Friday, April 20, 2007

Drug Abuse Rehab.

The best solution for a drinking or alcohol problem is to find the proper drug or alcohol abuse treatment program and then gently discuss with patient, if he is not the one initiating the alcohol rehabilitation, the dangers of continuing alcohol or abuse, the benefits of rehabilitation and your love for them. The patient may not be amenable to your appeal initially, don’t give up.

Tell them lovingly the need to get back on a healthy track and that going to an alcohol rehab center is like taking off on a deserved holiday, and that the healing effects of such a holiday will give them a new lease of life that brings about a behavioural advancement away from the influences of alcohol and its negative tendencies.

Whether you are the patient or you are the patient’s counsellor, I want you to bear in mind that rehabilitation is a very serious issue, which emotional impact on the patient you must try to understand in other to be able to deal with it. No one wants to lose their freedom to anyone or institution, but that is what an alcohol rehabilitation program is all about. The rehab center takes over your life in such a way that it shuts out a habit you have enjoyed for a long while.

This is why you should be careful in choosing an alcohol rehab that will in turn choose an appropriate medium and motivation for you or your loved one. Every alcohol rehab patient is an individual whose agreeable tendency must be found and used for his own good.

Whether an alcohol rehab should rely heavily on prescription drugs and techniques, holistic or natural methods, will depend on the individual patient’s readiness to embrace such a therapy without force. No matter how good an alcohol rehab may claim to be, only the cooperation of the patient can bring about a successful alcohol rehabilitation.

Aside from prescription drugs and natural treatments, ensure that your choice of alcohol rehab engages in psychological repair of their patients, because though the patient be purged of both alcohol use and cravings, their view of themselves is the main cause of alcohol abuse.

Whether an alcohol rehab patient should be an in or out patient depends on the gravity of the abuse, however, this decision should be left for the rehab center to take after thorough examination of patient and the patients financial ability to foot the bills.

There are lots of alcohol rehab centers in the United States and overseas, the best alcohol rehab centers for patients are ones that a little far removed from home.

Drug Rehab Clinics.

Many consider alcohol and/or drug addiction a disease. There are drug rehab clinics located all over the United States created to assist those with an addiction problem. Since most drug rehab clinics allow patients to check in with the help of insurance, more and more people are taking advantage of their services. Typically drug rehab clinics require the patient to stay anywhere from seven to twenty-eight days. Sometimes the person may only require a short, outpatient session such as one counseling session or a dose of medication.

In the most extreme cases, the addict may end up staying there for months at a time, or even longer. These clinics offer people hope and a real sense that they can “kick the habit” of drug addiction and lead a clean, sober, and healthier life.

The treatments used in drug rehab clinics vary, and most use a combination of different therapies in order to get the best results. Drug addicts have special needs, and should be monitored carefully upon admission to be sure they do not panic, have adverse withdrawal effects, or in some cases get violent. Over time, and after an extended stay at drug rehab clinics, most people find that they have a clearer head and a straightforward vision of their futures. Medication is sometimes used, depending upon the severity of the addiction. Group and individual therapies are essential to the mental well being of patients and many claim that this was the key to their drug recovery. Knowing that you are not alone can have a huge impact on your outcome. If you or someone you love is considering choosing to go into a drug rehab clinic, be sure to find out whether or not they are licensed and certified, whether they accept your insurance, and whether they have a good success rate or not. While entering into a rehab center can be extremely hard and sometimes embarrassing, the final result will be well worth it.

Drug Rehab Center.

Repairing the damage of drug abuse can require a multifaceted approach to physical and mental treatment. Passages Malibu offers a battery of one-on-one therapeutic sessions to treat and counsel patients suffering from the ravages of addiction. Here on our immaculate 16,500 acre campus by the Pacific Ocean, patients get well in a limited enrollment program designed to probe for the underlying issues that are provoking the need to do drugs.

