If you’ve never been to therapy before, you might be nervous about what to expect. It can be intimidating or exciting, depending on how you look at it, to enter a room with a licensed professional or mental health expert who is there to work with you and what you bring to the session. Therapy is a highly individual process, so there is no exact way it must be conducted, but there are a few things you can expect to happen. In your first session, the therapist will likely focus on getting to know you and your situation through a series of questions. They will be interested in why you are coming to therapy and what you hope to get out of it. They will likely conduct an intake that covers your personal history as well as current symptoms and presenting issues. While the therapist may drive the conversation in the first session with their intake questions, it is important that you are also an active participant. You must be open and honest about your feelings and expectations; however, you shouldn’t force anything. With time, a relationship will form between you and your therapist that will prove to be a strong tool in the therapeutic process. After the first session, what happens in therapy depends much on you and your therapist. You are in charge in the therapy room, so it is up to you to explore what you are ready to address. The therapist-client relationship will develop over time based on your goals and expectations for therapy and how well you respond to one another. The therapist may provide insights or pose questions based on their theoretical orientation, but therapy will progress based on your level of comfort and your ability to process what comes up. Participating in therapy can be compared to peeling back the layers of an onion. The tough outer layer is often hard to break through, but once it is peeled away, real progress can be made. As each layer of the onion, or your personal internal experiences, is explored, you can progress to deeper and more sensitive issues. Therapy is a process, however, and not all layers can be peeled back at once. Over time, the client and therapist work together to address each layer at a time at a speed and intensity that the client responds to best. Therapy plays an important role in the treatment of substance use disorders. Substance abuse treatment is multifaceted, as it is a complex disease, but therapy can dissect the individual’s experience with substance misuse. Through therapy, individuals gain insights about their personal history, the issues which led to substance use, triggers for use, and how to move forward and maintain a life free of substance abuse. Medication can be an essential resource in getting someone through detox and the initial phases of treatment, but they will do little to ensure long-term sobriety. Therapy equips individuals with the tools needed to lead sober, happy, and productive lives. If you are in search of treatment for drug addiction, SAMHSA offers a free online treatment locator, as well as a national helpline that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: 1-800-662-4357 or 1-800-487-4889 for TTY.