Drug and alcohol rehab centers have helped many people regain control in their life.  Much is made about the client needing to choose the need to go to rehab.  This is easy when a friend or member of the family is totally out of control.  They have lost their job.  They are exhibiting behaviors such as constant lying, stealing, selling drugs or prostitution.  Their health is compromised or in danger.  There has been repeated attempts to stop drinking or using drugs with no real success.  These clients need a good drug rehab program.

What about people who are not that far down a path of destuction.  When do clients need a drug rehab center?  What elements can we look at to help make this decision.  A couple of things can really help.  One is the ability to stop.  If the person has tried to stop and has had little or no success for any length of time.  If someone can quit for 2 or 3  weeks before relapse, they might benefit from a out patient rehab program.  If they cannot quit for even a couple of days without relapse, then they would need the safety of a residential drug rehab center.  They need to be physically removed from the temptation of drug and alcohol abuse.

The second clue to the need of going to a drug rehab lies in the safety of the client.  Is the drug usage leading to dangerous behaviors and situations even if for the most part the client still has some semblance of structure?  Are they palcing themselves and dangerous places on weekend binges, even though during the week they still do their job.  Dangerous behavior must be dealt with.  If significant risks are being taken, the safety of a drug and alcohol rehab center makes sense.

There is no line drawn in the sand where a client goes to a rehab.  Careful thought about the need for safety by the client may help with this choice.

If in a drug and alcohol rehab center you are able to change the habitual questions you ask your self you truly have accomplished something amazing.  This will without a doubt change the course and direction of your life.  A better quality of question will improve the results, even when you don't want it to.

The reason is that even if you slip back to your old series of questions, like "why does this always happen to me?"  Something really fun and exciting happens.  Before you had practice with using a better quality question, if you asked why does this always happen to me, the voice in your head would say negative things like the following.  You are stupid and you always screw up.  You are lazy and unlucky.  Really wonderful things to hear, right?

However once you have worked and role played with using better questions, you may ask and poor question and your mind may give you one bad response, but then your brain will answer you with some incredibly powerful words.  Look the reason this is happening is because you are asking a poor question, ask a better one and you will have a better response.  At this moment , anger will fade, resentment will fade and your confidence in yourself will begin to grow.  At this moment you will have reclaimed your life.

This is why it is of such importance that in the safety and support of a drug and alcohol rehab program you try to change these questions.  You can assist those around you at the same time.  By seeing the habitual questions they have themselves, you can coach them as you coach yourself.  Make it fun.  Make it light.  Enjoy and laugh at your old questions.  Change does not have to be all hard work and tears.  Write some better questions for yourself in drug rehab today.

Anger management is a very popular term both within drug and alcohol rehab programs as well as in the general popualtion as well.  Anger when it is out of control can do enormous damage in a matter of mere seconds.  Lives and relationships have been permanently damaged and lost literally in the blink of an eye.  If you look back honestly many of the most stupid and damaging moments of your life have involved anger.  Either our own or that of someone we are close to.

There are a lot of excellent books on anger management.  We use one of them in our program.  They are easy to find on amazon.  I'd like to discuss the core of anger.  Where is develops from.  Knowing how to de-escalate anger is a very useful skill, especially your own anger. However knowing where anger comes from is far more useful. 

I believe that addiction is a learned habit.  The habit then progresses to a self destructive cycle which becomes more and more difficult to break.  I believe that the dangerous and destructive forms and anger follow a similar path.  The good news with that is anger can be dealt with in a similar fashion.  The seeds of truly destructive anger comes from the core questions you ask yourself as events in your life unfold.  For example, if you arrive at an airport, you proceed to the check-in.  As you attempt to check in you are told your flight is cancelled because of mechanical problems in the aircraft.  They have re-booked you on another flight and it is leaving in six hours.

If you have learned to start the questions in your head with a "WHY", events like this will be unpleasant and can escalate into anger.  By this I mean, Why didn't they call me?  Why does this always happen to me?  Why doesn't this stupid airline have spare planes for when things break down?  If in your head you ask questions that presuppose bad things happen to you, it follows you will spend a good deal of your time frustrated and angry.  If you spend enough time in this type of mindset, you will develop an anger problem to some degree.

If you train yourself to ask questions that begin with "WHAT" you will experience a much different outcome.  The question, "What is the best use of my time, given the present situation?"  is an unbelievably powerful question.  The person who has taken the time to learn this question and ask it as their primary response in life, will not have an anger problem.  The reason is simply they will live their life from a position of what are they doing to life, not what life is doing to them.  The question asked in your head determines who is in control of your life.  You or the situations around you.

A drug and alcohol rehab center is a wonderful place to start to re-train the primary questions you ask in your head.  You can ask your co-clients to help you stay focused on good question and give you a gentle nudge when you slip back to the old questions.  You were not born with questions in your head.  You learned them as a kid.  Let your stay in drug rehab be the chance to change them for good.

In a good alcohol and drug center you will experience sobriety.  The goal then becomes simple.  The plan is to put as much distance between yourself and drug and alcohol as possible.  Physical distance is almost impossible in today's society.  However it is possible and a lot more fun to put new and wonderful skills and activities between you and your drug of choice.  The more of these things that are planned and committed to, the safer and more remote becomes the possibility of relapse.

