Some of the main reasons I have discussed for going to an alcohol or drug rehab program are number one, safety and number two boundaries. The third main reason for going to rehab addiction treatment is to change the sleep pattern. Most people who are deep in their addiction are staying up very late at night and sleeping in very late in the day. It is critical if the rehab is to be successful that the sleep pattern be effectively dealt with.

Relapse and return to substance abuse is highly likely if people do not get up early and go to bed at a resonable time. Unfortunately at 3 a.m. in the morning the odds of finding friends who are not using is very low. Again this may be difficult to do on your own. Once enrolled in a rehab program there is no choice but to change your sleep patterns for the duration of the rehab. Food is served only at specific times and classes are scheduled so the structure of the situation forces you to change your sleep patterns. Again the fellowship of doing this with other people making the same change give rehabs an advantage over doing this on your own.

Many times 90 days in enough to start some new habits such as getting up at a more appropriate hour and working out first thing in the morning. Again in a rehab it is likely that you will find someone willing to go through those first few weeks which will make the change easier. Changing sleep patterns are essential to the success of drug addiction treatment and rehabs offer some advantages to just doing it on your own

The other thing that a rehab can provide that is difficult to get outside a rehab is to provide direct and clear boundaries. Most people who have a long standing or serious drug or alcohol addiction have very poor boundaries. While it is very easy to talk about raising standards and putting clear boundaries in place sometimes this can be very difficult without external help. The boundaries and rules inside a rehab are usually very clear. The consequences of breaking those rules are usually clear and most time quite immediate.

Boundaries with those of the opposite sex are usually well deifined in a rehab. Most rehabs do not allow romantic of sexual relationships to form inside a rehab. This is also a great advantage to those trying to put their life back on track. It allows you to practice skills in the developement of supportive friends. Many people have difficulty establishing friendships with others without sexuality entering it. Rehabs can be a safe place to try to develop this skill.

It is impossible to stay clean and sober without boundaries. Without adequate emotional boundaries, one will always be drawn into the drama of other peoples lives. This will always increase stress and lead to more dangerous situations for those in addiction treatment. The clearly defined rules of a rehab can allow you to work on all of these points. So if you have tried in the past and cannot get boundaries in place in your life, a good drug or alcohol rehab may help you.

What is the main purpose of going to a drug rehab?

What can a rehab offer that can make the difference? You can get good counseling outside a rehab. You can find good support groups outside a rehab. You can find good information about addiction treatment outside a rehab. I personally think the most important thing a rehab can offer is safety. That’s the main reason to go.

Rehabs offer safety from temptation from drug and alcohol for a while. That’s the obvious thing. They also offer a safe enviroment to try new things. Outside of a rehab, the consequences of making mistakes are far greater. The greater the consequence, the less likely someone is to attemept to try a new behavior. The more at stake, the more likely someone is to stay with the regular way of doing things. Because in a rehab everyone is there to learn new ways of dealing with things, no one is going to care if the first few times you try a new technique to handle something, it is clumsy or poorly done. They will actually cheer you on.

Outside of a drug or alcohol rehab program if you appear clumsy while trying a new way to relate to people, embarassment or ridicule may keep you from trying it again several times until you become proficient. Everyone in rehab is going through the same things, feeling the same clumsy moments. In rehab you can actually stop in the middle of something and ask others around you what isn’t working. In real life, while it would be nice if we could do this, most times we cannot.

Rehabs offer the safety of enough time to actually think about what you really want in life. Sometimes living life and coping with everything gets in the way of figuring out exactly what you want. Rehab is a place removed from all that. If you are truely trying to make changes in your life and stop substance abuse, but can’t quite make it, maybe the safety of a rehab might make the difference.

Not all addictions are the same. Not all alcohol and drug rehabs are the same. Not all therapists are the same. If you addiction treatment is to progress after rehab you need to find one that is a great fit. You don’t need to find the best therapist, but the best therapist for you.

Seeking A Therapist?

A therapist should be willing to answer any questions you may have about their methods, training and fees. Here are some questions you may want to ask a therapist during a consultation:

What training and experience do you have in treating anxiety disorders?
How many clients have they sucessfully treated in this area in the past?
What is your basic approach to treatment?
Are they aware of the type of approach used in the rehab program you were in?
Are you available in an emergency on-call basis?
Can you prescribe medication or refer me to someone who can, if that proves necessary?
How long is the course of treatment?
How frequent are treatment sessions and how long do they last?
What sort of work or homework do you expect from a client?

