It’s time for you to finally start a drug rehab program. But how do you know which one is right for you? There are lots of great drug rehab centers, but the information can be confusing if you don’t know what’s most important. Take a look at the following article and use the questions to help you decide.

Your Medical History

Heavy drug and alcohol use can cause or worsen many health problems. Heart conditions, high blood pressure, and general wellness can be affected by the toxicity of drugs and alcohol. You may need to have a full physical exam or choose a treatment center near a hospital to be sure your immediate health needs are addressed.

In fact, you may not be able to proceed with drug or alcohol treatment if your health status isn’t stable. And even if your health issues do not pose a threat to your ability to do a treatment program, it’s good to understand the toll your drug use has had on your body. Your health status can be a good motivator for sobriety.

Your History Of Addiction And Sobriety

Think back to when your addiction problems really began. Did something change in just the last couple of years, or have you had problems for more years than you want to think about? This question isn’t meant to shame you, it’s just intended to help a treatment counseling understand how ingrained your addiction issues are in your life.

It may also matter if you grew up with addiction in your childhood home or if you have only been exposed to addiction as an adult. Think back to times you have been sober. A treatment specialist is likely to ask you what your longest period of sobriety has been and the circumstances around it. This can give important clues about your coping skills and drug use patterns.

Your Previous Drug Rehab Treatments

The type of treatment best suited for you can depend on any treatment you have gone through in the past. If you have been through several rounds of treatment, particularly outpatient, you may need to do an inpatient program this time. Outpatient is less intense than inpatient, requiring that each person have more independent living and coping skills. So if you have done outpatient several times and continue to relapse, an inpatient program might better meet your needs.

Your Personal Preferences

When you can do something important like drug rehab in a comfortable environment, you’re going to feel more relaxed and open. Some of the choices available to you today can help you achieve that sense of comfort. Many more gender-specific drug rehab centers are being established, most notably for women. Also, holistic treatment centers are becoming more popular and available. These centers focus on a calming spa-like environment, alternative treatments like yoga and meditation, and healthy eating.

Drug Rehab Your Best Fit

When you start drug rehab, you want to give yourself the best possible chance of success. Choosing the appropriate rehab program is just as important as dedicating yourself to sobriety. When you make your choice, understand what makes a certain drug rehab program the best fit for you.

photo credit: Mike Miley

Alcoholism is a mess, sloppy and chaotic. The alcoholic believe they have everything under control and just how they want it. But if they could look in from the outside, they may wonder how they ever thought that. It can be tough to convince an alcoholic that their life is spinning out of control. Unless, however, it becomes a mess in their own minds.

Life Is Messy And Tough To Control

It’s funny, we humans spend an awful lot of time trying to control things in our life. We try the hardest to control things we have little to no power over. We want that person to finally love us, we want that thing to make us happy, we want to never feel pain or heartbreak again. Sorry, but those are just the normal messy parts of life.

An alcoholic wants control over their life. That’s all, not too much to ask, right? They have felt so powerless for so long, they have often felt like they have no purpose. If their dad hadn’t run off, if their brother hadn’t died, if they’d never moved from their old town, if their uncle hadn’t abused them, if they hadn’t been bullied as a kid, etc. If those bad things hadn’t happened, they would’ve had a better life.

Forgetting About The Mess Of Real Life

And when they want to forget about it for a while, alcohol seems to do the trick. For a while. When they sober up, reality seems to come right back. But when they get the opportunity for more alcohol, they can look forward to a blissful escape. And heck, while were at it, why not escape just a little more? Why not escape as much as possible? There, they finally have it. Control over how much reality comes back in their face. And the more drunk they can be, a less reality they will face.

Everything Is Under Control

Since they have everything under control, they needn’t pay any attention to people who disagree with their Drinking. Who are those people to tell the alcoholic what to do? They know what they need, and it’s to keep reality out of the way. And they are doing a fine job of it, thank you very much. The main plan is to simply drink as much as possible. If they can’t see the mess or hear the mess that is real life, everyday is an escape. Why would anyone want to give this up?

