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.

You’ve noticed a few changes in your loved one. He or she is looking a little less… coifed than usual, let’s say. There’s been more than a few ups and downs in their mood, a little excessively perhaps. Money seems always to be a problem and their hours have been a bit off. Maybe they’re disappearing for longer than usual or spending more and more time isolating themselves from the family. Conversation is minimal unless they are effusive and chatty and eye contact and interactions in general are strained.

Drug addiction comes to mind and you decide to ask them straight out. Good communication is the best policy, right? But your inquiries are met with defensiveness, anger, maybe they even turn it around on you or just ignore you completely. Still, you feel that something is definitely wrong but you don’t want to accuse them of addiction because you don’t have any solid proof. Is drug testing the answer?

The Issue of Trust With Family Drug Testing

The problem with testing someone for drugs after they have denied that they are using is that it says straight out that you think they are lying to you. This is not good for any relationship and if it’s possible that anything else is going on, you might want to exhaust your other options and explore other possibilities before insisting on a drug test.

On the other hand, few who are addicted to drugs will readily admit that to you when you ask. Lying comes part and parcel with drug and alcohol addiction if for no other reason than your loved one likely doesn’t want to admit to him or herself just how serious the problem is. Don’t take it personally, either way, as long as your concern is for their wellbeing and not just an effort to harass them.

Secret Drug Testing or Open Drug Testing?

For some, the need to avoid confrontation or even deal with the trust issue means that secret drug testing is the only way. This means securing a sample from your loved one without their knowledge. This is easy enough with hair sample tests, but it may be a bit more difficult if you need a sample of another kind.

What do you think? Is it ethical to drug test someone without their knowledge even though your intentions obviously hold their best interest in mind?

Are You Rationalizing?

Either side of the fence that you’re leaning toward, look at yourself and explore your motives before proceeding with a drug test or deciding against it. Does your gut tell you that your loved one is addicted to drugs, but you’re choosing to avoid a drug test to save your relationship with them or because you’re scared of what it might mean for everyone concerned if you get a positive result?

What do you think about at-home drug tests? Have you ever done one on your family member or loved one? What happened?

This is a two part guide on choosing the right drug rehab center for you or your loved one. It’s a huge decision, and sometimes just having a helpful checklist like these two blog posts, can make the task seem simpler. Here are some more important points to consider when making your choice.

Check the Drug Rehab Centers Reputation In The Area

If you are targeting a particular drug rehab centers, it can be helpful to contact a few doctors or outpatient drug and alcohol counselors in the area for a professional opinion. They have likely made referrals or heard local publicity about the drug rehab center and may be able to give you some good information. You may be able to determine whether they have any reservations about the center, if they think very highly of it, or if it seems to match your needs at all.

Learn About The Rehab Centers Professional Credentials

The advertisements may be attractive and the stories compelling, but it really comes down to quality professionals that meet the highest standards. Drug and alcohol counselors go through a rigorous process of training and years of experience before they are licensed.

Drug and alcohol addiction is also a medical condition, meaning that several parts of the drug rehab process may include medical supervision of some kind. Detox often involves prescription medication to reduce withdrawal symptoms. People with co-occurring mental illness often need psychiatric medication during their drug treatment. Also, drug and alcohol addiction increases the chance of other health issues like high blood pressure, digestive disease, and heart problems.

What all of this means is that the drug and alcohol professionals from counselors on up to medical doctors need to have top notch credentials. You’ll want to find out more about the people who will be treating you or your loved one before you make your choice.

Find The Rehab That Fints Your Needs Best

Not all rehabs are built alike. Some have holistic features, others have remote seclusion and exclusivity, and others have proximity to well known medical facilities. Of course, you also need to find out what kinds of problems need to be treated. If you have a mental illness along with an addiction, some places will be better equipped to treat you completely.

Also, if you have a host of medical conditions, you will want to ask questions about how you can stay on track with those issues. Find out about their detox process, their exercise programs, their gender focus, their religious affiliations and accomodations. Find out about the qualifications of their staff, especially if you have some unique needs or preferences.

Although you may find a great deal of information to start you off just by looking at a brochure or website, some in depth questioning can help you match needs and a facility more accurately. Many drug rehabs have someone available to answer questions just about any time.

Drug Rehab Choice Is A Personal One

There may be no single “perfect” drug rehab for you. Just like buying a home or a car, you may need to give up one thing to have a big positive. Or, you may find that you have several choices that would be great. In the end, it’s most important that you make a choice you feel comfortable with and you begin as soon as possible. Even though the process may seem overwhelming, you can get through it to get the help you and your family needs.

