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5 Reasons You Should Consider Long-Term Addiction Treatment

With so many addiction treatment options available, it’s important to know which is the right type of treatment to address your specific recovery needs. Although there have been many individuals to achieve immense success with each form of treatment, many recovery professionals agree that long-term addiction treatment is the best for lasting results.

But what is it about a long-term treatment that makes it a better option? Here are five of the top reasons why you should consider choosing a long-term addiction treatment program for your recovery.

  • More time for treatment

It used to be that support groups were essentially the only recovery resource available to those suffering from substance abuse disorders. But today, we have a variety of clinical addiction treatment options available as well as decades of research to tell us which recovery needs each treatment program is meant to address. However, one of the most consistent facts that we’re learned about the rehabilitation process is that insufficient time in treatment is a top reason for failure to achieve lasting sobriety.

When you choose a long-term addiction treatment program, you benefit from receiving targeted treatments for an extended period of time. Just as an addiction develops over time, stable recovery can only be achieved when ample time, effort, and focus has been dedicated to rehabilitation. As such, it’s often the case that individuals who relapse shortly after completing treatment have simply not spent enough time in treatment, making long-term treatment programs an ideal way to achieve long-lasting sobriety.

  • More structure

Addiction is a complex disease with many profound effects and symptoms. As a person develops an addiction, he or she experiences degradation of his or her physical and psychological health while also damaging or destroying relationships, losing jobs or career opportunities, and so on. The reason this occurs is that the physiological dependence that develops as part of an addiction causes an individual to prioritize alcohol or drug use above all other facets of life, resulting in the individual having very little daily structure.

In an addiction treatment program, the underlying objective is to help individuals acquire the skills and strategies necessary to achieve a stable, productive daily routine. Since independent and productive adults have responsibilities and obligations, the structure afforded by a long-term addiction treatment program helps individuals become better equipped for life after treatment when they must balance things like family, work, and their personal lives with recovery.

long term addiction

  • More support

Much like a puzzle, there are numerous components to a successful recovery from alcoholism or drug addiction. Although there’s a tendency to focus on treatment programs as the sole source of success in recovery, there’s actually much more to it than just treatment. In fact, treatment programs are valuable for more than just clinical addiction treatment; these programs actually provide individuals with a source of consistent and ongoing support for their recoveries.

It’s often said that support is one of the most crucial pieces of the recovery puzzle. When an individual lacks sufficient support, it frequently means that there’s very little reinforcement of his or her sobriety. Support — whether it comes from family members, treatment providers, peers, or elsewhere — is what helps individuals in recovery to persevere through times of difficulty or temptation. It gives individuals a source of strength and conviction when they’re experiencing cravings or are otherwise tempted to relapse.

While family members, friends, and peers in recovery are often the greatest sources of support in recovery, treatment providers can be just as essential. These professionals have the experience and insight into the disease of addiction that can help individuals in recovery better prepare themselves for some of the difficulties they might face, giving them much better chances of being able to overcome those difficulties and progress to more advanced stages of recovery.

  • More reinforcement

Arguably the most beneficial aspect of long-term addiction treatment, reinforcement is the idea that a patient’s newfound recovery will become stronger with better chances of lasting indefinitely when ample time and resources have been spent contributing to the recovery. Of course, virtually every aspect of an addiction treatment program contributes to recovery in one form or another; whether it’s detoxification treatment, individual counseling, family therapy, or some other therapeutic offering, the curriculum of a long-term addiction treatment program is designed to address the many different aspects of addiction that prevent a person from realizing their full potential.

By spending a longer period of time in treatment, individuals are able to not only achieve sobriety but also reinforce that sobriety. Through a combination of treatments and therapies — as well as having the support of knowledgeable professionals — a person’s recovery is effectively reinforced, meaning that when a patient returns home after treatment, there are significantly higher chances that he or she is able to sustain that sobriety since the longer-term treatment program has prepared him or her for many of the difficulties that could arise after treatment.

  • More resources

As mentioned previously, one of the biggest barriers to achieving lasting sobriety is insufficient time spent in treatment. We’ve spent some time covering some of the reasons why this is the case, including less time for reinforcement, less support, and less time to adjust to a more structured day-to-day routine. But it’s also the case that longer-term treatment is beneficial as individuals have much greater opportunities to participate in a wider variety of treatment resources.

When more time is spent in treatment, it follows that a patient has more opportunities to take advantage of the variety of recovery resources that his or her treatment center has to offer. For individuals spending only a brief period of time in treatment, the recovery curriculum consists of only a limited number of treatments since the time is so much more limited. But by enrolling in a long-term addiction treatment program, patients have more consistent opportunities to personalize or individualize the curriculum, tailoring the program so that it can meet their unique needs.

If you or someone you love would like to learn more about long-term addiction treatment, or for information about the recovery support services we offer, contact Ohio Addiction Recovery Center anytime, day or night, by calling 800-481-8457.

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