Hiding From Reality Gets Messy

As you can see, and alcoholics who wants to hide from the mess will just stay drunk. as long as this works, they’ll see no reason to change. When the mess starts cutting through the cloud of intoxication, that’s when things may change. When the mess gets messy all over, maybe – just maybe the alcoholic will finally see it and go to alcohol rehab.

Strange how life is messy anyway, and the alcoholic creates a mess while trying to hide from it. They end up with a bigger mess than they ever started with. If they keep their eyes closed, the mess may bury them. But with eyes wide open, an alcoholic can start picking up the pieces one at a time. Alcohol rehab can help them.

photo credit: Jean Pichot

What’s the truth, anyway? How do you know fantasy and what’s real? most people wouldn’t have too much trouble telling the two apart. But if you are addicted to drugs and alcohol, that’s a different story. After enough time, truth and fantasy become almost one and the same. And when you do seek the truth, it may be very hard to get to. The only real way to find the truth is with sobriety.

What Is The Truth For A Drug Addict Or Alcoholic

Let’s talk about truth for just a moment. Everyone has their own opinions, but people accept many things as general agreed-upon truth. If you can observe it, prove it, or simply have nearly everyone agree upon it, that’s the truth. Banks will bounce checks if you don’t have money in your account. People get disappointed when you break promises. Bosses don’t like workers who don’t do their job. it’s hard to argue that those are all true things in the human existence.

A drug addict or alcoholic may see things quite differently. First of all, they are most likely living life with a lot of distortion. The whole point of taking drugs and alcohol is to distort a person’s perceptions and reality. For most people, this might mean getting a buzz after a couple of drinks and dinner. The distortion amounts to a little relaxation and perhaps some silly conversation.

Distortion Of Reality Is Constant With Addiction

For an alcoholic, the chemical distortion is magnified and exists almost constantly. They may forget things, not here things, not see things, have holes in their memory, and almost always have exaggerated emotions. All of this amounts to a really different type of reality than most people around them are experiencing.

Then there is the distortion of thought that occurs as a person tries to live with their addiction. The excuses, the lies, the exaggerations, the minimization, in the justifications all blur the line between the alcoholic’s fantasy world and reality.

Where Is The Truth For People With Addictions

So where does the truth lie for the alcoholic or drug addict? as you can tell, that’s a sticky question. Alcoholics and drug addicts fight reality tooth and nail. That’s why they got hooked on drugs and alcohol in the first place – their attempt to escape reality. However, fantasy doesn’t blend well with real-life responsibilities and people with real feelings. Eventually, the people in an addict’s or alcoholics life get tired of them ignoring the real problems that affect everyone.

The consequences keep piling up until the truth makes a crack in the fantasy façade. That might be at a time when the alcoholic or addict becomes motivated to get sober. Or, unfortunately, that crash of truth might mean an overdose and death. One way or another, the truth will catch up.

The Truth Will Catch Up With Drug and Alcohol Addiction

That’s why it is so important for anyone addicted to drugs to start drug treatment right away. No matter what it takes, family members and drug rehab professionals need to persist with the truth. and if the truth means you must have a way to keep from getting hurt by the addict or alcoholic, and that’s the truth. Reality isn’t always pleasant, but it’s your best ally when it comes to alcoholism and drug addiction.

You’ve done a complete 180 by going to drug rehab recently. So many things have turned around in your mind, your body feels so different, and your emotions are surprisingly strong at times. You need some time to adjust to this. But on the other hand, you know you can’t hang back forever. You want to get back into some kind of life, but you are also hesitant. Such a mixed up time – how will you ever step back into life after drug rehab?

Adjusting To Change Takes Time

First of all, you should know that this kind of ambivalence is perfectly normal. You aren’t doing it wrong just because you feel two seemingly opposing feelings at once. Let’s be realistic here – you have just done a complete turnaround of your life in many ways – how you spend your time, the way your body feels, your outlook on your life, your perspective on relationships, and many other things. How could you truly be expected to have a solid unwavering plan for moving forward immediately following so much change?

