The cost of most drug and alcohol rehabs is a significant amount of money. It is not uncommon for the price of a residential treatment center to run $5000 to $10,000 per month or more. Therefore to go to rehab for 90 days, the recommended amount for severe addictions, you are looking at $20,000 to $30,000. A large number of families do not have this kind of money laying around for a rainy day. A very high percentage of people suffering with drug and alcohol addiction have no funds of their own to draw upon. So is it good practice to borrow money to help save the life of someone you love?

The obvious answer is yes, but with some very strong only ifs tagged to that yes. The first “only if” might be that the person with the addiction is seeking help of their own accord. Interventions, while they can be successful, are not as good as when someone themselves has made up their mind that enough is enough and has to change. Because borrowing this kind of money is a one time chance for many families, try to stack all the odds in your favor. The second “only if” might be that the client going to rehab has made a written, legal commitment to pay all or at least some of the money back themselves. People are always more careful with money of their own that is being spent, rather than someone else’s , especially if that someone else is a parent.

The third “only if” could be that the client with the addicition is well aware of the consequences of failure. Make it clear this is the only time the family will do this. Point out that while everyone will always love and emotionally support them, this is the one and only offer to fund rehab. Put this in writing again so there will be no confusion. By making the decision non-reversible and one time only, will add to the focus and drive of someone at rehab. It will also make sure they participate and care much more carefully about which rehab is chosen.

Going to rehab is not a guarantee. However doing nothing does come with a guarantee, that is will likely get worse. Borrowing to save someone you love may be the kindest most courageous thing a family can do.

When people arrive at alcohol and drug rehab, everyone wants to change on some level. There are valid reasons to change and lot’s of good ideas in the future about a life without drug addicition. Where many times the train gets derailed is in the mechanics of day to day change. Old patterns quickly reappear. In the business world this is called operations. It is consistency daily in operations that makes companies great.

One technique that business people use that works well during and after rehab is a daytimer. These are simple and cheap. The real value of a daytimer lies in compounding. That is the value of small incremental changes added to each other over time. It is how fortunes are amassed, fantanstic bodies are sculpted, great musical talanets are developed, and how drug and alcohol addiction is beaten.

A daytimer is an easy way to work on focus. Each day you can write a new question you want to focus on instead of the old stuff like, “why does this happen to me?” A better question everyday will gradually train your mind to focus on healthier things. A daytimer forces you to put structure in your life. Structure is the key to relapse prevention. Having something to do, also trains focus. So when you are heading off to rehab or if you have finished rehab, it doesn’t matter, go get a daytimer. It will make a difference.

When entering a drug and alcohol rehab program, maybe the last thing on someones mind is leadership. With the discomfort from the drug withdrawl, and figuring out how everything runs, most people would prefer just to survive the first couple of weeks in rehab as painlessly and as low key as possible. There is nothing wrong with this approach. If we think back to focus though, just staying under the radar may make your intial stay more uncomfortable and make your drug and alcohol cravings more intense.

How does leadership play into this. I am not talking about becomeing an instant leader in your group, and immediately trying to change everything you think is wrong or deficient at the rehab program. I’m talking about becoming a leader in your own life. Rehab is about change and about practising things in a safe enviroment that you might not try in the real world. It’s how leaders approach things. Leaders always tackle problems with a positive bent. They look for the good in the situation. They look for how a positive outcome might be possible. Leaders don’t sit back and cynically pick apart eveything they see. For your own sake you might want to try the same things. Look for the strengths in your drug rehab program. Look for ways that the program can help you. Look for the successes in the clients already present. Anyone can find the bad stuff in a rehab, leaders, and those who will ultimately stay sober, find the good stuff.

It’s always a challenge in drug rehab to change to sleep patterns when someone first arrives. They stay up way to late, and can’t fall asleep. Then of course, they are sleepy in the morning and can’t stay awake in class. Changing sleep components is an essential part of any drug or alcohol rehab. What is interesting is that I was reading today, that proper sleep patterns is also essential to healthy diets. When people stay up too late or are sleep deprived, they eat more junk food. They get fatter and are more prone to depression. So going to bed a reasonable time and rising early with adequate sleep, it just plain important for you. Even if you don’t have a problem with drugs or alcohol you need to get adequate proper sleep. If you are in a rehab program, it an absolute must. Exercise during the day is the best way to prime yourself for a great sleep. Watch the caffeine as well. Too much coffee could lead to sleepless nights, which would put you at risk of relapse.

When a client first shows up at a drug or alcohol rehab, probably one of the first things that happens is going through all the rules. At most rehab centers there are a lot of them. Sometimes people joke that the hardest part of getting sober at a treatment center is remembering all the rules. A lot of rules are easy to understand. No possession or use of any illicit drug or alcohol. No Violence. Curfews so everyone can get a good nights sleep. These are universal rules at most rehabs and they all make sense.