Whether you or a loved one is in the thrall of heroin addiction, morphine dependency, or cocaine addiction, or whether you have been dealing with chronic alcoholism for years, we can remediate the physical symptoms you are enduring and pave the way for a cleaner, sober future. The Passages Malibu drug treatment center has graduated hundreds of sober, profoundly grateful people. Feel free to read some of their stories and testimonials while here at our site.

The road to recovery does not have to be a constant nail-biting experience. Willpower alone is not sufficient to battle the deep-rooted inner impulses to drink or do drugs. Instead, what most addicts need is a fully holistic solution that treats and manages inner hurts that provoke feelings of helplessness and chaos. After all, people abuse drugs primarily to cope with this helplessness, and drug treatment centers such as Passages Malibu are well-equipped to handle these aspects of rehab.

In other words, far from being a spiritual or mental weakness, the addictive impulse is actually a protective one. It is just a misguided attempt to restore order. At Passages, patients learn how to handle their addictive impulses through 70 private sessions of professional one-on-one addiction treatment. Before addiction takes over your life completely, give a call to one of our caring Admissions Counselors.

Let’s look in detail at what makes Passages such a special treatment center. Unlike other programs that put clients in crowded rooms and force them to do chores to “earn their keep,” we treat our guests as we would want to be treated ourselves, and provide extensive luxuries and amenities. Enjoy your own bathroom, a first class tennis court, a kitchen offering wide assortments great gourmet foods, a gymnasium, beautiful vistas of the Pacific Ocean and quiet places to consider your life in a relaxed atmosphere.

We also believe fundamentally that addicts shouldn’t be deprived of friends and family while they’re undergoing drug treatment. After all, would you keep a heart patient from seeing his family before, during, or after surgery? Indeed, by surrounding clients with love, attention, and good food and exercise options, we’re able to get them to relax to the point that they can really open up about what is going on inside them.

Something magical happens during the course of a month in our intensive drug treatment program. You really have to be at the facility to believe it. The testimonials onsite, including Pax Prentiss’s own recounting of his addiction saga, do the experience justice. However, to watch someone transform (often between weeks two and three) and renew their lives is one of the most thrilling experiences anyone can imagine.

Tens of millions of Americans suffer from mild to severe addiction to drugs and alcohol. With incredible advances in addiction rehab techniques and psychotherapy, one would think that most clinics out there have relatively good track records as far as rehabilitating users goes. Sadly, the truth is that practically every drug treatment center out there uses what’s known as “group” therapies. Basically, addicts meet with other addicts to talk about their symptoms, their lives, and their treatments.

While groups offer solace and a sense of community, they are not really substitutes for individual attention. Think about this analogy: if you got sick with a lung ailment, would you expect that the only people in the world that could possibly treat you were other people who had that same ailment? Absolutely not--you would want doctors who have studied the subject.

Group-oriented drug treatment centers offer only one solution to all addictions--more group treatment. This idea similarly doesn’t hold water. If you came in to the doctor’s office with an unknown pain in your chest or head, would you want that doctor treat you blindly--without asking about your history, other symptoms that might be related to your pain, or past failed attempts?

These holes in the logic of group drug treatment centers can be very costly. Typical programs have a cure rate hovering around 5 percent and a relapse rate approaching 95 percent. Sure, some group programs may show higher numbers--but look at these statistics carefully. Often, group programs will only track successes for the first six months or year. After that, statistics are very difficult to keep. Many studies show that, while group treatment may in the short term provide much needed drug detox and rehabilitation help, over the long term, group therapy has approximately the same success rate as placebo therapy.

Enter Passages Malibu. We are a completely different kind of drug treatment center. Our success rate blows the roof off of traditional statistics. We have an 84.4 percent rate of success--and that’s for the long term. Might that be a statistical hiccup? Not at all--we’ve treated hundreds of clients, including A-list celebrities, heads of state, and people who have wrestled with major addiction problems for years to decades.

