Addiction Treatment | How to Choose the Right Drug or Alcohol Treatment Center

How to Choose the Right Drug or Alcohol Treatment Center

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How can you best choose the right drug or alcohol treatment center?

This is a common question for anyone that is thinking about going to treatment, and it’s also a big question for the family of a struggling addict or alcoholic. How can someone choose the right treatment center so that they can insure that they will stay clean and sober?

There are a few issues you will want to consider here:

What level of treatment does the addict or alcoholic need? Some people need a medically supervised detox, while others do not. This will depend a bit on what substance or substances are being used. For example, alcohol poses a serious threat when it comes to detox, so that will definitely need to be medically supervised. Opiate drugs such as heroin or Vicodin will generally need a medical detox as well. Keep in mind that not all treatment facilities have a full medical detox. Knowing what level of care you need will obviously be a key point in your research.

Is this any different from previous treatment centers? A surprising number of addicts and alcoholics go to treatment and then relapse shortly after leaving. What’s really shocking is that many of these people continue to go back to the same treatment center, clearly blaming themselves for failing to stay clean and sober. This is a tricky argument here, but I can assure you it is valid: if you keep failing with one treatment center, why not try somewhere else? Likewise, if you go to several different treatment centers for short term residential stays, why not try going to long term treatment instead? This is a concept that is thoroughly endorsed in AA as well: “insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try going back to treatment again. But it does mean that you might want to try a different treatment center, or even a completely different approach (for example, short term versus long term treatment).

Will this treatment center save someone that doesn’t want help? The answer to that question is no, which means that no treatment can help this particular person in their journey (yet). Unfortunately, no one can beat an addict or alcoholic into submission, and no treatment center can convince an addict to want to stay clean. Sometimes the best you can do is offer to help someone and then get out of their way.

A corollary to this idea is this:

“When someone is truly ready to get clean and sober, it doesn’t matter what treatment center you take them to.”

In other words, the success rate of the recovering alcoholic or addict is heavily dependent on their personal convictions, not on the strength of their chosen treatment program.

This can easily be confirmed to be true by interviewing a handful of successful recovering addicts and alcoholics. Simply ask them about the treatment center or method by which they got clean, and ask them which was more important: “That they were truly done using drugs and alcohol, and desperately wanted to change,” OR “That they found the perfect treatment center that somehow worked a miracle in them.”

I can guarantee that it’s personal conviction and level of surrender.

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