If you’re looking for a new film to watch this weekend, try and find a copy of the introspective Dancing Girl, available on DVD or as a download. It’s 80 minutes of the inner workings of one family who struggled with a daughter’s heroin addiction and its effects on the family as well as some of the reasons why she turned to drug use and abuse in the first place.

The Marks Family and Drug Addiction

Sally Marks created Dancing Girl as a way to explore the issues that her daughters, Bonnie and Emma, suffered from: anxiety disorder and heroin addiction, respectively. Emma, 37, is the focus of the film. She began using drugs at the age of 13 and, after ending up addicted to heroin, supported that addiction for 12 years by stripping. Bonnie, 28, suffers from anxiety disorder. She’s had panic attacks since she was 7 years old and was suicidal as a result of bullying by her siblings and loneliness.

A Mother’s Contribution to Her Daughter’s Drug Addiction

In the film, Sally comes to learn how her actions contributed to the eventual reactions of her daughters. It was her own self absorption, drug using and partying lifestyle, and neglect as a mother that provided the example that one daughter followed and alienated the other. Addicted to marijuana, alcohol and cocaine, Marks recognizes that the addictive patterns in her life can be traced back to her own father’s addiction and his father’s before him.

Marks says, “I was a middle-class, convent-educated girl from Kew with a successful company director for a father. But behind the facade of suburban perfection — beautiful house, tennis court, private school — it was a terribly unhappy childhood.”

Marks made choices that centered on self medication, lots of clubs and leaving her children with au pairs, nannies and childcare centers. “It was a crazy, chaotic household, back to the dope and the alcohol. We’d go out and party and leave the kids,” she says.

The Kids’ React To Mother’s Drug Addiction

Bonnie says she looks back on that time with anger and disappointment. “I missed my parents and grew up thinking they didn’t care. When they were home they were either stoned or drinking. They were either not there physically or not there emotionally.”

In the film, Emma says: “The first time I took heroin, I thought ‘That’ll show them’.” She says she grew up with a sense “of feeling that you’re less worthy of a happy life”. When her mother began shooting the movie, she didn’t react. “I was in a different place, Trevor was still around, I didn’t have a child and, frankly, I didn’t expect to make it anyway. I thought we’d be dead.”

It’s certainly not a comedy but the film works on multiple levels of drama and self discovery. Has anyone seen it? What did you think? Any other documentaries on the subject of drug addiction that you’d recommend?

Making the choice about going to drug rehab can be a big moment in your life. There are so many mixed feelings, so many decisions to make, and so much uncertainty. This and a second post coming later can give you some points to consider when choosing a drug rehab.

Consider The Financial Cost As Compared To Cost Of a Continued Addiction

Financial news has been bad lately, and it is bound to pinch everyone in some way. This can make a person considering residential drug treatment get nervous about their budget. And yes, like many health treatments, cost is an important part of the picture. But before you dismiss any drug rehab center on cost alone, take a serious look at how the addiction has affected your finances over the last several years.

Legal costs, extra money going to pay for drugs or alcohol, property or car damage from DUI or physically distructive outbursts, wages lost from work absenteeism, job loss, injury from drug or alcohol related accident, general budget chaos because of erratic spending or poor planning – it’s all part of the addiction.

If all that was to continue with an untreated addiction for several more years, could that possibly eclipse the cost of a month or two of residential drug treatment? When you consider that, you may find that you can consider high quality programs that seem expensive but fit your needs closely. This kind of investment can actually prevent much greater costs in the long run.

Find Out About Post Rehab Options

If you are seriously impaired enough to need a residential drug treatment program, you are certainly in need of some kind of assistance transitioning into your home environment. A good drug rehab center will have some places for a newly sober drug addict to go besides straight home if needed. It may be one of their official programs or services, or these choices may be places they frequently refer to at discharge. Sober living arrangements can be a good transition step, offering some freedoms along with 24 hour support.

Even for addicts who are preparing to go directly home after drug treatment, support services and recommendations for outpatient drug treatment are valuable. You want to know what they think is helpful so you can get a bigger picture of your drug treatment process (and what to look for in your own area for support when you get home).

Check Out The Drug Rehab Center Website

So many places of business have a professional website now. Even a few years ago it was hit and miss. Now it is almost expected for all kinds of businesses to have an online presence. Drug rehab centers often serve people beyond their immediate area. Because of this, they often provide a comprehensive profile of their services, facility, and staff members. You can usually find email contacts, phone numbers, and sometimes even a live chat option.

More About Choosing a Drug Rehab Center

Be sure to check out another post coming soon covering a few more important pointers. This is an important decision; get well informed before making your commitment.