Awkward Feelings Aren’t Forever

Your awkward feelings are probably not going to last the rest of your life. Just as you established habits and routines with your drug addiction, you will eventually establish habits and routines with your sobriety. More than likely your change from drug addiction to sobriety has taken much less time than it took for you to become addicted in the first place. These habits and routines probably formed over months if not years, and not all at once. Sobriety is usually accomplished in a matter of days or weeks. A full addiction lifestyle doesn’t happen overnight, and a sober lifestyle won’t fall into place tomorrow.

Sobriety Takes Courage And You Can Do It

Sobriety isn’t something just for “other” people with this type of support or that kind of money. Sobriety can happen with the help of something every human being has deep inside. It takes some mustering, but courage is the key for getting back into the game of life. A sober life, that is. Life without the usual emotional buffer of drugs and alcohol may seem difficult and uncertain at times, but you can make it happen. Courage is simply taking action in spite of fear. Nothing magical about that – you really can do it.

Stepping Back Into Life After Drug Rehab

Stepping back into life after drug rehab will happen only one way – one step at a time. It may seem like everything is just swirling around you all at once, but much of it may just be fear Fear may seem like an impassable barrier, but it isn’t. It is just a feeling – not a sign that you can’t do it. Keeping moving forward with courage, and you can slowly get back into life with sobriety.

Do you know what sobriety would be like if you decided to go for it? Maybe you’ve been sober before, but it’s been a really long time. If you have lived with an addiction, just stop for a moment and think about this. Sobriety is something family members and addiction professionals bring up with drug addicts and alcoholics. Even people with and active addiction talk about needing to going to drug treatment and getting sober.

What Does Sobriety Mean In Your Life

But what does it really truly mean in your life? Before you step in that direction, you’ll need to know what you are going for, or what you think you are going for. If you could paint a picture of sobriety, what would it look like to you? No one will know exactly how sobriety will look in your life until it happens. But you can get a fairly good idea by understanding a few basic aspects of addiction recovery.

Time Spent While Addicted And While Sober

Most of your addicted time has been spent doing a lot of drug activities. You’ve been getting your drugs, finding ways to pay for it (or steal it), getting distracted with random things during the day or evening, hanging out with other people who use drugs, actually using your drugs, and coming down or recovering from the direct effects of your drugs. All this activity takes an enormous amount of time, probably more than you could believe.

Getting sober means you have a lot of time to fill with healthier activities. What might these be? Spending time with family, working (if you didn’t before), helping other people, taking care of your home, spending social time with healthy people, developing hobbies, exercising, cooking, reading, going to meetings or drug treatment sessions, and more.

Staying On Top Of Your Relapse Risk

Since you won’t be spending any time doing drugs or drinking, you will also need to be more aware of your urges to drink or use. In the past, you may have begun seeking more from your supply or getting more from one of your sources. Now, your task will be to understand what prompts you to strongly desire drugs in the first place.

Is it boredom? Feelings of loneliness? Low self worth? Rejection from family? Night time? Whatever your triggers are, you’ll need to identify them before they sneak up on you. If you let yourself get to relaxed about them or believe they aren’t that big of a deal, you will very likely get blindsided by them.

Fortunately, a lot of the positive things you would be doing to occupy your time may also be useful in managing your triggers. Have the most trouble when you are alone? Plan for regular social time either in person or on the phone. Find yourself craving drugs when you are bored? Discover a few hobbies you’d like to explore so you have interesting things nearby all the time.

Your Sobriety Will Be Unique

One thing is for sure – whatever sobriety looks like in your life, it will be a huge adjustment from your addiction lifestyle. You will face frustrations you may not have anticipated. But in the end, you’ll find that sobriety gives you the best possible chance for a full healthy life.

photo credit: eleanor.black