Do you include family members in therapy?
Will you or a staff member go to the home of a phobic person, if necessary?
What is your fee schedule, and do you have a sliding scale for varying financial circumstances?
What kinds of health insurance do you accept?
(http://www.adaa.org/AnxietyDisorderInfor/GuidetoTre.cfm)

Remember, if a therapist is reluctant to answer your questions, or if you do not feel comfortable, see someone else.

Part of any drug rehab program will involve some discussion about asserting ones needs. It is especially important when picking a therapist to be clear about asserting what it is you wish to accomplish and with whom.

I’ll continue today with some more ideas on how to find some great advisors for support in addiction treatment after leaving a drug or alcohol rehab.

Make a Decision

Make a decision and try them out.

If it isnâ??t working for you, give feedback, if itâ??s still not working, find somebody else.

Remember to check your hidden agendaâ??s to make sure, you are not sabotaging your plan through changing advisors over and over.

Take five minutes and write down a positive experience you have had with getting professional advice
What made it work for you?
How did you find and choose this person?

Some Issues Need a Specialist

If when going through a drug rehab program you have discovered you need to address some complex emotional issues, you may need the help of a uniquely skilled professional:

Violence and anger management
Experience of abuse
Experience of abusing
Eating disorder
Complex family dysfunction
Communication problems, inability to give or receive feedback

There are some ways to help you decide if the therapist you seek to deal with this is a fit for you and your addiction treatment program you have chosen to follow. The whole point is to continue on with the progress you made in rehab. I’ll go through some of these ideas tomorrow.

Finding the right advice can be tough. How can you find people to trust? It’s tough after being a drug or alcohol rehab program and finally finding a group of people that you trust and understand you, to sort of start over as soon as you leave rehab and start looking for a new group of advisors. It’s best that during the last weeks at a rehab program that you start looking in advance.

Advisors You Can Trust

Seek referrals from other people who may have had assistance in the area of interest or a person or professional who is interested in the same area. Ask them these questions:

Does the advisor offer useful advice?

Is the person easy to reach?

Do you feel like an important client?

Does the advisor appear to be an expert in the field?

Do you trust the advisor?

Recommendations aren’t enough

From physicians to plumbers you need to feel comfortable with the person you hire.
Take the time to interview at least two candidates.
Ask about experience. Ideally, you’d like an advisor who has worked in the area you are seeking advice.
Find out if the advisor specializes in the services you need. Lawyers specialize, check if they have lots of experience in the area you need advice in. The same holds true for most professionals.
Service counts
If the candidate seems rushed or takes calls during your meeting, you should be concerned

Look for evidence of foresight

Ask each professional to talk about problems you might encounter and the ways they would help you address such difficulties
Test for communications skills
Find out how well the advisor can explain things to you. For example, you might ask a communications expert to describe their approach for conflict resolution
(http://www.allbusiness.com/articles/710-2057-1634.html)

These are just a few ideas that you can try to help you form the team of friends and advisors to help you continue on with your addiction treatment after you leave rehab. Tomorrow I’ll give you some more.

When you get out of a drug rehab program, how and where do you find the next level of help to keep you growing and prevent relapse?

How to identify help and resources required for your plan

The areas of your life that require assistance

Whether it is relationships, work or school, home or community, communication or physical, mental and spiritual areas of our lives, we all sometimes need to access specialized knowledge or skills.

Choosing the paint on our walls or the running shoes we wear, depending on our experience and knowledge, we may need or just desire some advice.

Three Possible Areas of Assistance

Professionals: from lawyers to architects
Therapists: from communication to eating disorders
Family and friends: from crisis management to exercise

Professional Advice

The best kind of advisor is someone who is sympathetic to your goals but who retains enough detachment to give you realistic answers to questions, not just the answers you may want to hear.

Take the time to go through your life goals and identify those with which you may need one time or regular ongoing advice or assistance.

Finding the Right Professional

It’s smart to pinch pennies when you’re starting on your way to your life goals and that often means taking a do-it-yourself approach to new tasks.

But sometimes it’s best to spend the money to hire a pro.

That’s often the case when it comes to starting your own business, choosing a university or trade school, marital counselling, health concerns such as weight reduction, taxes and legal matters, career advice, or other consultants to help you meet your goals or prevent potential problems.

Finding the right type and quality of advice after rehab is another of the many many steps to sucessfully ending drug or alcohol abuse. All quality drug and alcohol rehab programs help you to start this process while still in rehab, but it all can’t be finished there. Over the next few day I’ll cover some more suggestions on ways to find those good advisors that can insure you continue to advance with the progress you made in your rehab or drug treatment program.

