Long-Term Drug Rehab

When a person needs drug rehab, in so many cases, that need has been years in the making. It’s not particularly uncommon for a person to have been addicted to drugs for decades before they arrive at rehab. Therefore it is not surprising that many people need the support of long-term drug rehab to fully achieve sobriety.

In their manual Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment,¹ the National Institute on Drug Abuse advises that “for residential or outpatient treatment, participation for less than 90 days is of limited effectiveness, and treatment lasting significantly longer is recommended for maintaining positive outcomes.”

A problem that has been years or decades in the making may not be able to be resolved in a single month. The number of changes a person must address to develop the ability to stay sober takes time. For example, most people in rehab must learn to manage their emotional responses to life. They must achieve new understandings of themselves and how to deal with life’s issues and they must fully grasp how their life must change to maintain sobriety.

No one achieves these changes overnight. They take time. They take life skills training. They take counseling and interacting on a newly-sober basis with rehab staff and those around them.

The First Step: Seeing Life Through Sober Eyes

The first step for anyone entering rehab is to withdraw from the drugs that were being used. Some people may choose a medically-supported withdrawal which may be needed for someone who has health issues or who was using a drug that can have severe withdrawal symptoms. This may be true for those using benzodiazepines or alcohol.

Before they can honestly begin the process of building a new, sober life, they must be sober. So a person’s first days in rehab for most people are spent withdrawing from the drugs they were taking just before their arrival. This takes special support and monitoring to get through this challenging time.

At Narconon drug rehab centers, one-on-one support is provided to each person, along with nutrition effectively designed to ease withdrawal symptoms. With this support, it’s possible for this withdrawal to be far more tolerable than ones experienced earlier in the person’s life.

When the person is eating and sleeping normally and they are free from the effects of drugs, they are ready to begin drug rehabilitation for real.

Relief From The Harmful Effects Of Drug Residues

Once a person is free from the immediate intoxicating effects of drugs, it has been shown that they still have toxic drug residues in their bodies.² These residues can contribute to Post-Acute Withdrawal Symptoms or PAWS.³

A person suffering from PAWS may manifest these signs, sometimes for years:

• Cravings
• Disturbed sleep
• Apathy
• Pessimism
• Irritability
• Difficulty maintaining relationships
• Sensitivity to stress
• Anxiety
• Tendency to panic

Eliminating these residues can enable those in recovery to experience a change of mood and attitude. Therefore, each person on the Narconon long-term drug rehab program goes through a process known as the New Life Detoxification.

This detox takes place in a low-heat sauna, with m and nutritional supplementation added to the program. This combination results in the sweating out of these residual toxins. As the toxins leave, brighter outlooks, improved moods and relief from PAWS may be reported by those who are completing the program.

Rehabilitation Requires a New Objectivity

If a person is to achieve lasting sobriety, they must have new attitudes about how they deal with relationships, work, setting and achieving goals and other aspects of life. This is the work of an effective drug rehab program.

A thorough and effective drug rehab must provide these benefits that enable a person to leave the past behind so they can start living in the present. This could be accomplished through group therapy, individual therapy or work therapy.

At Narconon long-term drug rehabs, each person completes a series of exercises that helps them focus on the present. As they progress through these exercises, the pain of the past falls away and they learn to recapture the brightness of their surroundings. They achieve a new level of objectivity about themselves and their life. This shift prepares them to learn new sober living skills.

Breaking Old Patterns, Forging New Ones

Every year, more than a million youth (ages 12 to 17) begin using marijuana.⁴ More than 80,000 begin using cocaine and a quarter-million begin using hallucinogens. These youth have not yet fully developed life skills. If these individuals go on to become addicted, they will probably miss out on developing healthy adult life skills.

On the other hand, while a person is addicted, they often suffer a deterioration of life skills. The trauma they have suffered, the guilt they feel and their loss of integrity serve to weaken or further destroy their life skills. For drug rehab to work, they must restore these skills. Some drug rehab programs use written lessons with exercises that help a person get experience using the concepts.⁵

In the same way, the Narconon drug rehab program provides multiple courses of life skills training. Why is this training so essential for anyone going through long-term drug rehab?

For a person to stay sober, they have to learn how to handle life situations like these:

Detecting a person who does not have your best interests at heart (like drug dealers) Knowing how to deal with a person who destabilizes you or makes you feel worse about yourself Choosing the right friends around whom you can be successful in life Building and maintaining healthy relationships Being productive on a job or in life Knowing how to overcome barriers to the achievement of goals Restoring relationships that were damaged by years of addiction

Without obtaining these skills and others like them, life can toss one around badly. It can be too tempting to return to drug use to alleviate the pain.

Returning to a Sober Life After Long-Term Drug Rehab

There’s one more step a person should take before going home. They are going to need to make many changes in their life to maintain their stability. They may need new friends, perhaps a new job or even a new home. This plan requires a careful evaluation of all the pitfalls of their past life. Who made it hard to stay sober? Which relationships are going to need restoration? Are there any bridges that have been burned during addiction that should be rebuilt?

This evaluation and estimation should be done before re-entry so that surprises are minimal. Then, with this plan, a person can go right to work getting themselves re-established. To give drug rehab a chance to be effective, it is best if a person gets help creating their plan and implementing it after they go home. The Narconon Graduate Officer fulfills this function for each person completing the long-term drug rehab program.

This Much Change Takes Time

It should be apparent by now that this much change will require time. It’s a process that must not be rushed. That’s why long-term drug rehab is much more effective for many people hoping for long-term recovery.

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