Nobody goes to drug and alcohol rehab to be told how great they are. People go the change their lives. Poeple go to rid themselves of behaviors that are destroying their life as well as those around them. To really change your life you must relentlessly pursue the truth and reality. This requires a little thicker skin and a lot more candor. A lot more than is normal in day to day life.

In a less intense situation that drug addiction treatment, the degree of openess and candor neccesary in rehab, may not be required or may not even be helpful. What I mean is if someone is learning to play the guitar, it is more than acceptable to just stress the positive changes. It is fine to say practicing 4 or 5 nights a week is good. Reversing a severe addiction is much more difficult. It also requires a lot more “ruthless” honesty. You may be making excellent progress and any changes should and must be celebrated. However, don’t let progress blind you from candidly examining all of you present behavior pattens. Put them under a microscope. Ask others around you for critique on anything that may lead you down the wrong path. Addiction is a condition of rationalizing dangerous behavior with statements and justifications. “This is the very last time!” “I’ve worked so hard, I deserve a break.”

One way to insure total candor to yourself is to use the newspaper headline technique. Imagine your present behavior, thought pattern, or plans, as headlines on the front page of any large newspaper. If it were on the paper would you change anything about your behavior? You can’t rationalize on the front page news. It is there for everyone to see in blinding detail. Living your life like it was front page news, is a surefire way to make absolutely sure it never is front page news. Put more candor in your drug rehab experience. You and those around you will reap the benefits.

We have all heard the saying, ” If it seems too good to be true, it probably is!” Our parents and teachers drilled this into us when we were young. In life and in drug and alcohol rehab, this is just plain good advice. I read everything I can find about addiction and the methods that people can change themselves and their behavior. There is certainly an astonishing variety of treatments and “success rates” for drug and alcohol therapy. There are booklets for free, self help books for a few dollars to rehab centers costing anything upwards of $10,000 to $50,000. Quite a large variation between possible methods of treatment, as well as outcome.

When looking for solutions to a difficult long term addiction, be modest in your expectations. It will keep your wits about you and allow you to make informed good decisions. If there truly was a fast, simple, painless fun way to treat addiction, don’t you think it would be everywhere? If there were treatments the truly offered sucees rates of 70% and up, why would so many people end up going to rehab four, five or six times?

I do believe that people can stop drug and alcohol addiction with a single visit to a rehab center. I do not believe it happens without a huge commitment of time and hard work. If there was a simple way to stop, people would have done it at home. These are intelligent people who have addictions. If it was easy there wouldn’t be a need for rehab centers. If you have realistic expectations about possible outcomes and how much effort will be required to achieve that outcome, you have a very realistic chance of success. If you believe some “Magic Bullet” will suddenly, easily and painlessly cure you addictive experience, you are most likely headed for a relapse. Don’t get sucked in. Use your common sense. Your parents were right. If it seems too good to be true - - - - It most likely is.

I love to read other people’s blogs. It really is a wonderful medium. I have read several discussions lately about the pros and cons of legalizing drugs. There are many sides to this issue. Personal freedom. Possible revenue gains from taxing drug activity. Insuring safety through legal quality control of drugs.

On the other side is the enormous damage that illicit drug use causes in our society. The pain and cost to so many families is enormous. When someone in a family is addicted, it is like an atomic bomb going off inside that family. It is hard to question the intention of anyone who wants to keep substances that can wreck such havoc on lives out of the hands of people. It is hard to argue that anyone life in enhanced with heroin.

Long ago when I was young, I felt personal freedom was everything. I thought the government had no business legislating morality. If people wanted to screw up their lives, it was their right and they should suffer the consequences. As a much older and not so wiser person, I now feel a little differently. Drug addiction affects so many innocent people. The kids and spouse of addicted people suffer almost as much and the addict. Their “personal freedom” comes at a great price to the others in their life. To make it easier for people to fall into that trap makes no sense. It’s just not worth the risk. Anything we can do to make it more difficult for people to acquire drugs will save people grief. In my heart I believe legalizing drugs will lead to less people in prison. I’m afraid though it will lead to more people in rehab. There is no easy answer

Forming new intimate realtionships in a drug and alcohol rehab center is not a good call. A lot of the current research recommends waiting at least a year after rehab before starting a new relationship. Seems like a long time, but again and again the research shows uncontrolled stress is the major cause of relapse. Relationships even under the very best of circumstances add to stress. Under less than ideal conditions they add a lot of stress.

So let’s say you have worked the program recommended by the rehab center of your choice. You have some good sobriety under your belt. You have some goals in place and are starting to achieve them. You have turned the corner in the chapter of addiction in your life. So how do you find a great mate? What should you look for? How do you avoid making a choice that might add to the uncontrolled stress in your life and put you at risk? While there are no sure things, there are some steps you can take to put the odds is your favour in the relationship game. A great article to help you sort the “winners” from the “losers” is only a click away. What qualities to look for in a partner. Give it a try.

Sometimes during a stay in a drug and alcohol rehab center clients get bad news from home. Sometimes their spouse or significant other decides to move on while they are in rehab. Sometimes legal issues catch up with them. Sometimes a job will disappear or a business may be lost. Often when this happens, many times the clients want to give up. You often hear statements like I might just as well go back to drugs because I’ve got nothing left to lose. Another version of this is “I tried to do the right thing and I still end up losing.”

