If you’ve decided you want to kick your alcoholism or drug addiction you will need a plan. The best plans start with an addiction treatment program. If you’ve been researching treatment for you or a loved one you can be overwhelmed by the options. There’s intensive outpatient, short-term inpatient, long-term inpatient, and many more. How do you know which one is right for you?
We can’t tell you the correct type of treatment without knowing you and your situation, but we can give you more information to help you decide. Let’s learn more about long-term rehab including what’s involved and who would best benefit from it. Long-term rehab is the most intense of treatment programs, but it may be what you need.
What Is Long-Term Rehab?
There are several types of intensive therapy to help those recover from alcoholism or drug addiction, but long-term rehab is the most intense. Long-term rehab is drug rehabilitation in a therapeutic setting for an extended stay – much longer than traditional inpatient treatment.
Traditional inpatient therapy may only last two to three weeks but long-term rehab can last anywhere from six to twelve months. Long-term rehab is not for everyone and is often not the first suggested therapy for most. Long-term rehab is designed for those who need it. Let’s learn more about who might this treatment and who would benefit best from a long-term rehab program.
What You Can Expect In Long-Term Rehab
Counseling: Long-term rehab uses several types of counseling and talks therapy including one-on-one and group sessions.
Health and Nutrition: Health and nutrition are an under-addressed but important part of recovery. Expect lessons from experts on diet, exercise, treating symptoms of withdrawal with vitamins and minerals, and much more.
Life Skills Therapy: Chronic alcoholics and addicts often need help fitting back into society. Just as a prisoner might need life skills to help them readjust from behind bars, addicts need life skills after being imprisoned in their own body.
How to Deal with Cravings: Urges and cravings happen for every recovering addict, but relapses shouldn’t. Long-term rehab can help you learn to deal with urges, cravings, and other negative emotions. During long-term rehab, you will construct a recovery toolbox with tools and techniques to help you succeed. So – who will benefit most from these lessons and timeframes?
Chronic Addicts and Alcoholics
Some addicts can beat their addiction with simple counseling, outpatient therapy, or with continued visits to a 12-step meeting but that is rarely the case for chronic alcoholics and addicts. The longer you have lived with the addiction and the more you have fed it, the harder it will be to ultimately beat it.
Addiction is considered a chronic condition, meaning it won’t go away on its own and will get worse over time. If someone has been addicted to booze for thirty years or has been popping pain pills most of their life, they will need the extra help provided by long-term rehab to ultimately move on to a sober life.
You don’t have to be an addict on death’s door and you don’t have to be a hardcore alcoholic to benefit from long-term rehab, but it’s better suited to these types of addicts.
If You Can’t Seem to Beat It (Relapses)
Have you tried getting better before only to wind up right back in deep addiction? Many addicts may try talk-therapy, 12-step meetings, counseling, and even inpatient addiction rehab to beat their issues, only to find themselves right back at their dealer’s house or the liquor store. Relapse is perfectly normal but if you seem to go from one relapse into another, it’s time to reevaluate your life and what you need.
Again, addiction is a chronic disease and will only get worse over time. Someone who uses a mild treatment without success will likely not be able to go back to the same mild treatment and find positive results a few months or years later.
Think of addiction like any other chronic and progressive illness, like diabetes. Diabetics who have tried treating their condition with simple insulin injections or normal therapies may find those treatments ineffective over time as their disease progresses or if they relapse into eating sugary foods. Those diabetics will seek help in better and more effective treatments and more intensive life changes.
Over time alcoholics and addicts will need more direct and intensive treatments to stand any chance – like long-term rehab. The more intense a condition gets, the more intense treatment you need to turn to for help.
If Detoxing Will Be Dangerous
Detox is different for every addict or alcoholic, but some substances are dangerous to detox and recover from. If you are at risk for dangers during detox you would benefit from long-term rehab. Long-term rehab is held in a residential therapeutic setting but makes no mistake – you are in a medical facility. This means doctors and clinicians can monitor you throughout the detox and recovery process, help decrease the discomfort from withdrawal, and be there for immediate assistance should something go wrong.
Those who are predisposed to dangerous withdrawal symptoms include alcoholics and those who abuse benzodiazepines or barbiturates. Alcohol, benzos, and barbiturates can lead to heart attack, coma, stroke, and death if not monitored and treated. Those who are addicted to methadone may also benefit from long-term rehab due to the length of time it takes for the body to eliminate the drug. Talk to an addiction counselor or professional about your addiction to find out if it comes with any dangers and if long-term rehab would be best to avoid those dangers.
Getting Into Long-Term Rehab
If you think you or a loved one would benefit from long-term rehab it’s best to get started immediately before the worst happens. You can head online or pick up the phone to reach out to a treatment center near you. Long-term rehab is the most intensive treatment available but it’s also the most beneficial for these types of addicts.
