Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment

Mental health and substance abuse treatment consists of patients being persuaded, motivated, or involuntarily committed to addiction treatment. The main goal is to help stabilize the acute symptoms of the psychiatric illness and/or the drug or substance abuse disorder. Another important goal of mental health and substance abuse treatment is to motivate patients to continue treatment once the acute addiction crisis is stabilized or the involuntary commitment expires. Dealing with ambivalence regarding recovery, working through denial of one's drug addiction and mental illnesses or both, and becoming motivated for continued care are other important goals. This initial part of treatment usually takes several weeks, but for some patients it takes longer to become engaged in recovery and to stabilize from the acute effects of dual disorders.

The next step of mental health and substance abuse treatment is early drug addiction recovery. This involves learning to cope with desires to use chemicals, alcohol, cocaine, meth, or other drugs. It also teaches patients to avoid or cope with people, places, and things that represent high-risk addiction relapse factors. Mental health and substance abuse treatment roughly involves the first 3 months following stabilization. However, some patients take much longer in this phase because they do not comply with addiction rehab treatment, continue to abuse drugs, experience exacerbations of psychiatric symptoms, or experience serious psychosocial problems or crises.

The next stage of mental health and substance abuse treatment is continued addiction recovery. In this phase, patients continue working on issues from the previous phase as needed. In addition, patients learn to develop or improve coping skills to deal with intrapersonal and interpersonal issues. Examples of intrapersonal skills include coping with negative affects (anger, depression, emptiness, anxiety) and coping with maladaptive beliefs or thinking.

Drug And Alcohol Detoxification Programs

Detoxification is one of the first steps in the treatment process toward recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. The goal of detox is to rid the body of toxins accumulated by drug use. Keep in mind, drug detox is not designed to be the only treatment one receives when it comes to addiction recovery. It is intended solely to help the individual adjust their bodies to living without drugs. Attending a drug rehabilitation program is the next step in recovering from addiction.

Drug detoxification is the first step of all effective rehab and treatment programs. Until a person is mentally and physically stabilized, they are not prepared to participate in the course work and counseling utilized by drug rehabs. Most treatment centers have their own detox facilities while some others have affiliations with detox programs for their patients to use.

There are licensed detoxification facilities in most areas of the United States. Some are located in hospitals or clinics while others are privately run. Depending on the medications being abused, detox can sometimes be done on an outpatient basis under a doctor.s care. However, for most people detox is best accomplished on an inpatient basis. Never try to detox from alcohol or other drugs without professional medical assistance.

The term detoxification covers all aspects of the individual's withdrawal and purification from drugs. The removal of drug residuals is the key goal in drug detox. Without this process, drug residues can remain in the body and cause cravings for years after drug use has ceased. A vital step in successful drug detoxification as well as drug rehabilitation is flushing out these accumulated toxic residues so that the individual no longer experiences unwanted adverse effects from the drugs they have taken.

Residential Short-Term Rehab/typical stays of 30 days or less

A short term drug rehab program is typically a treatment duration of 30 days or less. Most short term treatment programs focus on medical stabilization, abstinence, and lifestyle changes. Staff members are primarily medical professionals and counselors trained in drug and alcohol addiction recovery.

What is a short term drug rehab and who is it appropriate for? A short term drug rehab program is often recommended for people who are suffering from drug and alcohol addiction severely enough to require displacement from their environment where they are surrounded by relapse triggers. This type of care is optimal for people with a short duration of addiction as opposed to a person that has had an addiction problem for several or many years.

After completing a short term drug rehab, recovered addicts often feel:
A reduction or elimination of cravings
A reduction or elimination of many symptoms associated with addiction. These can include depression, irritability, and fatigue
Enthusiasm toward life
Improved memory and attention span
Increased energy
Increased sense of well being
The ability to think more clearly

Residential Long-Term Rehab/typical stays of 90 days or longer.

Long term drug rehab typically involves a stay at a live in addiction treatment facility for 90 days or longer. Individuals that are best suited for a long term drug rehab are typically people that have completed other types of treatment such as counseling, outpatient therapy or short term residential rehabs with little to no success. This gives the recovering addict relief from outside sources and temptations, allowing them to focus solely on their addiction and recovery.

A long term drug rehab typically directs the treatment focus on the "resocialization" of the individual. This addiction treatment model uses the program's entire "community," including other residents, staff, and the social context, as active components of addiction treatment. The primary focus of a long term drug rehab program is on developing personal accountability, responsibility and socially productive lives. A long term drug rehab is highly structured with activities designed to help residents examine damaging beliefs and destructive patterns of behavior and to adopt new constructive strategies for dealing life.

Drug Treatment For Dual Diagnosis Clients

Dual diagnosis drug rehab facilities providing drug and alcohol rehab. dual diagnosis drug rehabs specialize in alcohol and drug addiction problems coupled with underlying psychological and/or physiological that might be the cause of the addiction problem. Dual diagnosis drug treatment centers offers a variety of therapeutic programs to help provide individuals and families affected by alcoholism and drug addiction with the support needed for a successful recovery. The most beneficial aspect of a Dual diagnosis drug treatment center is that the treatment is based on finding the cause of the addiction and treating it holistically as opposed to treating the symptoms with medications.

Drug Rehabs for Women

Drug rehab programs for women are specifically geared toward the particular treatment needs of women afflicted with drug addiction and alcoholism. Substance abuse in women has a distinctive origin, progression, and specific addiction treatment methods. A growing body of research shows that substance abuse among women and the issues surrounding their addiction differs from that of men, requiring a specialized regimen of treatment services.

Psychologically, women who become addicted to drugs or alcohol have a different narrative and profile than men who become addicted. As an often-underestimated rule, women have a greater tendency to have developed a drug addiction to cope with trauma and emotional pain. Women also have a range of social and cultural pressures and issues that men do not experience.

For many years, drug rehab programs were designed to offer simultaneous treatment to both men and women. And since the numbers of admissions favored men, approximately 60% to 40%, the programs were tailored more toward the male population. But recently, it has been discovered that by creating drug rehabs specifically for women, there is an greater chance that a woman would seek treatment. This is a huge step forward in the treatment of women suffering with drug addiction and alcoholism.