Whether you are an alcohol, marijuana, heroin, prescription drug or cocaine addict, you might have to go through rehabilitation in order to turn your life around. Some people have quit their addictions without admission in a rehabilitation center. However, quite a percentage of these individuals keep relapsing again and again until they seek professional help in a facility where they are away from triggers.
Admission in any rehabilitation center is not really a guarantee that you will not relapse after leaving the facility. Many people have gone back into drugs few weeks, months or years after they completed their stay. However, with the right addiction specialist physicians who can treat you and your determination to recover, relapsing is 100% avoidable.
Regardless of the challenges, rehab seems to have helped a lot of people that abused and got addicted to drugs. The same can happen for you too. Before looking at what happens in rehab, it is important to understand a few things.
Rehab Preparation Tips
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Your doctor
First, finding a qualified and skilled addiction doctor is very essential since he or she will determine the flow and effectiveness of your treatment. Therefore, conducting adequate research on the available trained professionals in this field should be taken serious. Quality comes first because the progress and future of your life is on the line. It is crucial to invest in it.
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Rehab location
Second, the location of the rehabilitation centers matters too. Your family will be involved in your rehab process, since you have to mend the broken relationships and they also need counseling to learn on how to handle and support you in recovery.
Hence, it is not advisable to pick a location that is far away from home. After all, your family could still be hurt and angry with you for the multiple mistakes you committed while under the influence of the drug you abused or while desperate to access it. Therefore, it is not advisable to burden them with the load of travelling long distances for the sake of your recovery.
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Focus and positivity
Last, you need to mentally prepare yourself and focus on healing. This positive attitude will help you through the toughest of times and prevent you from relapsing or giving up since nobody will force you to stay in rehab.
While doing so, acknowledge that you will have to let go off all those people that influence you into consuming drugs. Whether it is a girlfriend, boyfriend or fiancé, you will have to cut ties in order to reach where you want to go. This decision may be tough. However, consider that if they are not going for treatment as well, they could influence you back into the same drugs just when your life is getting better.
These three preparations points should be adhered to before joining any rehab center. They will be helpful and good for your recovery process. In these preparations as well, remember that there could be critics who think that you are a lost course and that rehab is a waste of money and time. It is highly advisable to ignore them because only a dead person has zero chances to do better.
Rehab
Rehab entails multiple medical processes as well as psychotherapeutic treatments to relieve you from psychoactive substance dependency. These processes and treatments vary depending on the drugs that you abuse.
For example, rehab for oxycontin is not entirely the same as that of alcohol. Despite that some aspects will be similar, quite a number will differ such as the treatment of the withdrawal symptoms in the detox period.
Addiction to psychoactive substances causes multiple changes in all aspects of your life. It affects your family, work relationships, health and messes your life in general. Therefore, rehab brings about solutions to mend each area that is ruined, hence is some sort of remedy for drug addiction.
As rehab plays a major role in you regaining your normal life, it also helps you in confronting the issues that led you into drug addiction. By doing so, it saves you from multiple consequences related to the law, society, your financial status, physical being and psychological health.
Rehab Benefits
From all the above statements, it is obvious that rehab is meant to benefit you at all corners of your life. However, do not forget the fact that you can only enjoy these benefits if you are determined, hardworking and dedicated towards your course.
The following are among the multiple benefits of rehab.
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Breakage of the addiction cycle
As mentioned earlier, many people have tried quitting drug addiction without professional help, and failed terribly. However, a majority of those that have considered rehab, the results were positive. This is because of the multiple programs and medications that help in keeping you on the right track.
Therefore, rehab is great at breaking the cycle of addiction, which is stubborn when handled unprofessionally. Therefore, if you are considering rehab, you are on the right and best track towards a successful recovery.
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Provision of addiction education
If you had adequate and reliable knowledge about any substance abuse and addictions, it is highly likely that you would not have indulged into the matter. Therefore, rehab provides programs that allow you to learn about your addiction, as well as others that are related.
This education entails sensory experiences, habits, events and people that promote craving for drugs. If you are attentive enough during this period of learning, you will leave the rehab facility as a much wiser person that can be protective and escape the triggers.
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Better view of the underlying issues
Pain that can be physical, psychological or emotional as well as stress are among the multiple reasons that cause people to abuse drugs, loose control and become addicts. Surprisingly, you may not notice that such issues are your motivation to continue taking more of the psychoactive substances.
The rehab programs that you are exposed to help you know yourself better, by looking deeper into your strengths, weaknesses and troubles. From there, understanding your reasons for drug abuse indulgence becomes clear.