Then are the rules that follow. Most of them pertain to safety in one form or another. Rules about smoking and phone usage. Rules about cleanliness and chores. Rules about program attendance. Heck sometimes there are even rules about rules. While the core safety rules are easy to understand , and hopefully follow, sometimes the other ones don’t seem as valuable and often clients will ask to be exempted for one reason or another.

When asked about exemptions, 99.999999% of the time I say no. Often the rule is about the ultimate safety and fairness for everyone in the rehab so even if it doesn’t affect this particular client the safety of the rehab is our first concern. There is another reason why I also say no. Going to rehab is about re-establishing boundaries. It is about learning about rules and consequences. So many times when an addiction is totally out of control people totally ignore the consequences of their actions. Quite often the are stunned when the fruits of the actions finally catch up with them. Rehab is about re-learning that there are rules in society that if not followed, will lead to a price being paid. So rehab is about rules. Learning to honor them is a big step in your treatment.

Leaving in the first few days in alcohol or drug rehab, because someone just can’t quite make it, I feel profoundly sad and disappointed. So much work hope and effort has gone into arranging the chance for someone to change their life. Yet the very first few days in rehab are for most people the toughest and the hardest to make it through. Having seen how many people start to turn after a week to ten days, it is so important to give someone the tools to make it through those rough and discouraging moments.

I believe that success or failure in alcohol and drug rehab, especially during the first phase of addicition treatment boils down to questions and focus. Some people think that questions and focus are the same thing. It boils down to what you try to keep your mind on and how you can turn your mind back to what you want when it strays off target. At the beginning of rehab treatment it is absolutely essential that you focus on the future and what you want to achieve. If you let you mind focus on your drug of choice and how much you miss it, it will be a very rough ride. If you focus on all the times you tried to quit in the past and failed, again your stay in rehab will be tough.

You need to keep turning your focus to what you will gain in your life by choosing a drug and alcohol free life. The way you do this is by the questions you keep in you mind. This is accomplished by repeatly asking “good” questions in your head. When your mind wanders into unproductive territory, of how much you don’t want to be in rehab and how you are sure to fail, refocus with a question like, “What are all the things I will gain by removing drugs from my life?”
Her’s a list of good re-focusing questions:

How will my health improve with a drug free life?

What will I accomplish in my life with drugs and alcohol gone?

How will I spend all the extra money I wasted on drugs and alcohol?

Who can I talk to for the next hour to re-focus and stay on track?

What activity can I do for the next hour to re-focus and feel better.

Who is depending on my to succeed and what can I do to make them proud?

As simple as it sounds, if you work very hard at removing the negative questions, and keep replacing them will the focused questions about what you are going to accomplish with sobriety, your first few days in rehab will be better, much better.

Drug and alcohol rehab is a tough choice. If you are to get someone to consider this treatment option for their addiction, you may have to be firm about behaviors and consequences. This are simply boundaries. But how do you discuss this without painting yourself into a corner, and not leave the person who is the focus of the intervention, so bruised that they feel useless and without choice about rehab.

Firstly please do not may blanket statements of an “all or none” variety, that you won’t likely keep. An example of this might be, “If you don’t go to rehab and get treatment, I’m writing you off and never speaking to you again.” While you must be clear that certain behavior patterns will no longer continue, this type of remark will not get someone to willingly go to rehab.

A better example might be, “When you are using drugs, I will not lend or give you money for anything. You cannot stay in my house. I will support you emotionally and finacially only to find addiciton treatment and rehab. I will not continue to talk anytime with you if I suspect you are under the influence of a drug or alcohol.”

The point of all your discussions should be directed at the behaviors that need to be changed, and how you will support the person if they CHOOSE to change. If you want them to act immediately at least make arrangements at 2 places so the person is left with some choice. Remember, if someone agrees to go to rehab only because they feel pushed and forced to, all that will occur is a brief vacation from addiction. If change is to occur they have to want to be in rehab.

If someone you know needs drug or alcohol rehab, how do you approach this? With the T.V. show about interventions showing now, a lot more people are calling and asking about doing something like this for a family member, loved one or good friend. An intervention may be a good thing, but if handled improperly it may simply add to a bad situation, or end up with a client heading of to one of the various drug rehabs out there with the attitude of “this won’t work”. The problem with this is someone arriving at a rehab with this attitude is very difficult to work with. They usually stay just long enough to “prove” to everyone the program is lousy and then they leave, “justified” that everyone was wrong. This is a huge waste of time, emotion and money.

