In drug and alcohol rehab centers the first and foremost important thing is safety. A comment sent in yesterday talks of clients leaving a rehab because they feared for their personal safety. People will not and cannot change if they don’t feel safe. Change requires new behavior, and by definition “new” means uncomfortable. People will not try and master new, uncomforable skills if they are already uncomforable and afraid.

I believe a rehab has a moral obligation to make their center safe for the people who want to change. This sometimes means taking a stand that is not popular. Removing clients for smuggling in drugs or violating sexual boundaries, however has to adhered to. Violence of either physical or verbal must NEVER be tolerated. If we truly create safe enviroments for our clients then we can find out new and better programs the work far more effectively than before. If we don’t create a safe enviroment, then drug and alcohol rehab becomes a weird psuedo-prison hazing experience that is uncomforable for everyone, and nobody find sobriety there.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 27th, 2006 at 8:10 pm and is filed under 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.