The professionals managing your treatment enable you to understand your issues and also equip you with methods or skills on how to deal with them without involving drugs. All in all, you will leave the facility as a person that handle your problems while sober and calm.
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Creation of new habits and practices
Providing you with addiction information and helping you know yourself better is just a tip of the ice berg. Rehab professionals know that you need more for your recovery to be successful since it lasts for the rest of your life.
Among the things that you must acquire to attain this success is discipline and self-care, which drug addicts definitely lack. Therefore, rehab ensures that you gain these aspects by training you on the value of personal development and growth.
As soon as you identify and understand what you want your future to be like, rehab further helps you create a path, which involves new healthy habits and practices. These entail short and long-term goals that can further be split into daily targets.
At the end of it all, you gain spiritual, emotional, occupational and relationship aspirations that you are eager to pursue upon leaving the facility. Hence thoughts about indulging into drugs again become quite offensive, which is a very good thing.
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Healthy boundaries establishment
Your relationships with others around you, especially family members are very important. They can either lead you back into drugs if not well handled or keep you on track if the right approach is used. As mentioned above, you should break ties with persons that drive you into drugs. However, is it really possible to break ties with your mother, father or siblings?
It is hardly possible because despite the drug challenges, family bonds are still important for your psychological health. So at this point, rehab helps you create healthy boundaries that can keep you from confusion and anxiety and instead have a different view of the matter.
For instance, boundaries involve rejecting certain things that could risk your sobriety in a good manner that does not lead to conflicts. Therefore, you are able to maintain peace among those you love and both sides get to do what they want.
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Self-improvement
Understanding yourself is the key to the happiness in your life, since you tend to react or respond to happenings according to how you feel about yourself. While getting in the rehab facility, it is very likely that you will have low understanding of yourself, which explains your indulgence in drugs, despite the harm they do to you.
Therefore, rehab comes in to help you back on your feet through multiple therapies where you express yourself. From what your psychologists gather, they can help you solve whatever distorts your inner-self. Therefore, at the end of the sessions, you emerge as a better person with higher self-worth, care, management, esteem and awareness. All these give you a different perspective of life.
Rehab Activities
For you to attain all the above rehab benefits, you must indulge in multiple activities. They begin with the basics regarding cleansing your body and mind and end with dealing with life as a healthy person. They include the following:
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Rehabilitation Process
The rehabilitation process entails healing your body and mind and helping you to become a better person that can live harmoniously with the rest of the society. It is tougher in the beginning, but gets better with time and thus requires perseverance.
The following are the stages involved in the rehab process:
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Admission
As soon as you arrive at the rehab center, you meet up with the team that is in charge of your treatment, headed by your preferred addiction physician. This team may include nurses, psychologists and counselors.
Your doctor ensures that various assessments are carried out to fully understand your addiction, so that the entire team can create a treatment plan. You may be asked multiple questions regarding your medical history as well as your family’s medical background.
Other tests target your blood, mental health and physical examination to determine the presence of issues caused by your addiction. For the treatment team to create an effective treatment plan for you, it is important to be honest and give the right information.
After all is done, your doctor admits you to the facility and ensures that your information remains confidential.
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Detoxification
It is impossible to begin treatment while your body is still intoxicated with the drugs you abused. Therefore, you must face the detox period to remove all the toxins from your system. This period is quite challenging because you will definitely experience withdrawal symptoms, which are dependent on the drugs you abused, period of abuse and amounts taken.
At this point, many people have given up and relapsed due to the pain. However, positivity and determination can go a long way in keeping you in the fight. Additionally, your doctor will be quick to respond to the worse of the symptoms.
The common withdrawal symptoms are such as:
- Insomnia
- Irritability
- Sweating
- Depression
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Hallucinations
- Reduced appetite
- Tremors, among others.
Some of these symptoms can threaten your life. Therefore, your doctor may recommend medication such as:
- Methadone- it reduces cravings while alleviating withdrawal symptoms. However, it could cause side effects like constipation, excessive sweating, sexual dysfunction, itchy skin and respiratory depression.
- Buprenorphine- it also diminishes the withdrawal symptoms and also reduces cravings for preferred drugs. Unfortunately, it may cause you more pain due to effects like muscle cramps, vomiting, sleep problems and constipation.
Rehabilitation
The successful completion of toxins removal from your system leads to the rehabilitation stage, whereby you and your doctor can go deeper into the issues that caused your addiction. At this point, vulnerability is essential since some issues are hard to determine if you put up a wall due to issues like shame.
