Drug & Alcohol Detox

November 22, 2018

The continuation of drug abuse and addiction reaches a point where you become exhausted of being controlled by a substance. You realize that you can hardly recognize yourself and wish to go back to the normal you, whereby you can be productive and be helpful to your family, rather than be a nuisance.

This is the point where you seek professional help to overcome your drug abuse or addiction problem so that you can get your life together. Seeking treatment involves so many things like considering your finances, the location of the treatment center and the support around you, among others.

Preparation Activities before Seeking Help

Preparation is essential in everything you do in life, and thus is important at this point when you need a treatment program to put you back in shape. Some of the basic leg work that you should do involves the following:

• You need to remember when you began drug abuse so that you can know the length of your substance abuse.
• It is important to know the amount of drugs that you consume
• Be honest with yourself if you have been mixing the drug you are addicted to with other drugs
• Acknowledge if you have any diseases or medical issues
• Beware of any co-occurring mental health disorders.

All this information is necessary at hand, because the addiction doctors that you choose will definitely ask question regarding this data during the assessment period. The answers you provide will help them to fully understand your problem and body.

Benefits of Seeking Help

As a person that enjoys using psychoactive substances and feels good, seeking help will be the most beneficial action that you will do for yourself. It may feel shameful since you feel as if you are a complete mess, but it is important to focus on your recovery, instead of what people may think.

Regardless of what you do, whether good or bad, negativity will always emerge at some point, so you can as well do what you wish. The following are some of the benefits of seeking help through treatment:

• To start with, seeking help benefits you because it sets a positive attitude towards recovery, which is very essential in this process. That will to do better will push you through the hardest or toughest times during treatment.
• Treatment offers medical stabilization since you are prone to experience some uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms as soon as the detoxification period commences. However, the severity of this period is ‘all dependent on the depth of your substance addiction.
• Seeking treatment is also beneficial to your health because as you get treatment, your are safer than a person that is trying to quit drugs alone. Emergencies happen, and if not well handled your life could be lost.
• Professional treatment is good for you as it prevents you from relapsing. Quitting the consumption of drug is hardly as easy as it sounds and hence, depending on the level of your drug abuse or addiction, relapse is possible. However, with a team of medical support behind you, you can overcome it and thus escape health problems.
• Peer support is among the things that will push you to do better. You will not be alone as you receive treatment since you will meet others like or worse than you. They will motivate and support you to keep going.
• Aftercare is also among the many benefits of pursuing treatment since it ensures that you continue with your recovery journey. You will hardly feel alone.

Drug Abuse and Addiction Treatment Settings

Different settings may be incorporated to ensure that you receive the best treatment for your substance abuse. Two of these settings include inpatient and outpatient treatment settings. Regardless of the choice made, the treatment offered by either must be strong and long enough to ensure effectiveness.

Under-treatment of substance abuse disorder is risky and could lead to relapse, which further causes despair and loss of hope. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, there are factors that can help doctors determine and thus advice you on the best treatment setting that will ensure your full recovery.

Assessment Factors

Addiction doctors normally focus on six areas while determining the most suitable treatment setting. These include;

• Motivation or readiness to change
• Intoxication level and potential for withdrawal
• Presence of cognitive, behavioral and emotional conditions
• Risk of relapse
• Your recovery environment, which may comprise of the legal system, peers, family and school.

Inpatient Treatment Setting

The inpatient treatment setting is an approach towards recovery, which requires you to receive doctors’ attention while residing in a facility for a specified time length. Therefore, it could be short or long-term, depending on your situation and needs. Long-term could last for six to twelve months while short-term could go for about six weeks.

Inpatient setting is appropriate for you, under the following conditions:

• Low availability of support
• High amounts or triggers and stressors in our environment
• If you have a chronic substance abuse history
• Occurrence of poor treatment outcomes previously

If you prefer to use the inpatient drug treatment, you should know that you will enter a setting whose primary focus will involve stabilizing any acute and immediate psychiatric or medical condition. This will create an opportunity to ensure your safety and set you up to healthily engage in the proceeding addiction treatment.

Benefits of Inpatient Setting

The main advantage of using the inpatient setting is the fact that you will have access to the therapeutic community. As a patient, you will be immersed in a recovery environment where there are others that are dedicated to addiction breakage.

Programs Offered in the Inpatient Setting

1. Detoxification

Detoxifying your body can take place in multiple settings. It is important to know that this process must take place since it will initiate the rest of the inpatient treatment program. Detoxification entails a group of interventions that is employed to ensure the management of the cumulative substance toxicity symptoms. It also caters for the acute withdrawal from the drugs you developed a dependency towards.

