Stage : Treatment Initiation
When you reach out for help from a professional alcohol and drug rehab program, you begin the first stage of your recovery, treatment initiation.
Whether you seek help voluntarily or are forced by circumstances to enter rehab, your recovery process will begin with a professional treatment program.
In the early hours and days of your rehab, you probably will have some ambivalent feelings about giving up your drug of choice permanently, and you may think that your substance abuse problem is not as bad as others’. Be wary of this attitude. Ambivalence and denial can be your worst enemies in the first days of your recovery.
At this point in treatment, the goal is to help the individual decide to actively participate in treatment and accept that abstinence is the goal. To accomplish this, a substance abuse counselor may help the individual do the following:
- Look at the damaging effects of addiction
- Explore feelings of denial with regards to the problem
- Help the person become motivated to recover
During this stage of treatment, an individual’s alcohol and drug use history will be taken, the treatment program will be introduced, and the counselor will work with the individual to develop an individualized treatment plan.
How To Get The Most Effective Treatment
Addiction affects each person differently, so it is important for treatment to be individualized as well. Just because something works for one person, doesnt mean it works for everyone. Over time, needs will change, and so should treatment plans.
Still unsure if you would like to attend a detox or rehab program? Take our free, 5-minute substance misuse self-assessment below if you think you or someone you love might be struggling with substance use. The evaluation consists of 11 yes or no questions that are intended to be used as an informational tool to assess the severity and probability of a substance use disorder. The test is free, confidential, and no personal information is needed to receive the result.
Call The Addiction Helpline And Talk With Our Specialists
The journey towards sobriety starts with a phone call! The first step begins with calling our helpline. Were available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So whether you need to reach out to us by day or by night, were here for you. We can connect you to the right addiction treatment for your individual needs, nationwide.
Well be able to discuss which treatment plans are right for you. Were here to provide immediate help and talk about your current situation. Calling our helpline is the first step to getting the help you need.
You May Like: Can Cheating Be An Addiction
List Of Drug Addiction Therapy Programs
Addiction treatment to reduce substance abuse commonly consists of a combination of group and individual therapy sessions that focus on teaching those in recovery the skills needed to get and stay sober as well as how to navigate various situations without turning to drugs or alcohol.2Behavioral therapy is perhaps the most commonly utilized types of treatment for addiction that is frequently used during substance rehabilitation. A general behavioral therapeutic approach has been adapted into a variety of effective techniques.2 These include:
Types & Levels Of Rehab Treatment
Depending on the severity of the addiction, you or a loved one may require either 1 level of care or multiple levels to achieve long term recovery. The following are the types of rehab where therapy programs will be utilized:
- Detoxification: A medically managed detox program will help stabilize the patient and help them overcome the symptoms of withdrawal from drugs or alcohol. These programs may last a few days to weeks. Once stabilization is achieved, the patient may need an inpatient program.
- Inpatient/Residential Rehab: Inpatient and residential rehab programs are live-in solutions where patients will receive supervised treatment and structured care plans to overcome their addiction. These programs may last anywhere from a few weeks to a number of months, and may be followed by outpatient rehab. Depending on the program, patients may receive 24/7 monitoring from a licensed professional.
- Outpatient Rehab& Intensive Outpatient Programs: Outpatient programs allow users to attend therapy and receive treatment on their own time as patients do not need to be on-site or live at the facility. Treatment may occur at a substance use treatment center, community health clinic, hospital-affiliated clinic, or other facility, meeting on a regular basis. Some outpatient programs may even offer night and weekend programs which make them a favorite for those personal, family, and/or professional responsibilities that may prevent them from attending an inpatient rehab.
You May Like: St Mary’s Addiction Services
How Might Substance Use Disorder Affect Me
Drugs affect the brain, especially the reward center of the brain.
Humans are biologically motivated to seek rewards. Often, these rewards come from healthy behaviors. When you spend time with a loved one or eat a delicious meal, your body releases a chemical called dopamine, which makes you feel pleasure. It becomes a cycle: You seek out these experiences because they reward you with good feelings.
Drugs send massive surges of dopamine through the brain, too. But instead of feeling motivated to do the things you need to survive , such massive dopamine levels can lead to damaging changes that change thoughts, feelings and behavior. That can create an unhealthy drive to seek pleasure from the drug and less from more healthy pleasurable experiences. The cycle revolves around seeking and consuming drugs to get that pleasurable feeling.
Addiction to drugs changes the brain over time. It affects how the brain works and even the brains structure. Thats why healthcare providers consider substance use disorder a brain disease.
The first use of a drug is a choice. But addiction can develop, creating a very dangerous condition. Drugs affect your decision-making ability, including the decision to stop drug use.
You may be aware theres a problem but unable to stop. With addiction, stopping drug use can be physically uncomfortable. It can make you sick and even become life-threatening.
There Are Three Main Steps To Drug Addiction Treatment
Recovery programs these days use different approaches and methods to drug addiction treatment, but most of them involve the three main steps: which are detoxification, rehabilitation, and recovery.
