Outpatient Drug Rehab Centers

Outpatient Drug Rehab

Outpatient Drug Addiction Treatment

Outpatient drug rehab is as diverse as the addicted persons seeking treatment. Since drug reahb has only been available since the early 70’s, there are many programs that are still changing their approaches to care because they have not yet established a codified technology that guarantees a high rate of success. Certainly, stopping the devastating use of drugs is an important step, but research on the outcomes of treatment demonstrates that most people that have totally recovered from drug addiction have attended multiple programs before they finally were able to live a drug-free life. There is ample research to document that outpatient drug rehab is half or less effective than inpatient. Naturally, the most problematic element in outpatient care is the inability of the program to control the access of drug use while the person is in treatment.

Drug addiction is a severe affliction and should be taken very seriously when one finally wants to find effective drug rehab. In 1992, alcohol addiction and abuse cost our country $148 billion, with 50% of the costs due to illness, over 20% were attributable to premature death, and the remaining cost were due to health care, crime, and other factors. All other drug abuse costs the country $98 billion, with 60% of the costs were related to crime, with illness, premature death and health care accounting for nearly all of the remaining cost. The important point to notice from these figures is not just the tremendous cost of drug addiction, but the point that the number one cost amongst drug addicts is crime. This demonstrates how many people addicted to drugs compromise their ethics and does whatever it takes to secure their next high. In drug addiction treatment, some programs believe that if you can stop the cravings for drugs, you have handled the addiction. This is not the case since research shows that a person must also confront his past behaviors and take responsibility for changing their attitudes towards others and society. The most common outpatient drug addiction treatment is pharmaceutical replacement therapy, with methadone maintenance being the most widely known. These programs replace illicit drugs with legal drugs that have less euphoria or other types of “highs”, but are many times harder to withdrawal from than are the illicit drugs.

First of all, by the time that someone is in need of outpatient drug abuse treatment, they have undergone changes in their neurochemistry, their behavior patterns, their ethics and their abilities and desires. The whole being is in need of rehabilitation. This is an awesome task and cannot ever be done quickly. Therefore, one should not think in terms of being able to completely recover from drug addiction in 28 or 30 days of residential care, much less two to three hours a week in outpatient care. Most drug addicts are looking for instant gratification and outpatient drug addiction treatment is appealing because it mildly impinges on the lifestyle of the user, unfortunately it also doesn’t impinge on one’s behaviors or other factors within the addiction process.

Most programs design their treatment to meet the demands of their funding sources; usually insurance or government funding. Most of these programs will admit that they would much rather have more time to handle the rehabilitation, but they instead have their clients attend aftercare programs that supposedly continue the treatment process. This has been proven to be a poor substitute for longer terms of treatment. Therefore, the first thing one should look for in finding appropriate treatment is the length of care and those that are preparing to go into drug addiction treatment should resign themselves to the idea that it will take at least three months to totally handle their addiction. Some programs do not put a time deadline on their treatment, but individualize their treatment allowing it to take as long as it takes. These types of programs are already showing that they care for you as an individual and that they are not going to compromise your chances to be drug-free because of any consideration other than your wellbeing. Frankly, a quality program will take responsibility for handling the addiction as long as the addict will attend the program. They do not use a “disease” and its severity to excuse them from having success in handling the addiction. Most of these programs are not outpatient since they have found that the intensity of their care and the demands on their clients cannot be successful in an outpatient setting.

If outpatient treatment is the only treatment that you can participate in, then ask the tough questions of your prospective outpatient drug addiction treatment center before you commit yourself to a regime of care. There are programs that you can attend that will totally handle your addiction and restore you to a drug-free life with the skills to easily live and handle your life without the need for extensive aftercare and other counseling and support, and there are programs that will assign the label of a “disease “ to your situation and give you inadequate clinical support to handle the addiction in your life. “Buyer, beware” is as important in this field as in most commitments that we make in life. Attend the program that has the highest success rates, has the strongest alumni satisfaction, and makes common sense to you. Do not be led astray by “the latest scientific finding, like brain waves disruptions”, but, instead, follow the program that seems to have the most truth about drugs and addiction.