5 Ways to Tell if a Rehab Program Will Truly Rehabilitate
In America alone, there are more than 10,000 drug rehab centers. Add Twelve Step meetings and you have many thousands more choices. But anyone who’s been to rehab knows that not all rehab programs are created equal.
There are programs run by expert, experienced staff determined to make a difference. There are perfunctory programs that simply dole out medications and collect their payments and every shade in between. The problem is that drug recovery is a life-or-death situation. A person who actually gets help has a better chance of staying sober (and surviving) than a person who goes through a perfunctory program.
How can you tell the difference? We’ll give you five ways.
1. Is the program just a one-off or has it been proven in many places over a long period of time? A rehab facility that stands all alone and is just based on one person’s idea of how to bring about recovery could go either way. It could be the result of an innovative genius or it could be completely unsupported by experience or testing. A rehab program that has decades of experience and trial behind it and that has been used in many locations is a more confident choice.
2. What do the families of those who completed this program say? Ask if you can talk to a few families whose loved one returned home a year or more ago. Ask them what life was like for the person who completed this rehab. Was it a daily struggle to deal with cravings? Did the person need to attend meetings every day or every few days or was he able to deal with life using his own life skills? If a person is truly rehabilitated by the recovery program he (or she) completed, he would be returned to the condition he was in before drugs stole his peace of mind, morality and happiness. Better yet, he would be taught the ability to successfully navigate life’s difficulties. Either way, he would not need constant support to stay sober.
3. Does treatment involve an extended period of prescribed drugs or will the person come home with prescriptions? We’re not talking about antibiotics or medications to bring down blood pressure. We’re talking about the use of drugs as part of an addiction treatment program. Yes, a person may need medications briefly during withdrawal, especially if they have been drinking large amounts of alcohol or they were addicted to a benzodiazepine like Valium or Xanax. But this is just during withdrawal. The use of medications like Suboxone, buprenorphine, methadone, Subsys or antidepressants during recovery means that an individual is not learning how to maintain a sober life using his own skills. When a person needs one, two or even more prescriptions after leaving a recovery program, he has not actually been rehabilitated, has he?
4. Does the rehab philosophy insist that addiction is a disease? If it does, ask for the medical test that shows the presence of this disease. Recovery from a true disease requires medical treatment but millions of people over the years and around the world have recovered without medical treatment for addiction itself. They learned how to deal with their problems without hiding behind drugs. They changed their lives into a new existence with purpose, one that they could enjoy while sober. They found new sober friends and perhaps a higher power, however they defined it. And they accepted responsibility for themselves and their actions, past and present. These changes resulted in their ability to remain sober.
5. Do the staff at the rehab tell those in recovery that they will “always be an addict”? This could be the most obvious sign that a recovery program is not actually designed to achieve rehabilitation. If a person must think of himself as an addict every hour of every day, then he has not been rehabilitated. He is in the same condition as he was before the recovery program and is having to use stringent self-discipline methods to keep himself sober. It’s possible to be successful this way but it is so much simpler when the recovery program actually achieves rehabilitation. When a true rehab program is completed, an individual does not need to believe he is an addict forever. In fact, some people feel that this advice makes relapse more likely, that it takes away their power to fully recover from addiction.
So what’s the flip side of this situation? What would a program be like that really does rehabilitate a person?
It would enable him (or her) to overcome the cravings that haunt every day and night. Many of our clients tell us that our sauna-based detoxification step—the New Life Detoxification—either reduces cravings to a manageable level or makes physical cravings go away.
It would give him a way to find relief from the guilt and trauma of the past. Every addicted person has harmed others and himself. The more he can come out of the past and into the present, the more capable he is of forging a sober, new life. On the Narconon program, there’s a number of steps that contribute to a fresh, new outlook on life, free from the guilt that has held him down for so long. One of them is the Objectives—precise exercises that help a person regain his focus on the here and now. This step prepares a person to learn practical, sober living skills that form the next steps of the Narconon program.
These practical, sober-living skills would enable a person to solve problems in life, manage relationships, choose positive friends and associates and generally pilot his life down a sober channel.
Once a person can hold his head up high and envision a positive, productive future, he no longer needs to think of himself as an addict. He’s now free from the past, free from his addiction and free to create a new life. That’s real rehabilitation. For the details on how we can help you or a loved one achieve this result, call us.