How do we get the job done? We put a team of 10 therapists with each client. Our unmatched Drug Treatment Program offers massive amounts of one-on-one attention and therapy (70 sessions during a month long residential treatment). We revise our approach as we become more familiar with your case. We invite relatives and friends to help you in your recovery. We treat you with dignity. We get to the bottom of your drug issues by exploring everything from your habits to your diet to your childhood. Each addiction story is different, and we understand that unpacking someone’s personal history takes patience, kindness, and savvy.

Introduction.

Drug rehabilitation tends to address a stated two-fold nature of drug dependency: physical and psychological dependency. Physical dependency involves a detoxification process to cope with withdrawal symptoms from regular use of a drug. With regular use of many drugs, legal or otherwise, the brain gradually adapts to the presence of the drug so that normal functioning can occur. This is how physical tolerance develops to drugs such as heroin, amphetamines, cocaine, nicotine or alcohol. It also explains why more of the drug is needed to get the same effect with regular use. The abrupt cessation of taking a drug can lead to withdrawal symptoms where the body may take weeks or months (depending on the drug involved) to return to normal.

Psychological dependency is addressed in many drug rehabilitation programs by attempting to teach the patient new methods of interacting in a drug-free environment. In particular, patients are generally encouraged or required not to associate with friends who still use the addictive substance. Twelve-step programs encourage addicts not only to stop using alcohol or other drugs, but to examine and change habits related to their addictions. Many programs emphasize that recovery is a permanent process without culmination. For legal drugs such as alcohol, complete abstention--rather than attempts at moderation, which may lead to relapse--is also emphasized ("One drink is too many; one hundred drinks is not enough.") Whether moderation is achievable by those with a history of abuse remains a controversial point but is generally considered unsustainable.

Various types of programs offer help in drug rehabilitation, including: residential treatment (in-patient), out-patient, local support groups, extended care centres, and sober houses.

Pharmacotherapies to a greater or lesser extent have come to play a part in drug rehabilitation. Certain opioid medications such as methadone and more recently buprenorphine are widely used and show significant efficacy in the treatment of dependence on other opioids such as heroin, morphine or oxycodone. Methadone and buprenorphine are maintenance therapies used with an intent of stabilizing an abnormal opioid system and used for long durations of time though both may be used to withdraw patients from narcotics over short term periods as well. Ibogaine is an experimental medication proposed to interrupt both physical dependence and psychological craving to a broad range or drugs including narcotics, stimulants, alcohol and nicotine. Some antidepressants also show use in moderating drug use, particularly to nicotine, and it has become common for researchers to re-examine already approved drugs for new uses in drug rehabilitation.

Drug rehabilitation is sometimes part of the criminal justice system. People convicted of minor drug offences may be sentenced to rehabilitation instead of prison, and those convicted of driving while intoxicated are sometimes required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. There have been lawsuits filed, and won, regarding the requirement of attending Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step meetings as being inconsistent with the United States' Constitutional mandate of separation of church and state, although there is no such provision in the Constitution itself. Opponents cite a personal letter from President Thomas Jefferson, and attribute it to the First Amendment right. (source: http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html) (source: http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html)

Some psychotherapists question the validity of the "diseased person" model used within the drug rehabilitation environment. Instead, they state that the individual person is entirely capable of rejecting previous behaviours. Further, they contend that the use of the disease model of addiction simply perpetuates the addicts' feelings of worthlessness, powerlessness, and inevitably causes inner conflicts that would be easily resolved if the addict were to approach addiction as simply behaviour that is no longer productive, the same as childhood tantrums. Drug rehabilitation does not utilize any of these ideas, inasmuch as they intrinsically contradict the assumption that the addict is a sick person in need of help.

Traditional addiction treatment is based primarily on counselling. However, recent discoveries have shown that those suffering from addiction often have chemical imbalances that make the recovery process more difficult. Often times, these imbalances may be corrected through improved diet, nutritional supplements and leading a healthy lifestyle. Some of the more innovative treatment centres are now offering a "Biochemical Restoration" process to supplement the counselling portion of treatment.