As detoxification takes place in an inpatient setting, your body rids itself of the toxins from drugs abused in an environment that is controlled. This enables the improvement of future prognosis and comfort, while minimizing risks.

There are two types of detoxifications; medically managed intensive inpatient detox and medically monitored inpatient detox. The former entails provision of acute care on a 24 hour basis due to intense withdrawal symptoms. The latter entails completion of the detox period through 24 hour medical supervision.

2. Therapy

After dealing with the physical toxins, you enter a period whereby you will undergo therapy to eliminate the psychological intoxication. There are multiple therapies used in this phase, which include the following;

1. Motivational Enhancement Therapy

This therapy’s design enhances and understands the existing motivation between you and the addiction drug. The therapist conducts a motivational interviewing by asking questions to help you get the significance you have given the drug and the consequences of such value. At the end, you will be even more motivated to quit drugs.

1. Cognitive Behavior Therapy

This therapeutic approach will help you change your behaviors, especially those that lead you to substance abuse. At the end, you will have more control over your behavioral tendencies and will be able to monitor your patterns. If you believed that living without the drug is impossible, this will change as well.

1. Dialectal Behavior Therapy

Dialectal behavior therapy is like specialized cognitive behavior therapy, which focuses on helping you develop skills to tolerate emotional discomfort and stress. It also enables you to understand and accept the most difficult moments and further change behavior contributing to those situations.

1. Psychodynamic Therapy

This Freudian approach will enable you to dive into your subconscious and thus understand how it controls you into drug abuse, since it house unresolved issues. Resolving the problems hidden there removes the urge to depend on substances since you seem to take them to escape these problems.

Inpatient setting categories

1. Inpatient psychiatric care

If you suffer from any serious mental health problems, you will likely fall in this category, so that you can receive treatment for the acute mental health symptoms. The environment here is highly structured and more restrictive with ample medical attention.

The ratio of staff to patient may be high since the majority of the people in this category need help in participating in group and individual therapies.

1. Residential Treatment

Residential treatments take place in home or dormitory like environments, especially when pursuing more extended treatment options that could last for months. Fitting in this set requires you to have less dangerous or acute symptoms.

In here, you will indulge in group and individual therapy sessions, nutritional counseling, have medical access and participate in wellness activities. This category is also suitable for persons undergoing through social detox, since it does not require medical support.

This set is beneficial because you acquire services from trained, qualified and licensed staff that offer help while interacting with you. The flow of positive energy enables you to be positive as well even in the bad days.

• Therapeutic communities

These provide care on a 24 hour basis, in a free environment. The highly structured treatment entails using confrontation techniques to create motivation, reduce denial and produce change. In here you also learn environment interaction while rebuilding your problem solving skills.

1. Recovery housing

After the inpatient setting, you may result to the recovery housing, where you will enter the recovery housing for a short period, where you must master being independent. In here you will get the chance to boost occupational skills, manage personal finances and find employment.

Outpatient Treatment Setting

The outpatient treatment setting is like the opposite of the inpatient since you do not have to be admitted in any facility. Instead, it involves treatment sessions that your doctors can schedule during multiple times in a week.

This setting allows you to continue with your routine in regards to work, and home responsibilities. However, you must report into the clinic to receive medication and counseling as expected.

While inpatient setting involves places like hospitals and residential homes, outpatient setting includes places like primary care clinic, mental health clinics, private practice settings, substance abuse treatment centers and integrated dual diagnosis programs.

Outpatient setting is appropriate for you under the following conditions;

• If you are merely a drug abuser and thus not developed addiction
• If your addiction is mild, at most
• If you have none, few or manageable mental health problems
• If you have ample support in your living environment
• If you are willing to fully participate in a plan for treatment
• You cannot afford the residential treatment

On the other hand, you are not supposed to consider pursuing this setting if you have any of the following issues;

• If you suffer from an addiction that has lasted for a long time, leading to struggles
• If you need medical assistance to deal with your addiction on a daily basis
• If you have serious co-occurring disorders like anxiety and depression that nee support.
• If your home environment cannot support your recovery due to triggers among other factors.

Benefits Of The Outpatient Treatment Setting

The outpatient setting is quite beneficial because of the following;

• The treatment plan enables you to access healthcare, while still continuing with your life, hence income and responsibilities are catered for
• The amount charged is normally cheap and thus you will hardly struggle to clear the bill
• You have the opportunity to practice the advice given during therapy, instead of waiting for a while to incorporate new skills into the real world.
• You are able to change your life as days go by and not abrupt, which could be overwhelming

Programs Offered in the Outpatient Setting

1. Day programs

The day programs provided in the outpatient setting contain the highest structure and level of care. If you choose to incorporate this program in your recovery, then you must commit to meetings that take place probably, five to seven days every week. The meeting point is the outpatient facility of your choice, preferably the one closest to you, and lasts for several hours daily.