This session is made easier through multiple therapies and programs that identify your problems and give a solution to deal with them. The following are some of these therapies and programs that you must indulge in to make progress in your recovery.
- Individual therapy– this is where you have confidential talks with your therapist. He or she asks various questions that you respond to, hence giving him or her perspective of your issues. The sessions may take place in multiple times depending on the depth of your problems. He or she gives solutions that you must practice daily so as to heal.
- Group therapy– this is where all the recovering addicts in the facility come together to share their problems. It is therapeutically helpful since it allows you to see the world in different perspectives.
- Cognitive behavior therapy– from the individual therapy, your therapist identifies the behavior and emotions that drive you into drugs. Therefore, using cognitive behavior therapy, he or she helps you alter your thoughts and thus change these factors.
In the above processes, your thinking and behavior changes completely, giving you a fresh start.
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Repairing family bonds
After healing your body and mind, it comes to a time where you need to mend the broken bonds between you and your loved ones. These bonds break because your behavior when high is not the best and thus cause harm to those around you. Therefore, for your healing to proceed, your family must heal as well.
The process of mending these bonds may include family therapy, whereby a mediator, who is a counselor, comes between you and the family members to help them understand the importance of the relationship in your recovery.
Since the family may have wounds that need healing, each person may undergo through some therapy so that they may understand you, let go off the anger against you and actually participate fully and positively towards a better you.
On the other hand, you must as well do some things to meet your loved ones half way, since it is a two way path. Hence, the following are means to reach out to your family in the effort to repair the relationships.
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Have realistic expectations and reach out
Being a new and sober person will feel amazing and exciting at the same time. You will want everybody else to join your world almost immediately. However, remember that your family is still in the healing process and thus may take some time to join your victory.
So begin by being apologetic and from there hope for the best while keeping a positive attitude regardless of the challenges.
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Take time to rebuild trust
Trust is quite delicate and once broken, becomes hard to rebuild. However, do not lose hope in working towards rebuilding that trust again. You may begin by being honest about everything, whether good or bad.
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Eliminate unhealthy relationships
The majority of the unhealthy relationships include those that led you into addiction. Therefore, for your own good and to further earn back your family’s trust, cut off those individuals. Otherwise, your family might think that you are not serious about maintaining your sobriety or mending the broken bonds.
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Have patience
It is impossible to rush matters to do with the heart. Therefore, you must be patient with your loved ones, since previous disappointments made them develop so much doubt. By being patient and adhering to the above points, their hearts will once again warm up to you and join you in seeking a better life style.
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Manage stress
As you work towards a better you, stress will be inevitable since you are likely to hit some road blocks along the way. After all, nobody said it would be easy. For example, reaching out to a loved one that you hurt can be tricky if they do not want to hear from you. The desperation to have them back in your life could lead you to stress. However, a good approach to your stress will save you much pain.
Symptoms Of Stress
For you to realize that you have stress, you may suffer from some emotional symptoms like agitation, mood swings, depression and frustration. The physical symptoms may include tensed muscles, headaches, insomnia, chest pain and rapid heartbeat.
The cognitive symptoms may include racing and disorganized thoughts, constant worrying and forgetfulness, while behavioral may be procrastination, bad habits and avoiding responsibilities.
Stress Consequences
The longer you allow yourself to experience stress, the more damage it could do to your system. Among the many stress consequences that you could experience are such as:
- Mental health challenges like anxiety and suicidal thoughts
- Reproductive system problems like menstrual issues.
- Cardiovascular diseases like high blood pressure.
- Obesity due to excessive consumption of food
- Hair loss
Stress management tips
Since you understand the value of your recovery process in the rehab and would like to avoid a relapse, you have to work towards working on your stress. There are multiple ways to do so and thus utilizing them can go a long way in preventing a relapse.
They include:
- Taking a healthy diet to balance the chemical reactions in your body. You should take more of oranges, spinach, and omega-3 fatty acids and avoid caffeinated and high sugar liquids.
- Exercising regularly to release endorphins which suppress stressful thoughts while promoting happiness.
- Engage in positive company, since their talks will influence your thoughts to be positive as well
- Keep a diary, whereby you write all your thoughts and emotions on a daily basis. Letting the issues out will promote peace
- Sleep adequately, to reduce the fatigue form thinking too much
- Become mindful so that you can acknowledge and appreciate the good things around you, hence forget the bad.
In conclusion, all the rehab activities thrive towards your successful recovery from drug addiction. The rehab process is mandatory while repairing relationships and managing stress come from within you. However, it is important to see their value since they promote peace and further push you towards achieving the new set goals.
