Addiction is an illness affecting the brain and involves a complicated interaction between one’s environment and genetics. Someone who is struggling with a substance abuse/ addiction problem will look for drugs compulsively and take them regardless of the consequences even if he or she has tried quitting before. The same compulsive need to seek out these substances can damage the individual’s mind, body, academic achievements, career achievements, relationships with loved ones, and even finances.
People struggling with addiction need to find a rehabilitation treatment program to help them get through the issue and manage the illness long-term. Most rehab programs consider addiction to be a chronic disease and they provide numerous therapeutic and medical services to help the patient:
- Establish coping mechanisms for stress or substance addiction/abuse triggers
- Educate themselves on their addictions
- Detox from the specific substance
There is a wide variety of rehabilitation programs so each person can find the ideal option that works best for them. On the other hand, all these varieties may be overwhelming to someone who is looking at these options for the first time. Even though the eventual decision either falls into the treatment team’s hands or the individual’s hands, there are essentially two categories of rehab treatment programs namely outpatient and inpatient. They each have their own program offerings and have individual subcategories to benefit various types of patients.
Inpatient Rehabilitation Treatment Programs
Inpatient rehabilitation either includes the patient residing in a facility with residential services or hospitalization. The patient is immersed completely in the program during his or her stay in the facility. The patients eat their meals at these facilities and they partake in structured activities including skills training, medication management, and therapy just to name a few. Immersing the patient in the program facilitates a tremendous change in how the person thinks about substances of abuse, thinks about themselves, and how they make decisions. These residential programs vary in length from one month to three months and the intensity can also range in intensity based on the patient’s emotional capacity for stress, their medical requirements and their duration of stay. There are programs that even last for at least 6 months and at most 12 months but they are rare.
Types of Inpatient Rehab Programs
Sober Living Homes:
These are group living situations and they do not provide treatment for the initial phases of addiction treatment such as medication management or detox services. These are residential facilities to help those living there maintain their sobriety through staying in an environment that is strictly sober. People who stay in these facilities should maintain individual therapy schedules, pay rent, and have jobs. The staff maintains the facility’s quality while making sure the residents or their guests do not bring addictive or intoxicating substances into the sober living home.
Short-term inpatient treatment: In this type, patients
can either be established within a certain residential facility or a hospital setting. The patient may be sent home once they start this kind of talk-based treatment but if they are going through an outpatient program, they are expected to go in with rehabilitation. It usually has a maximum duration of three months with the residential program being part of a long-term program. Its main focus is to introduce the patient to talk therapy and detox them from addictive substances.
Long-term inpatient treatment:
This type of residential treatment provides round the clock assistance, 7 days of the week with care being provided in a non-hospital setup with onsite doctors and nurses providing medical guidance. They can last for more than 3 months and concentrate on reestablishing how the patient interacts socially with his or her community as well as their social structure. It includes group therapy and one on one therapy whereby therapists help the patients learn to take accountability for their actions and conquer their destructive behaviors.
Outpatient Rehabilitation Treatment
This type of program is less intensive than inpatient treatment programs. These addiction recovery programs usually have the patient spending 10-12 hours weekly at their local treatment centers. They have sessions at these treatment facilities focusing on educating the patient on how to cope without the addictive substance, group and individual counseling, and drug abuse education. This option can be ideal on its own for anyone with mild substance addiction or it can be included within a long-term treatment program. Outpatient rehabilitation can go for 3-6 months in a similar setup to inpatient treatment or even a period of over a year.
Outpatient Detoxification Programs
A patient with drug or alcohol withdrawal symptoms that are mild to moderate may find that outpatient detoxification is far more fitting as an alternative to inpatient detoxification. Outpatient detoxification is effective and safe not to mention it takes less time to finish in comparison to inpatient detoxification. The average period for outpatient detoxification is 6.5 days. The patient must visit a treatment facility such as a hospital or clinic to receive mental and physical check-ups during the outpatient detoxification. Doctors or clinicians can give the patient on-site medications to help in soothing the withdrawal symptoms such as an increased heart rate, depression, or anxiety.
Social Support
Outpatient rehabilitation allows the recovering addict to stay home throughout the course of treatment allowing the patient to continue working while also staying close to friends and family. Outpatient treatment centers often conduct their daily meetings early in the morning or at night to help the patients continue with their regular day-to-day schedules. 12-step program groups like Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous may also be included in the outpatient treatment. According to research, patients who participate in these 12-step recovery groups have a greater chance of remaining sober. A majority of recovering addicts can also go for outpatient treatment following the completion of an inpatient program as part of continued recovery.
Inpatient treatment programs are usually more expensive than outpatient rehabilitation programs mostly due to the on-hand available psychotherapy and medical care for the patients. However, this price difference should deter recovering addicts from making a decision regarding the ideal route of treatment. Regardless of the treatment options one chooses, drug or alcohol rehabilitation can change a person’s life for the better and help them deal with the chronic disease of addiction.