Rehabilitation treatments done in a safe and stress-free environment have shown to be one of the most effective strategies to allow patients to achieve the proper mindset and take an introspective look at the route of their drug addiction. A key part of rehabilitation is helping people understand what outside triggers create an urge to turn to drugs as a coping mechanism. Oftentimes these triggers revolve around issues like family problems and traumatic events. Rehabilitation programs are often considered as where the real drug addiction treatment work begins.
Read Also: How Long Does It Take To Get Addicted To Weed
Drug And Alcohol Detox
Most people need to complete drug and alcohol detox before they can start rehab. The detox process helps the body rid itself of harmful toxins left behind by drugs and begin to heal. Medical detox also manages acute withdrawal symptoms with medication-assisted treatment.
Detox is a very important part of the treatment process because you must overcome the physical challenges of addiction before you can tackle the psychological and behavioral ones.
When you suddenly stop abusing alcohol or drugs, your body goes through something called withdrawal. Withdrawal is a series of physical and psychological symptoms that occur when your body is suddenly deprived of the drugs it grew dependent on.
The Addiction Treatment Process
Whether youre dealing with a drug or alcohol problem, or a behavioral addiction such as gambling, gaming, or sex addiction treatment entails a process of healing on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level. How long this process takes depends on a number of factors, including your primary substance of use, any co-occurring mental health disorders you may have, and how long you have been actively addicted.
The treatment process unfolds in stages, with each stage designed to help you continue working on recovery as you grow and change. Throughout this process, a team of addiction counselors, doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, and psychologists will be there to create your individualized treatment plan and aftercare plan, and to provide ongoing, expert support from day to day.
Read Also: How To Get Addicted To Alcohol
Principles Of Effective Treatment
Based on scientific research since the mid-1970s, the following key principles should form the basis of any effective treatment program:
- Addiction is a complex but treatable disease that affects brain function and behavior.
- No single treatment is right for everyone.
- People need to have quick access to treatment.
- Effective treatment addresses all of the patients needs, not just his or her drug use.
- Staying in treatment long enough is critical.
- Counseling and other behavioral therapies are the most commonly used forms of treatment.
- Medications are often an important part of treatment, especially when combined with behavioral therapies.
- Treatment plans must be reviewed often and modified to fit the patients changing needs.
- Treatment should address other possible mental disorders.
- Medically assisted detoxification is only the first stage of treatment.
- Treatment doesn’t need to be voluntary to be effective.
- Drug use during treatment must be monitored continuously.
- Treatment programs should test patients for HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases as well as teach them about steps they can take to reduce their risk of these illnesses.
How Many People Get Treatment For Drug Addiction
According to SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 22.5 million people aged 12 or older needed treatment for an illicit* drug or alcohol use problem in 2014. Only 4.2 million received any substance use treatment in the same year. Of these, about 2.6 million people received treatment at specialty treatment programs .
*The term “illicit” refers to the use of illegal drugs, including marijuana according to federal law, and misuse of prescription medications.
Also Check: How Do I Stop My Food Addiction
Is Treatment Different For Criminal Justice Populations
Scientific research since the mid-1970s shows that drug abuse treatment can help many drug-using offenders change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors towards drug abuse avoid relapse and successfully remove themselves from a life of substance abuse and crime. Many of the principles of treating drug addiction are similar for people within the criminal justice system as for those in the general population. However, many offenders dont have access to the types of services they need. Treatment that is of poor quality or is not well suited to the needs of offenders may not be effective at reducing drug use and criminal behavior.
In addition to the general principles of treatment, some considerations specific to offenders include the following:
- Treatment should include development of specific cognitive skills to help the offender adjust attitudes and beliefs that lead to drug abuse and crime, such as feeling entitled to have things ones own way or not understanding the consequences of ones behavior. This includes skills related to thinking, understanding, learning, and remembering.
- Treatment planning should include tailored services within the correctional facility as well as transition to community-based treatment after release.
- Ongoing coordination between treatment providers and courts or parole and probation officers is important in addressing the complex needs of offenders re-entering society.
Barriers To Treatment In The Us
Barriers to accessing drug treatment may worsen negative health outcomes and further exacerbate health inequalities in the United States. Stigmatization of drug use, the War on Drugs and criminalization, and the social determinants of health should all be considered when discussing access to drug treatment and potential barriers.
Broad categories of barriers to drug treatment are: absences of problem, negative social support, fear of treatment, privacy concerns, time conflict, poor treatment availability, and admission difficulty. Other barriers to treatment include high costs, lack of tailored programs to address specific needs, and prerequisites that require participants to be house, abstinent from all substances, and/or employed.
Further, barriers to treatment can vary depending on the geographical location, gender, race, socioeconomic status, and status of past or current criminal justice system involvement of the person seeking treatment.
