Alcohol & Drug Addiction Treatment

A drug rehab program is something that is not always easy to find. How long should the treatment be, should they have medical staff, should it be inpatient or outpatient, does it need a detox or maybe a good program requires all of these. Drug and alcohol treatment should fit the needs of the addicted individual. Whether they have a lack of life skills, self-esteem issues, education problems and maybe unhealthy both emotionally and physically finding the right drug rehab facility is crucial.

Alcohol and drug treatment has researched thousands of programs throughout the US and found all different types of treatment modalities. Generally we would recommend a program that is longer termed that provides life skills therapy, and individualized counseling. Sometimes a medical detox is necessary for certain prescription drugs, alcohol and some opiates like heroin and methadone.

Many families who have a loved one addicted to drugs and alcohol find themselves exhausted in trying to convince the addicted individual to accept help. Most drug addicts and alcoholics are scared or are so addicted the thought of quitting is to hard to swallow. Drug and alcohol interventions are necessary in this type of situation. Interventions are very effective and once they are finished usually the loved one is being escorted to a drug rehab center.

At the rate we’re going in America, drug rehab programs will never go out of business. If it seems to you that we have at all put a dent in the illicit drug problem then your hopes will be dampened by the fact that prescription drug abuse has now reared its ugly head as an even bigger issue.

Back in the day, you perhaps noticed all your Grandmother’s medications would go missing when you brought certain friends over. Nowadays, doctors irresponsibly misdiagnose young children and adults and prescribe highly addictive medications which patients become dependent on. And of course there’s the crafty criminal and drug addict who knows how to abuse the system; he knows what to say to be diagnosed as “bi-polar,” so he can get some pills to take and to sell to his friends. In schools and on the streets, youth are confronted with both illicit and prescription drugs. Both highly addictive and both potentially deadly.

It is time for a nation-wide prevention campaign. While I whole-heartedly support effective treatment solutions (and have been blessed to have found the right program for both my husband and my brother), it is time for a national prevention campaign. If the American government wants to wage a REAL war on drugs, we need to start young by giving kids the truth about drugs.

Current prevention campaigns in schools are teaching children that drug abuse is inevitable along with “safe” methods to use drugs. This apathetic approach to educating children simply agrees with society’s moral decline and does nothing to PREVENT further drug abuse. A recent prevention campaign study showed that children, when given the truth about drugs, decided not to use drugs and stayed off drugs up to two years after being indoctrinated.

Today’s children are tomorrow’s civilization. It’s time we look at what kind of world we are leaving behind.

What makes addiction to drugs and alcohol so hard to overcome? Maybe it’s that people who are addicted are not getting proper help, maybe its that the people who are getting help and successful in their recovery are not speaking about their success’s. Or maybe it’s the media only wanting to report negative news and not positive news. The truth is it’s probably all of these things and though I wish I had some control over the media unfortunately I don’t but what I can do is help people find the most effective drug rehab program for their addiction.

Alcohol drug treatment is something that is important to me that I have decided to dedicate my life to helping people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. Whether a person is willing to get help or not a family must always remember an addiction is a life or death situation. If a person needed a heart transplant their loved ones would do everything in their power to help the person get this done. Well addiction and rehabilitation should be looked upon as the same thing. Whether an addicted person wants help or not should make no difference.

Finding the most effective drug rehab is vital for a successful recovery. Most drug rehabs now offer a more therapeutic environment which provides a setting which is easier for a person to live in so their attention can be on treatment. Also it is important that during the rehabilitation process that a person is also learning new positive things to do in life. These would include working out, finding new friends, learning how to play the guitar, getting involved with the arts, or giving back to the community.

A drug and alcohol detox is an important step during the rehabilitation process. Though not every case requires a medical detox many of them do. Alcohol and drug treatment does not always provide a detox, in these cases they usually work with a local hospital where the detox can take place. A person who is addicted to opiates like heroin, Oxycontin, and other prescription painkillers generally need a detox. Also many acute alcoholics need a detox as well. Some people coming off of opiates don’t want a detox but this should be left up to the patient and the doctor.

A medical detox always is the first form of treatment during rehab. When a person who requires detox enters the inpatient drug rehab they first meet with a doctor and nurse for a physical and mental evaluation. Then they are taken to the detox area where they are given certain medications to keep the safe medically to withdraw of the drugs or alcohol. The detox takes about 3-10 days. Once complete the patient will then start the rehabilitation process.

It is always better to be safe than sorry. In the case of a medical detox a person may be kept an extra day to ensure that they are ready to start the drug rehab program. Most drug rehab centers which are private pay include detox in the price of the program so an extra day does not mean an extra expense to the financier.

There is a little-known form of medicine called Orthomolecular* Medicine which deals with rebalancing the body’s natural chemistry through nutritional protocol. This is extremely important in treating drug and alcohol addiction as the body of the addicted individual has been robbed of its organic abilities to produce substances which themselves promote healing and wellness. This form of medicine is highly pertinent to the subject of drug and alcohol abuse recovery.

If you are on the hunt for the right drug rehab program, steer away from programs which do not touch upon addiction recovery using natural methods. Pharmaceutical quick-fixes are often chosen as a way out, but they can lead to multiple addictions instead of sobriety. Substance abuse occurs in an attempt to solve a problem. This problem is not solved through masking it with further anesthetizing drugs. Just as someone with scurvy would not be cured with Atavan or Prozac, drug addiction is not cured with prescription medications. Currently, there are 33 million people in the United States alone addicted to drugs or alcohol. Surely not every drug rehab facility is the same. When researching recovery programs, look for those which individually address physical health, emotional health and life skills. These are the foundation for permanent recovery and healing.

There are several different types of drug rehab programs. What makes them different is the form of treatment they use. We will cover several of the most common forms for residential drug rehabs.

The most common type of drug rehab is the 12 step program. The 12 step program believes addiction is an incurable disease and that a person is powerless to their addiction. Below are the steps that are followed when entering one of these types of programs.

Step 1- We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5- Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Step 7 Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8 Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step 11- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
Step 12- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

Though this form of rehabilitation is effective for some, statistically it is not the most effective.
At Alcohol Drug Treatment we have found that many people that enter into a 12 step program usually have a 2-13 % success rate.

A Bio-Physical drug rehab program is a new form of treatment but has been found to be very effective. In this type of treatment the physical and mental cravings are addressed by cleansing the body of drug metabolites, toxins, and poisons. When the body metabolizes drugs and alcohol tiny particles lodge to fatty tissues and stay there for some time. These drug and alcohol metabolites can be released back into the blood stream traveling up to the brain and causing a person to crave the drug or alcohol. The sauna detoxification removes the drug and alcohol metabolites by using vitamins and minerals, light exercise, and dry-heat sauna therapy. Once this process is done the person no longer craves drugs or alcohol.

Once the person has cleansed the body of the harmful drugs and alcohol they then address the underlying issues. Most drug rehab facilities that offer this type of treatment provide cognitive counseling and life skills therapy. Teaching a person how to live life drug-free is a vital step to recovery.