If you or a loved one is considering rehab, you’re likely to be overwhelmed with a number of questions. Chief among them: Does rehab work? When you’re making a significant financial investment and someone’s life is on the line, you’re likely to ask about success rates for addiction treatment. Does rehab really work?
What is Addiction?
Understanding addiction recovery starts with an understanding of addiction itself. Addiction is a chronic, lifelong disease, much like diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. Like those diseases, it is caused by both genetic and environmental factors, and requires permanent lifestyle changes in order to stay in remission.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse found that 40 to 60 % of people who go through addiction treatment will relapse. However, when compared to relapse rates of similar diseases, that number is low. Hypertension and asthma both have a 50 to 70 % relapse rate, for example. With the right treatment, it is possible to live a life free from drugs and alcohol.
It’s also worth noting that the relapse rate for addiction treatment doesn’t take into account that relapse is often only a temporary setback on the road to recovery. Many people who relapse end up living clean and sober lives despite their slip, and the healing and education of addiction treatment is to thank for that.
What Happens in Rehab?
Residential addiction treatment attacks addiction at many levels. Most importantly, each client’s addiction treatment team works to identify the root causes for their addiction. From there, they will develop a customized addiction treatment plan to help them heal the wounds fueling their substance abuse. That addiction treatment plan includes a variety of therapies: from counseling to group therapy, to innovative techniques like CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprogramming).
At the same time, every client learns tools for relapse prevention, stress management, and other tips to help them stay clean and sober after treatment. It’s a 360-degree approach that heals clients today and helps them stay happy and healthy tomorrow.
Addiction Treatment Aftercare
When a client nears the end of their stay in residential addiction treatment, their addiction treatment team will work with them to develop an aftercare plan. An aftercare plan is designed to help a client continue on their path of recovery, while minimizing the risk of relapse. Such a plan may include outpatient programs like IOP (intensive outpatient program) or PHP (partial hospitalization program). It may involve choosing a sober living or helping the client find recovery-supportive housing. It also may involve 12 Step meetings, ongoing counseling, vocational training, and more. In all, every client is set up with everything that they need to help new life bloom post-treatment.
Does Rehab Work?
Does rehab work? We do everything in our power to ensure that our clients can answer that with a “Yes.” If you’d like to learn more about whether rehab could work for you, give us a call. Our team will have a no-pressure, no-commitment conversation with you to learn more about your story and your goals — and how we can help you reach them. Because in the end, there’s really only one way to know if addiction recovery is the answer for you: Try it.