Also Check: How To Beat Video Game Addiction
Does Relapse To Drug Use Mean Treatment Has Failed
No. The chronic nature of addiction means that for some people relapse, or a return to drug use after an attempt to stop, can be part of the process, but newer treatments are designed to help with relapse prevention. Relapse rates for drug use are similar to rates for other chronic medical illnesses. If people stop following their medical treatment plan, they are likely to relapse.
Treatment of chronic diseases involves changing deeply rooted behaviors, and relapse doesnt mean treatment has failed. When a person recovering from an addiction relapses, it indicates that the person needs to speak with their doctor to resume treatment, modify it, or try another treatment.52
While relapse is a normal part of recovery, for some drugs, it can be very dangerouseven deadly. If a person uses as much of the drug as they did before quitting, they can easily overdose because their bodies are no longer adapted to their previous level of drug exposure. An overdose happens when the person uses enough of a drug to produce uncomfortable feelings, life-threatening symptoms, or death.
What Drugs Lead To Addiction
Drugs that are commonly misused include:
- Alcohol.
- Synthetic cannabinoids .
- Synthetic cathinones .
- Tobacco/nicotine and electronic cigarettes .
While these drugs are very different from each other, they all strongly activate the addiction center of the brain. That is what makes these substances habit-forming, while others are not.
Also Check: Addiction Medicine Certification For Nurse Practitioners
What Happens During The Treatment Process
Upon entering treatment, every person participates in a complete diagnostic evaluation leading to an individualized treatment plan. The evaluation and treatment plan are used to determine the types, level and intensity of services to be given to that individual and to manage the course of the treatment over time.
What happens during treatment to any one individual will, of course, be unique and specific to his or her personality and life circumstances. However, several typical treatment strategies may be offered singularly or in combination to patients. They include the following:
It should be noted that historically alcohol and drug treatment programs have concentrated on returning each person to be a self-sufficient, productive member of his or her community. However, with the advent of welfare reform in 1995, many treatment organizations have made employment-related services even more important components of their treatment regimens. That is, the close alignment of welfare reform strategies and the renewed emphasis on work in the welfare system have reshaped some chemical dependence services, making employment readiness a more central feature of the chemical dependence system.
Phases Of Rehabilitation Process For Drug Addiction
Psychreg on General
Addiction to anything characterised as compulsive use and difficulty in control and became a chronic disease. Drug addiction starts with the way you feel after consumption and start affecting your brain. A drug addictive obsessively uses drugs without thinking of the harmful consequences.
The drug addictives start intake with the thought of control that how much and how often they are going to use, but soon they lost self-control and the ability to resist against the urge to consume drugs. Drug addiction is thought to be a relapsing disease because of the changes it makes might be constant. The people who have recovered have a huge risk to get back to it.
An addictive person might relapse after years, but that does not mean that treatment has no effects. Sam, like other chronic diseases, the treatment must go on and adjusted according to the need of patients and their response. The treatment needs to review repeatedly and modified according to the individuals need.
You May Like: How To Avoid Xanax Addiction
Drug Addiction Treatment Can Include Medications Behavioral Therapies Or Their Combination
Treatments for prescription drug abuse tend to be similar to those for illicit drugs that affect the same brain systems. For example, buprenorphine, used to treat heroin addiction, can also be used to treat addiction to opioid pain medications. Addiction to prescription stimulants, which affect the same brain systems as illicit stimulants like cocaine, can be treated with behavioral therapies, as there are not yet medications for treating addiction to these types of drugs.
Behavioral therapies can help motivate people to participate in drug treatment, offer strategies for coping with drug cravings, teach ways to avoid drugs and prevent relapse, and help individuals deal with relapse if it occurs. Behavioral therapies can also help people improve communication, relationship, and parenting skills, as well as family dynamics.
Because they work on different aspects of addiction, combinations of behavioral therapies and medications generally appear to be more effective than either approach used alone.
Safe And Comfortable Detox Is Key
Withdrawal can be very uncomfortable and may even be life-threatening in some cases. Medical detox provides detox that is both safe and comfortable. As a client, youll receive 24/7 medical care, individual and group therapy, and a semi-private room in a comfortable setting where you can rest and recover.
Additionally, the detox process not only clears your body of harmful toxins, but it also serves as preparation for ongoing treatment in a rehab setting.
Don’t Miss: How Long Does It Take To Get Addicted To Xanax
Types Of Addiction Treatment
Addiction treatment programs will often combine approaches depending upon the specific needs of the person. Its common for treatment to start with medically supervised detox, to help the person safely and comfortably overcome withdrawal symptoms from certain substances.3 Additionally, treatment may include a combination of other services such as individual and/or group therapies, family therapy, evaluation for co-occurring mental health disorders, and long-term follow-up.8 You may be able to access state-funded or free or low-cost addiction treatment. Prices will differ between inpatient and outpatient rehab settings.
The interventions that work for one person may not work for another. Addiction treatment can be effective but needs to be continuously monitored and adjusted to the needs of the person to enhance long-term management of addiction. The length of treatment may also be an important factor in determining the effectiveness of treatment with longer treatment being recommended for more positive outcomes.3