During these meetings, you are expected to participate in things like group counseling, ongoing therapy, biofeedback and other therapies to ensure that your treatment is effective in the long run. Since you are not admitted, you return home or to a sober living home after the sessions.

The therapists will always advise you to practice new skills as soon as you live the facility, so as to incorporate change. However, since you could spend many hours in the facility during these treatment facility meetings in the day program, you will have lesser time to cater for responsibilities and work. Nevertheless, this should not worry you since is not a long-term issue and is for a brighter future.

 

1. Intensive Outpatient program

This approach towards recovery in the outpatient setting is more complicated than the simple day programs. It entails a treatment plan that has measurable and defined goals whose purposes is to indicate change. The more you meet the milestones, the lesser time you spend receiving treatment since you have already displayed signs of recovery.

If you are serious about quitting drugs for good and emerging as a change person, this approach may be the best to invest your time into.

The intensive outpatient program is most effective if you are in the following conditions;

• If you have successfully completed the partial or inpatient hospitalization due to severe addiction
• If you have completed treatment but still want to pursue continue mental or medical health support.
• You have developed coping mechanisms that are quite strong
• Despite the challenges that withdrawal symptoms present you are still able to function normally in your daily life
• You have a conducive environment that completely supports recovery.

Core Services in Outpatient Setting

As a patient in this program, you must receive a treatment package, which entails core services that are absolutely important for the intensive outpatient treatment. They include the following;

• Group counseling and therapy

Research indicates that group counseling is more effective in preventing issues like relapsing, as compared to one on one format. Besides being cost effective unlike the individual services, group counseling also supports you by;

• Providing you with the opportunity to develop communication skills as you participate in socialization experiences.
• Introducing discipline and structure into your drug affiliated and chaotic life
• Establishing a space where you can offer and get support from others like you
• Advancing individual recovery
• Providing a space for group members to practice new skills.

Types of Groups

Group therapy entails more than just creating bundles of people to face their drug addiction problems. It is about a lot more and hence the treatment providers prefer to create groups that have different purposes and focus. The people in these groups can then share knowledge and thus help each other be better.

These groups are such as;

• Psycho educational groups- these entail teaching you on the consequences of substance abuse. They are low key and hence do not entertain an emotionally intense environment. They alter thinking patterns and dysfunctional beliefs through rational problem solving mechanisms. Additionally, they entail training of relapse prevention and skills set.
• Skills-development groups- these are good at providing safe environments to practice specific behaviors that you learn. Skills training include; drug refusal, relapse prevention, assertiveness and stress management skills.
• Support groups- you will find people that have similar problems as you and hence you all can focus on immediate issues together. They entail; learning and trying relation ways, ways to change emotions and negative thinking and resolving conflict without causing harm through violence.
• Interpersonal process groups- these include single interest and couples or family groups. The former focus on sensitive and significant group members’ issues. They could be sexual orientation, sexual abuse, gender issues, criminal offense, and physical abuse. On the other hand, the latter’s focus is enlightening about the issues that substance abuse cause upon a relationship and how to resolve them together.
• Individual Counseling

If you suffer from mental disorders alongside substance abuse, then individual counseling is quite important. The sessions last from 30 to 50 minutes, and take place at least weekly. The counselor will ask you multiple questions to determine your issues. The more honest you are regardless of the excessive vulnerability, the higher the chances of successfully dealing with your problems.

• Continuing care

Continuing care entails joining groups like narcotics anonymous or alcoholics anonymous to ensure that you receive support that will help you solidify your commitment to sobriety. This is the last phase after you have completed treatment programs and are ready to go on with life without further treatment.

Continuing care groups are facilitated by a certified therapist who meets the group weekly. You have the freedom to talk about your struggles in this group since letting them out gives you better chances to not indulge in substance abuse to relieve pain.

In conclusion, both inpatient and outpatient settings are good at ensuring that you recover completely from drug abuse. However, they require proper choosing because it is important to receive effective treatment depending on your abuse or addiction levels.

Inpatient setting seems to be the best approach towards severe addiction, since you require admission into a facility where you can get ample attention. Furthermore, your health could be at risk since the drugs have complete control over your body functionality.

On the other hand, outpatient setting serves best if the drugs do not have much control over you. The setting even allows you to work and cater for your family since you have the strength to do so and are not at risk.Choosing between these two requires professional assistance.