depression and addiction and anxiety and addiction.
“I came back from rock bottom. I'm here because I want to show others they can too. This isn't just a business. It's my mission.”- Mike Sorrentino, Founder
Mike and Lauren Sorrentino did not set out to build a generic treatment center. They wanted a recovery-grounded program that mixes lived experience, licensed clinical expertise, and family programming that actually moves the needle for the people who love someone in active addiction.
The clinic that resulted is small enough that each client knows their primary therapist by name, but resourced enough to deliver the full ASAM continuum from Partial Care through outpatient continuing care, with MAT and EMDR available when clinically indicated.
Read the Full StoryMost clients leave the first admissions call with a clinical assessment, an insurance verification, and a scheduled start date. Recovery starts with a decision, not a commitment. The admissions line is staffed around the clock.
Confidential, 24/7 admissions. Same-week placement is often available. Verify your insurance free of charge before any commitment.
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