The purpose of an intervention is to shed truth and fact to a difficult situation. It should not be, to get a client to say yes to a pre-chosen rehab in one long dramatic tear filled conversation. By bringing out truth and facts about the addiction and the drug or alcohol use, we hope to assist the client to choose something different. The person who is the focus of the intervention, must during the process feel like they have some choice in something if you ever hope to have a client arrive at rehab wanting for the treatment program to work.

During an intervention several things may be of assistance. When describing the past and it’s consequences, be sure to stay on the behavior, not the person. For example, if you say, “When you lied to me repeatly about still using drugs, you hurt our family deeply.” The person with the addiction is going to feel like they have to “justify” their behavior. A better option may be, “Last Friday when you said you were not using drugs and it turned out you still were was an example of something that is not you. I know you value the truth and this family. Lying behavior is against your core values and I know it. So when this lying behavior occurs I know this drug addiciton has a powerful hold on you because that is not who you really are.” By focusing on the behavior and not the person, you allow discussion about the real problem, the drugs and alcohol. At the same time you re-inforce the value of the person.

Many times a client is so beat-up mentally during an intervention, they may feel worthless and what would be the point of trying to save themselves as the are “to far gone”. Remember the point of an intervention. We want a client to willingly choose to change their life for the better. We want someone going to drug or alcohol rehab filled with hope and a belief in their core that the rehab program they have chosen will be successful. Tomorrow I’ll discuss some suggestions on how to bring up boundaries during an intervention.

With the dazzling array of types and sizes of alcohol and drug rehabs available to choose from another issue is available to deal with. That’s if all the other issues about choice haven’t totally confused or bored you yet. This involves some of the co-issues involving drug addiction. The things I’m considering are issues like bipolar, depression, mental illness, anorexia, sexual orientation and more. Again there are rehabs, both drug and alcohol that specialize to a certain extent in a in one or two combinations of the above issues.

The rational is simple, but again the choices may not be. First of all, is the chicken or the egg issue, with a lot of the above topics. Take depression for example. Does drug and alcohol addiction cause depression, or does depression predispose you to addicition? Or do they just occur similtaneously in some people. The problem is that someone who is extremely depressed is going to experience more difficulty acheiving success in a drug rehab program.

So again, do you look for the perfect facility that has the right fit for you particular set of problems? Again I’ll answer with a solid maybe. Like I have mentioned before most things in life involve a trade-off. Here, sometimes in the hunt for dealing with the psychological issue and treating it, the worry is does this then become an excuse for the drug and alcohol abuse. In other words, if you believe that one of the core issues of your addiciton involves your bipolar disorder, then it comes quite natural to say, “I can’t stop because my biploar is out of control.”

Plus if you start juggling to many issues at once, can you ever really deal well with any of them? I think a simpler and maybe safer approach is to deal with them one at a time. If you have a serious addiction and are considering rehab, and you also have one of these other issues at play, see a good therapist and simply get the other issue resonably stable so you can attend a rehab and sole focus on your addicition treatment. In other words if you are clinically depressed get on a good anti-depressant and stay on it through out your time in rehab. Similarily with some of the other issues. Don’t try to solve them at the same time. Just try to get them stable enough that you are safe enough and grounded enough to benefit and understand your addicition treatment.

Then once you are through your rehab you can tackle the next issue, at least knowing any depression that remains is no longer associated with your drug abuse. You will still be biploar when you leave a rehab, but you may find you require less medication than before, and your swings may not be as extreme when you are sober. The remaining point I would like to make that whatever path or type of addicition treatment you choose, if your depression or mental issues are getting worse, tell a counselor IMMEDIATELY. If you are starting to feel suicidal, or having more dificulty controling your anger or feelings of violence, SPEAK UP. Staying silent is dangerous to you and those around you.

One of the primary functions of a drug and alcohol rehab center is to teach clients how to implement structure in their lives. Structure has been a proven way of modifying or controlling behavior. So it would make sense that if you are looking for ways to help you to sort out one rehab facility from another would be to look at the structure evident within the rehab program.

One of the questions you might ask is a detailed timetable availble for the lectures and programs during your projected stay? If you just get a list of topics from the rehab program, the structure of the rehab is probably looser. They probably decide and plan the lectures daily or weekly. While this allows for more flexibility in the program, it means it will be more difficult for you to start the process of structure in your life as structure may not be the culture of the rehab.

If it is good for the client to plan safe activities and structures, well in advance to help keep them safe, the program should do the same. A drug addiction treatment program that believes in stucture most likely will have their lectures and programs planned in detail for the clients for two or three months in advance. It will help you tell if there is a real educational program versus more of a group discussion, or topic of the day senario. Rehabs cannot teach a client something they cannot or will not implement on themselves.