The Canyon

New Year’s resolutions are often easy-come easy-go; a nice idea, but little chance you will follow through.  Is this how you are thinking about your drug or alcohol addiction?  You know it’s got to stop now, but it just doesn’t seem very realistic?  Take another look at starting your new year with drug rehab.

Why Hold Back on Drug Rehab

So why would you dismiss the idea of going to drug rehab as anything but that - a nice idea?  Well, you might think it’s too expensive.  Or you may think you could never actually stop using, even if you wanted to.  Drug rehab seems like such a BIG thing to do.  Plus there’s all that time away from home.  No, it’s just way out of your league right now.

Hold on, don’t go too far with those thoughts.  Come back and look at those concerns in a little different light.  Have you noticed since your drug addiction has taken hold you’ve been much more pessimistic than ever before?  Maybe it’s just your emotions doing the talking.  You don’t want to be another failure, and right now you believe something as daunting and overwhelming as getting sober would certainly end in disaster. 

Drug Rehab May Cost Less Than Continuous Addiction

Let’s talk about your first concern - expense.  All you have to do is turn on the news for about 15 seconds and you will certainly hear bad news about the economy.  People losing jobs, savings, and more.  Why would you want to go spend MORE money right now?? 

Instead of the big price tag, think instead of the value of having a clearer mind and more stable emotions in this difficult time.  Do you think you would spend money more wisely while you are sober or while you are constantly out of control with your drinking and drugging?

Drug Rehab Does Not Mean Getting It Perfect

Your other concern might be your ability to “pull it off” and finally get it right by getting sober.  Well, nobody is perfect.  Your perfectionism may try to make you believe that if you can’t get it just right, it’s not worth doing at all.  That is most definitely a lie made big by your addiction. 

Any and all personal growth you gain from drug rehab is something you take with you.  Drug rehab is not a cure, and it is not an impossible mountain to climb.  It is just the first step in a lifelong journey of maintaining sobriety.  It is an experience that introduces you to living a healthy sober life. 

Drug Rehab Can Ring In a Healthy Sober New Year

So now that you are looking at the calendar, seeing the new year about to turn over, what do you think about going to drug rehab.  Can you see it as a beginning step on a journey?  Can you see it as a wise investment during troubling times?  Is it possible for you to quiet your perfectionist voice enough to see drug rehab as a challenging hill rather than Mt Everest?  When you take a fresh look like this, you may be ready to welcome the new year with a stay at drug rehab.

This is a big question for those who are trying to determine the severity of their issues with drugs and alcohol, especially when there are so many different gradations between abuse and addiction. You may be determining your ability to leave work and family behind for 30 days or more. Perhaps you just don’t know whether or not your drug and alcohol use warrants medical treatment.

To help you figure out whether or not this is something you can handle alone, here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help you determine whether or not drug rehab will benefit you.

Have You Previously Tried to Stop Taking Drugs On Your Own?

If you have tried to stop taking drugs or drinking alcohol on your own and you are again considering the necessity of drug rehab, chances are that it didn’t go too well. This is one indication that drug treatment in the form of a structured drug rehab is the best choice for you. Though you may feel like you have the willpower and desire to stop using drugs, enough to keep you from picking up for a time, and though you may even have awhile before you relapse, drug rehab is more than just keeping you clean and sober while you’re there. You get therapy and treatments that you need to really look at the reasons why you started using, why you keep using when you don’t want to and learn how to fight relapse later.

How Long Have You Been Taking Drugs and/or Alcohol?

The longer you have been addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, the more necessary will be a drug and alcohol addiction treatment. A medical disease requires a medical treatment and the later the stage of the disease, the more necessary and more thorough the needed treatment. The sooner you get help, the better, so even if you have not been addicted for very long, if you have serious concerns about your addiction issues, a brief time in inpatient or outpatient rehab will benefit you immensely.

Would You Experience Withdrawal Symptoms if You Stopped Today?

Another way to ask this question is to say, are you physically dependent upon your drug of choice? Do find that the drugs you take hardly even get you high anymore but just serve to keep you from feeling physically ill? If that is the case, then you require a medical detox at a drug rehab facility followed by an efficient drug treatment.

In most cases, if you have been through an intervention in which loved ones have expressed concern for your level of drug and/or alcohol abuse or if you yourself feel that things are out of control, then you need drug rehab. If you can take the time away from your responsibilities, inpatient drug rehab is recommended but, if you can’t, there are always outpatient drug treatment programs that may be beneficial for you.

Anyone else have any sort of criteria or questions to add to the list to help those who are weighing the benefits of drug rehab?

For you, going to a party is a way to blow of steam, let go, and forget your troubles.  But does your partying put your health and life goals at risk?  It may be hard to admit, but using drugs and alcohol to cope can actually bring on more and bigger problems.  Alcohol rehab may be needed to get your life back on track.

The Lawyer Who Drinks And Drives

You are a successful lawyer, working your way up to being a junior partner in your firm.  You only drink about once a week, but it is always to get drunk.  And when you get together with some old friends once a month, you almost always do dangerous activities while drinking such as driving carelessly on country roads and running motor boats at night. 

You see all this as a very normal way to let loose from your stressful job, but your wife is constantly worried that you will be injured, get arrested, or die from these activities.  She is a stay-at-home mom with your two small children.

The Single Underage Mom Who Parties

You are a twenty year old single mom with an two year old child.  You just went through a messy divorce - the relationship was bad from the start and the divorce was painful.  You know this was the right thing to do, but your partying has increased now.  You have been through so much and you feel like you need to make up for lost fun time. 

Because of the friends you have been spending time with, you’ve been noticed by the police a few times and now the neighbor has threatened to call Child Welfare Services because they know a child lives with you during all this.  You are worried but still want to be able to go to parties when you want some fun.

The Young Professional Who Drinks The Pain Away

You have just turned thirty, with a college degree, and a good job.  Your parents have had continuous marital problems and they keep dragging you into them.  You have had a lot of emotional pain to deal with through your life because of this.  You feel like you’ve spend a lot of your younger years being like an adult (and a referee), like you are really in your 40’s now instead of young with your own life stiil ahead of you. 

You frequently drink with your friends at bars and at their homes.  You’ve driven many times while drunk, parked your car and slept off the alcohol, even had a cop tail you for a while - but nothing bad has happened yet.  The economy is bad now and you can’t afford big fines or a big car repair bill.  You also have sexual relations with when you are drunk (usually from people you meet at the bar), often times with no protection.

Alcohol Rehab Can Help Reduce Risky Behaviors

It’s not hard to see how these situations could become trouble in a hurry.  We’ll take a closer look at how a person with alcoholism could continue to take such risks.  Sometimes mental illness gets into the mix, creating a problem with co-occurring disorders.  Alcohol rehab helps to balance a person’s perspective on their life, helping them curb their urge to ignore red flags.  Alcohol rehab may be the only way to help a person who seems bent on living a dangerous life with alcohol.  Sadly, it sometimes takes an unfortunate accident or dramatic problem to get an alcoholic person to alcohol rehab. 

Check in next week for part 2 of this series on alcohol addiction and taking risks.