Length of stay in a drug and alcohol rehab center comes up a lot.  How long should someone stay?  If they are really focused and get a lot of one on one attention, can you significantly decrease the length of stay required?  Interesting and important questions.  The answer is yes…. some, but it depends on the client and there are some things you just cannot shorten or speed up in a rehab center.

If learning to stay sober is about learning and mastering new skills, more focus and more one to one coaching will help most people to learn them faster.  The problem is you have to more than learn them.  You have to be comfortable enough to use them everyday in many different situations.  This takes experience, and that is something that does take time.  Learning takes time now matter how many people are available to help.

There is another factor which again is hard to speed up.  The time it takes the drugs and alcohol to leave your system, and then your normal brain function to return.  Drug and alcohol abuse affect the nerve transmissions in your brain.  It takes the body time to restore these chemical levels to their original state before you started to use. 

This is the problem with 28 day programs, even really really great ones with outstanding staff and focused clients.  You cannot make the brain heal any faster.  You cannot implant experience in someone's head.  It is also why the research is clear about the longer you stay in a rehab center, the better the odds of success. 

The point of this is to plan to stay in rehab longer than 28 days.  Let your blody heal.  Let your confidence in your new skills grow and happen naturally.  Getting counseling from morning to night, no matter how well intentioned, cannot magically speed up these processes to a very short period.  Do drug and alcohol rehab only once and do it right the first time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2007 at 6:09 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.