Why is personal safety so critical to the success of a drug rehab program? Why are the rules of conduct so strict in a rehab setting? If people feel either physically or verbally threathened is there any real chance at change? Many times I hear that the rules in a drug or alcohol rehab are too strict, or unfair. People often want to make allowances for bad behavior as somebody is dealing with their addiction and is so wound up that it should be expected for them to “blow” once in a while. I disagree with this totally. If people are to change their behavior they need to feel safe. The number one cause of relapse and return to old addictive behaviors is stress. A major cause of stress is not feeling safe in an enviroment. Therefore any drug or alcohol rehab program that doesn’t take any physical or verbal abuse extremely seriously adds to their clients stress level. Which in turn leads to a higher relapse rate. Rules in a drug rehab program must be clear and enforced. There is no other choice.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Drug Addiction, Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.