New Mexico VA Health Care System – Alamogordo CBOC

The New Mexico VA Health Care System, Alamogordo is a community based outpatient clinic (CBOC) on North White Sands Boulevard in Alamogordo, New Mexico. They offer outpatient mental health care services. These services include treatment for addiction as well as co-occurring disorders such as anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. They’re part of the Veterans Administration so the services here are for Veterans, active duty military, and their families.

If you’re a walk in patient and need mental health services, you can get a same day appointment even if you’re a new patient. At the CBOC, they use an evidence based approach to substance use disorder. They have medication assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid, alcohol, and tobacco use disorders. Medications include options such as methadone, extended release naltrexone, and combination buprenorphine drugs like Suboxone.

The center uses several evidence based therapies to help address addiction and possible co occuring disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the therapies. CBT helps you develop better, more positive thought patterns. CBT also helps you manage the urge to use drugs or drink, refuse substance use opportunities, and gain better problem solving skills to help you stop using substances and achieve your goals.

Other therapies used include motivational enhancement therapy (MET), motivational interviewing (MI), and contingency management (CM). In MI, you’ll discover your personal motivations for change and learn how to strengthen those motivations while exploring the benefits of changing. With MET, you’ll focus solely on changing your unhealthy use of substances.

CM is a type of therapy in which you’ll receive incentives for recovery behaviors like abstinence. As you become consistent in your recovery behaviors, the incentives increase. They use urine drug screens to verify abstinence. If you’re a Veteran, active duty military member, or family looking for substance use and mental health treatment in the Alamogordo area, this may be a good option for you. The clinic is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.