So many times in life it always is about perspective. You truly never have nothing left to lose. If you are still breathing and thinking you still have something to lose. Especially if you leave a rehab before completing your treatment. Plus if you think that you have nothing to lose, it actually means you have EVERYTHING to gain. Why would you ever give up an opportunity to gain everything? The quality of the questions you ask during rehab will determine to a large degree your success or a return to addiction. When you get bad news, and we all do in our life, the questions you ask will always determine your future.

Iraq is turning into another Veitnam. It is a war of confusion. The soldiers over there are confused about who exactly the enemy is. You can’t tell who you are fighting for and who you are fighting against. Support for the war is not as solid now as it was in the beginning. The reasons for being there are confusing to the young men and women serving their country.

I’m not here to comment on the validity of the Iraq war. I’m here to suggest that if a similar pattern to the war in Veitnam exists, then we may be looking at a group of people very susceptible to drug abuse and addiction when they come home. War is always filled with horrors. When the reasons for war get clouded in politics and are not clear cut, the horrors of war become that much harder to take. The emotional toll will be great. It might be prudent to start programs now to deal with these stresses. If we don’t we may see a large increase in the need for rehab centers down the road as a fallout from the war in Iraq. Let’s do something before this happens. Our young soldiers don’t need this in their life. Drug and alcohol rehabs don’t need the extra work. We need a solution now.

If you look through the ads on the internet or anywhere else for that matter, you are constantly bombarded with the word quality. In the drug and alcohol rehab field you see the ads reading “quality progam”. What does quality actually mean? Somehow the word quality has become equated with expensive. Along the terms of a rolex watch is a quality watch, because it is expensive. In manufacturing quality refers to consistentcy. An assembly line has high quality if it delivers a product that ALWAYS meets the engineering specifications set out. It doesn’t matter if the product cost only 10 cents, it can be of of extremely high quality.

So what is quality in a drug rehab center? It is when all the promised specifications of the progam are delivered to all clients. It is about consistency. The program works weather you get the most experienced counselor or the least experienced. You get the same benefits and lessons regardless of who lectures or runs group.

How does this occur in an organization? You have to have procedures in place to allow shadowing and feedback in all aspects. This is why sometimes another counselor will sit in on a one to one counseling session. They are not being nosey. They are simply there to observe, and insure that everyone gets the benefit of everyone else’s experience. So if sometime you go to a one on one and it turns out to be a two on one, relax. There are just insuring quality control, and that is good for everyone.

Responsibility in drug rehab. Responsibility seems to be a word that is lost today. It is always someone else’s fault. There are always special circumstances. This wouldn’t have happened if someone else did there job. I don’t know where this is all going to end, but one thing is for sure, it won’t end in sobriety. If you use or consume drugs or alcohol, it is your fault. Period. End of discussion. There is no adequate reason to use. If you use it is your fault.

It doesn’t matter if someone else brought it into the rehab. It doesn’t matter if the security was too “easily tricked” by a client. If you are focusing on using and smuggling drugs into a rehab, you will ultimately be successful. You will probably beat whatever security is in place eventually. If you keep asking the question, how can I find a way….you will. Stop. Ask a better question. Ask how you can improve the safety of all the clients. Ask yourself how to make your life better. If you keep asking bad unhealthy questions, you will end up with an unhealthy life.

But whatever you decide, take responsibility for it. If you use, tell the truth. Take responsibility for your actions. Who are you fooling? The truth is what it is. It won’t go away. Addiction can be beaten. Rehab can work. But not if you spend your time trying to bring in drugs. It’s your life. What do you really want to accomplish with it?

I attented a conference last weekend and left with some interesting questions. One was whether video teaching/conferencing could be useful in a drug rehab centers? One of the most difficult tasks in a rehab is to keep the clients motivated to stay the course. Change requires a lot of effort and the tendancy to go back to what was before, is a strong pull. While recorded dvd’s can give a lot of information, there is nothing like a live performance. I think that in live presentations, all the little mistakes that get edited out in recording, somehow give it more credibility. Seeing that no one is totally perfect, gives us all encouragement.

I think video distance teaching could help a lot of rehab centers. Smaller centers, those with less than 15 clients just don’t have that many staff. No matter how great of teachers and presenters they may be, they have to give so many of the sessions it will become a little stale no matter what. Live video conferencing could give a fresh face once in a while and really keep the motivation rolling. Unfortunately there are just not enough Dr. Phils to go around. Video through the internet could make a huge contribution, at a resonable cost to all concerned. Let’s hope those talented people in the field start to make themselves available through this medium to all rehab centers.

In drug and alcohol rehab centers people often tell stories of magical breakthough moments. The times when things really clicked inside someone’s head and they really turned around from that moment forward. It’s a nice sentiment. I’m not doubting there is a moment inside all clients who move past addiction where they make a conscious choice to be sober. Their behavior changes in a more gradual progression. Their confidence returns in a more gradual pace.

It is small incremental changes stacked upon each other that truly changes someone from the realm of the addicted to the land of the sober. Sticking to a drug rehab program and working it on days when you really don’t want to makes the real difference. Life would be wonderful if we had these magical turning points where everything changes course. Lives aren’t built like that. Businesses are not built like that. Healthy and strong bodies doen’t suddenly appear one day after going to the gym. Crops don’t appear the day after you plant them. Sticking consistently to a sane and well organized plan will beat addiction. Drama and magical turning points are best left to hollywood movies.