Drug and Alcohol Addiction Rehabilitation

Rehab care for drug and alcohol addiction spans a wide range of facilities. There are 28-day programs, psychiatric treatment facilities, programs that focus on substituting a new drug for the ones a person is already addicted to, nutritional programs, health detox centers complete with vitamin shots and colonics, counseling programs and hundreds of other different methods of treating drug and alcohol addiction. One of the reasons there are so many different methods of treatment is that there are different philosophies about the causes of addiction, the nature of addiction, etc. Another reason is that people respond differently to rehab care programs depending on their age, social status, level of addiction, and how much they are willing to cooperate with a treatment program.

Of all the different approaches to drug treatment, the general consensus seems to be that drug addiction treatment must address both the physical and mental aspects of addiction. Withdrawals from drugs can be dangerous, even life-threatening, and should be supervised by a qualified health-care professional. But the physical addiction is usually handled in a matter of a few days or weeks, whereas the mental urges and impulses can continue to haunt a person for a lifetime. Mental problems also frequently underlie the drug or alcohol addiction as the reason the person became addicted to substances in the first place. The reason some people try drugs often has to do with numbing some sort of mental or emotional pain. So treatment of mental causes is key in handling drug or alcohol addiction terminatively.

One problem some treatment programs have is they substitute one drug for another, as in the treatment of heroin addiction with Methadone. They claim that this is safe because it is physician supervised. The problem is that the treatment doesn't handle why the person became addicted in the first place. With all the original factors still in place that added up to addiction in the first place, the person is likely to develop problems with the new, more controlled substance. Plenty of people out there are addicted to supposedly “safe” drugs like Xanex and Ritalin. And no matter how closely supervised the administration of the new drug, an addict can always find a way to get more.

If you have searched the web for a rehab service, you probably have been overwhelmed with all the different data, ideas and schools of thought about drug addiction. Drug Rehab Referral Services (www.drugrehabreferralservices.org) is a service which helps you find the best program for you or your loved one who is suffering from addiction. They offer access to holistic treatments (holistic: Pertaining to the whole body; treatment of disease by taking into consideration every part of the body to bring the internal environment into balance. www.mothernature.com/Library/Bookshelf/Books/42/15.cfm ) that address both the physical and mental aspects of addiction. Some of their programs have a success rate of up to 76% and they do not just substitute one addiction for another. Whichever program is best for you, their service will help you find it.