To Rehab or Not To Rehab
To overcome a compulsive behavior that has taken over a person's life, admission to a rehabilitative facility for 30 days or more may be necessary. But that is not the case with everyone.
If you have been able to go for a few weeks or longer without acting out compulsively, checking into a rehab facility may not be necessary. I have been successful in helping many individuals over my years in practice who have collectively struggled with virtually all compulsive behaviors to refrain from their involvement with them without ever having been admitted to a rehab facility. A simple GOOGLE search into the ineffectiveness of rehabs will lead the reader to a host of articles and research about the problems with the rehab model. Some of these articles are from the National Institutes of Health, the Recovery Research Institute, and many others.
Here’s some information to consider:
What does all this mean?
Putting someone in residence where they are isolated from all their stresses and triggers for 30 to 90 days is generally not that effective. Again, if you are someone who cannot maintain a sustained length of abstinence from your compulsive behavior for more than a couple of weeks, then a rehab center is probably your necessary next step regardless of this information.
However, being tucked away in a facility free of everyday struggles with hours filled with group sessions and continuous positivity and encouragement often lulls the person challenged by a compulsive behavior into a false sense of security that they will be “cured” once their stay is over. In this relatively short amount of time, they likely haven’t identified or worked through the originating causes and issues underlying their compulsive behavior, nor acquired the coping skills necessary to build up sufficient strength and resilience to deal with them.
Once released, the person struggling with a compulsive behavior is most often overwhelmed by all the stresses they were sheltered from while in rehab, and as the low success rates demonstrate, they relapse.
Relapse is not due to the failure of the person working at their recovery.
Relapse often indicates that a one-size-fits-all approach has been used, mostly in a group setting, and that sufficient effort has not been dedicated to work on the individual areas which have led to the compulsion. Nor has exploring the various stresses that trigger it, which are often of a traumatic nature in origin.
This takes time and an individualized approach.
In fact, research demonstrates that the most important ingredient for maintaining long term abstinence from a compulsive behavior is the length of time a person is engaged in the therapeutic process, not the intensity of that process during the initial stages of treatment.
There are better ways of helping a person handle the stress-filled situations they encounter in their day-to-day lives and the uncomfortable feelings that accompany those events and consequently trigger their desire to use or act out. Many are not employed by the vast majority of rehab centers. The nature of the disease of any addiction is rooted in a person's ability to process their experiences and the unpleasant emotions that accompany them. It is not merely a matter of reprogramming a person's decision-making processes. Furthermore, there are many facilities who charge hefty fees for primarily implementing a 12-step program into their treatment planning.
Please contact me so that I can consult with you about this issue, and decide the best plan of action for you or your loved one.
If you have been able to go for a few weeks or longer without acting out compulsively, checking into a rehab facility may not be necessary. I have been successful in helping many individuals over my years in practice who have collectively struggled with virtually all compulsive behaviors to refrain from their involvement with them without ever having been admitted to a rehab facility. A simple GOOGLE search into the ineffectiveness of rehabs will lead the reader to a host of articles and research about the problems with the rehab model. Some of these articles are from the National Institutes of Health, the Recovery Research Institute, and many others.
Here’s some information to consider:
- Rehab facilities often claim success rates as high as 90%. But according to independent research, success rates are often closer to 17%.
- This same research also shows that 62% of those people leaving a facility relapse within the first 48 hours of discharge.
- Peer-reviewed studies say 12-step programs are only 5% effective and most 12-step success stories are largely anecdotal in nature.
- For those who enter rehab centers as part of their recovery efforts, it takes an average of 6 rehab stays before treatment “sticks.”
- The average cost for a rehab stay is estimated to be around $15,000 to $23,000 before co-pays. “Boutique” rehab centers can cost over $100,000 for a 30-day stay.
What does all this mean?
Putting someone in residence where they are isolated from all their stresses and triggers for 30 to 90 days is generally not that effective. Again, if you are someone who cannot maintain a sustained length of abstinence from your compulsive behavior for more than a couple of weeks, then a rehab center is probably your necessary next step regardless of this information.
However, being tucked away in a facility free of everyday struggles with hours filled with group sessions and continuous positivity and encouragement often lulls the person challenged by a compulsive behavior into a false sense of security that they will be “cured” once their stay is over. In this relatively short amount of time, they likely haven’t identified or worked through the originating causes and issues underlying their compulsive behavior, nor acquired the coping skills necessary to build up sufficient strength and resilience to deal with them.
Once released, the person struggling with a compulsive behavior is most often overwhelmed by all the stresses they were sheltered from while in rehab, and as the low success rates demonstrate, they relapse.
Relapse is not due to the failure of the person working at their recovery.
Relapse often indicates that a one-size-fits-all approach has been used, mostly in a group setting, and that sufficient effort has not been dedicated to work on the individual areas which have led to the compulsion. Nor has exploring the various stresses that trigger it, which are often of a traumatic nature in origin.
This takes time and an individualized approach.
In fact, research demonstrates that the most important ingredient for maintaining long term abstinence from a compulsive behavior is the length of time a person is engaged in the therapeutic process, not the intensity of that process during the initial stages of treatment.
There are better ways of helping a person handle the stress-filled situations they encounter in their day-to-day lives and the uncomfortable feelings that accompany those events and consequently trigger their desire to use or act out. Many are not employed by the vast majority of rehab centers. The nature of the disease of any addiction is rooted in a person's ability to process their experiences and the unpleasant emotions that accompany them. It is not merely a matter of reprogramming a person's decision-making processes. Furthermore, there are many facilities who charge hefty fees for primarily implementing a 12-step program into their treatment planning.
Please contact me so that I can consult with you about this issue, and decide the best plan of action for you or your loved one.
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