Drug Treatment Program

If you have a loved one or friend who is in need of a drug treatment program, you may be the one responsible for saving the life of your friend. Most of those people who are addicted to illicit drugs don't recognize that they have a problem. They think they are able to control and to quit any time they want to. Usually though, they have to be encouraged or even forced to enter a drug treatment program. Sometimes they are required to enter a drug treatment program because of the criminal justice system. Other times, family or friends recognize the signs of drug abuse and intervene to put pressure on the addict to get their life back together. In a few cases the person is able to recognize that they need help to stop using drugs and will seek help on their own. It has been determined that the success rate for recovery is about the same whether the person entered a drug treatment program voluntarily or was forced into it.

Often, a person who is being encouraged to enter a drug treatment program will be have the treatment center preselected so that the addict only needs to agree to go in order for them to be accepted and the treatment program begun. This is often a privately funded or sometimes religious funded center. If the addict is choosing a drug treatment program in lieu of incarceration, it is often a state or federally funded facility.

Assessment of the health, both physical and emotional, is the first step in the drug treatment program at most centers. A thorough evaluation of the patient's health is conducted because the person who has been abusing drugs for any period of time will show damages to his or her health. They may be underweight, or decreased organ function. Their teeth may be affected. Other diseases typical to a substance abuse lifestyle may be present. All of these are taken into consideration when developing a treatment program.

The first and most important thing in most cases is to get rid of the residual drugs in the body. The effects at the cellular level can be quite significant. If the person is unable to think clearly about a decision because of the effects of the last drug usage, it is unlikely that they are ready to make a commitment to stop drug use. Sometimes the addict will be willing to begin treatment once they have gone through withdrawal, when prior to detoxification they had no interest in doing so.

It is highly unlikely that most addict will be able to complete the withdrawal from drug use without assistance from medications given under the supervision of a medical professional trained in the care and treatment of substance abuse patients. The side effects during detoxification can be significant and in most cases are severe enough that the person undergoing treatment would not continue without help from the medications.

Withdrawal symptoms are managed in one of three ways if conducted at a drug treatment program center. Doses of the medication of choice are given once each half hour until the patient is in a state of light sedation, then that baseline level is slowly lowered and the patient weaned away from the medications over the detoxification period which usually encompasses three to five days in length. A second method is to begin with a dosage which is expected to handle the withdrawal symptoms, based on the patient history, and again to lower the medications gradually during the period of detoxification. The third method is to only give medications when the symptoms of withdrawal call for action.

Although many people think that detoxification is the major part of what goes on in a drug treatment program, in reality, it is a very small part of the whole process. The patient who goes through withdrawal and receives no further treatment almost invariably relapses back into substance abuse rather quickly. In fact, detoxification is looked upon by many addicts as a way to lessen the cost of drug addiction, since after detoxification a smaller dose of the drug is required in order to get high.

So, the drug treatment program continues after detoxification with a variety of educational, therapeutic and even psychological activities in order to strengthen the decision not to go back to the drug lifestyle. In a resident center, there will be efforts to improve eating habits with particular attention to good nutrition. This is aimed at bettering the physical health of the patient. There is usually a combination of group support and group counseling sessions aimed at correcting behavior problems which may be at the root of drug use.

It is fairly common for counselors who work with drug treatment program centers to be those who have successfully overcome their own drug habit. Counselors who are recovering users know from first-hand experience what the patients are going through and are better able to help during stressful times.

Another significant part of therapy is psychological counseling to help the patient find other ways of dealing with the stressors of everyday life rather than turning to drugs. Teaching recovering addicts how to cope in other ways can be an important part of therapy. Especially when the patient is a child or adolescent, family counseling is needed, since it is likely that the patient will be going back into the same situation as they were in when they began using drugs. Therapy is designed to help the addict find other ways of coping with life.

There are other classes at most drug treatment program centers dedicated to helping the patient relearn some of the activities of daily life. Things as simple as hygiene and social skills may have to be relearned. For adults, there may be assistance in learning such things as being a good employee. How to handle a job interview, for example is part of becoming a functioning member of the community in which they live.