Sending Listening Signals

Head movements are important for listening
A head nod signals I am with you, I understand, carry on
It is difficult to accept that someone is listening if they are looking away, so maintain eye contact
Another behavior is the â??head cockâ??, holding the head at a tilted angle to the person being listened to
It is also common when listening to bring the head closer to the person being listened to
Physical closeness signals intellectual and emotional closeness
When listening in the seated position, the head is often propped up by the thumb and first two fingers of the hand, but keep your eyes open or a reverse signal is sent
Active use of the above behaviors can signal that you are giving your full and undivided attention

Active Listening Skills Are Important

When intoxicated our active listening skills disappear, hence the number of misinterpretations of what happened and what another person said.

When in conflict or under stress deliberate use of active listening skills can lower tension and support achieving resolution.

When learning, active listening skills can help get the most out of an educational session.

When beginning or working on relationships, active listening skills can bring about mutual understanding.

Some People Cannot or Will Not Listen

Intoxicated with drugs or alcohol
Active mental illness such as psychosis
Emotionally distraught e.g. very angry, extremely anxious,
Have a hidden agenda and use twisted thinking
They donâ??t trust you due to your past behavior
You are sending signals that you donâ??t want to listen or you already

Practice What You Have Learned

Choose a person in the room for this exercise
One takes the role of listener and one takes the role of speaker
The speaker shares in five minutes what they have learned about active listening
The listener uses active listening body signals and then takes three minutes or so and shares what they heard and the emotions they picked up from the speaker
The speaker validates if the listener has heard correctly
Reverse the roles
Now give feedback to each other on the listening skills used, both verbal and non verbal
How did it feel to have someone truly attending to what you are saying and feeling?

You cannot deal with addiction and it’s treatment with poor communication and listening skills. Please do not underestimate that value of this last exercise. Many drug and alcohol rehab programs will have this or something similar in it. If you learned a different one in rehab, practice it and then at least try this one. Role playing and practice do not stop when you leave rehab. All the stuff that happens when you leave rehab simply give you more reason to practice the exercises from rehab.

Learning involves dialogue with active listening. In addiction we often listen with the purpose of later manipulating the situation to gain control. Manipulation will never lead to a change in behavor. That is one of the main advantages of rehab. In a drug or alcohol rehab there is nothing to be gained by manipulation. It only delays or impedes treatment and change. Another part of active listening involves being heard in a safe manner that doesn’t stop the flow of information. If you are to get the most out of the time spent in rehab and avoid relapse it is imperitive to not only learn to listen, but to get others to truly and calmly hear your truth as well.

Getting Others to Listen

When people are in conflict, they often contradict each other, denying the opponentâ??s description of a situation.

Send clear signals that you want to listen.
Send clear signals that you want to be heard.
Listen first and then ask to be heard.
If both parties to a conflict signal a willingness to listen, the chances of being able to develop a solution to their mutual problem becomes much greater.

(International Online Training Program On Intractable Conflict
Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, USA, http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/activel.htm)

One of one main goals in rehab or drug treatment should be to hear and be heard.

Treatment at a drug or alcohol rehab involves a different set of listening skills that in normal conversation. The groups or lecture situations in a rehab may be where you recieve some of the most useful information to your recovery. Some people have had difficulty learning in a formal situation like school in the past and this should be addressed so as to get the most out of the time spent in rehab. Here’s some suggestions:

What affects listening in a formal learning setting?

The subject matter

Is it new or have you a lot of experience with it?
Will it be difficult to understand, or simple?
Is it important to you, or just fun?

The speaker

What are the non-verbal cues of the speaker?
What frame of mind are they in?
How experienced, comfortable with the topic?

The message presentation

Visuals or examples?
Is technology used effectively?
Are concepts introduced incrementally?

The space

Conducive to listening?
Conducive to interaction or exchange with the speaker?
Are there avoidable distractions?

Prepare to listen with a positive, engaged attitude

Focus your attention on the subject
Stop all non-relevant activities beforehand to orient yourself to the speaker and the topic
Review mentally what you already know about the subject
Organize in advance relevant material in order to develop it further (previous lectures, TV programs, newspaper articles, web sites, prior real life experience, etc.)
Avoid distractions
Seat yourself appropriately close to the speaker
Avoid distractions (a talkative neighbour, noise, etc.)
(Active Listening, Study Guides and Strategies, http://www.studygs.net/index.htm)

Your recovery and your life depend on you receiving and understanding new ideas to change and replace the old ones of your addictive patterns. It does matter how good the ideas are in a rehab if you don’t hear and understand them.