The key is the more you change yourself, and add new skills, talents, goals and abilities, the futher you are from the person who abuses alcohol and drugs.  You must try to learn and practise as much as possible while you are in a drug rehab.  However once you have acquired this new thirst for growth and change, it would be best if you never stopped.  We have all heard things like you are either growing or shrinking, there is no standing still.  Now while it is hard to prove such sayings with science, you can prove that clients who learn new skills and grow do better than those who do not attempt such ativities. 

Besides, why be a boring sober person?  Why not be a life filled, interesting, and inquizitive sober person?  Someone other people who enjoy life want to be around.  Get on the life long train of learning, it's a track that leads to a better life.

Before anyone gets to a drug and alcohol rehab program a lot of things have has to had happened.  Nobody goes to bed one night with their life in order and wakes the next morning with a drug  problem that is out of control.  A long and uncomfortable route was taken to get there.  Along the way, various levels of personal boundaries were broken. 

Behaviors were done that had never been done before and that a year or two earlier would have never been considered.  Every time one of these new "lows" were accomplished, you had to give yourself permission to break your code of conduct.  Most of the time you told yourself a story why you were justified in doing it.  There are so many common justifications for poor behavior.  Things have been going so bad I deserve it.  I've worked so hard I deserve it.  Just this one time won't make any difference.  Nobody cares about me so why should I care ?  I have no choice?

All of these rationalizations contain distortions and faulty thinking.  Bad luck has nothing to do with poor behavior.  No where is it written that the reason to work hard is so you have the right to do things you will not be proud of later.  One time does make a difference.  Aids, hepatitis, and a drug overdose all happen, and they can and do happen during a "one time".

The way to end this cycle is to ask a better question.  What will this behavior ULTIMATELY get me?  Would I proudly tell my children about this?  Who am I hurting and why do I want to hurt them?  Better questions lead to better decisions.  Drug and alcohol rehab centers are about making better choices.  Give yourself permission to uphold standards you can be proud of.

Every drug and alcohol rehab program has components about relationships.  The reason is simple.  Relationships are one of the most amazing elements of human life, and can also be one of the most complicated.  Relationships also have the ability to either decrease the stress in your life greatly, or add to the stress in your life on a scale that you never previously imagined that was possible.  Increased stress is increased realapse rates.  When you leave a drug an alcohol rehab center you must have learned some coping skills in this area.

Relationships work when there is truth present.  Relationships fail when truth is not present.  Everyone knows this.  So why do people drift away from the truth?  There are a couple of main reasons.  They are the same reasons even if you don't have a problem with drug and alcohol abuse.  Expectations and judgement gradually for most of us start to interfere with the truth. 

When you first meet someone you both discuss everything and most times are open and honest about who you are and what you want.  It is fresh and interesting.  As you don't have any commitment to each other there is not a lot at stake so it is so much easier to be truthful.  As a relationship progresses things change.  Expectations of certain levels of behavior start to take place.  Telling someone you love and care about some uncomfortable news is not easy.   You start to prejudge what they will say and think, even before you tell them anything.  You do not want to hurt their feeliings.  You do not want to disappoint them.  As a result of this you start to stray away from the truth or at least start to withold some of the truth.

This will lead to more stress and as a result ususally more negative behavior.  This downward spiral will always lead to renewed or increased drug and alcohol use.  The only way out of these situations is to clarify in your mind what is most important in relationships.  What makes a relationship exist is some form of trust or closeness.  No trust, no relationship.  How do you build trust?  It does not happen by discussing fluff.  You build trust by taking the chance and discussing uncomfortable issues with openess and kindness.  You build trust by removing judgment about others and more importantly about yourself.

The real facts are that without real truth, there is not any real relationship.  It is just two people reading eachother a script.  That is a movie, not life.  So while you are in the safety of a drug and alcohol rehab program, try making all your relationships in the program based on truth.  You have nothing to lose but isolation and stress.  Leave the scripts to the actors.

In any drug and alcohol rehab program the only thing you can work on is yourself.  This is perhaps the concept that if not incorporated in your life that leads to more wasted time and energy than anything else in your life.  You cannot change other people.  You cannot change other organizations. 

By attempting to work outside your real circle of influence you just spin your wheels and increase your own personal level of frustration.  This leads to an increase in stress in your life, and affects your level of health.  By focusing on yourself you can actually increase and improve your skill set.  Use your new skills to improve your own life.  When you develop a balanced and successful life you will will attact the attention of others.  Then simply let them examine the tools you have mastered and allow them to use this information any way it will assist them. 

The world has many faults.  The people you come in contact with everyday have many shortcomings.  Businesses you deal with make mistakes.  That doesn't mean you have to keep talking with and dealing with these groups.  However spending a lot of time trying to change them is futile.  They will change when they decide to.  The time spent in drug rehab is a gift.  It is a gift to yourself.  Focus your efforts there and become a leader.  Don't join the legion of complainers.  Bitching about other people and groups is easy.  Any idiot can attack something.  Change yourself and lead the way.  Support the causes you believe in, and leave the ones you don't alone.

What you oppose you will attract.  What you support and nurture will expand. You cannot do both.   Choose the course that will bring joy and peace to your life.

At any drug and alcohol rehab program there will at least some goal setting.  Often when a client is just starting a rehab program the goals they will set are humble.  Staying clean.  Getting a regular job.  Living a normal life.  These are admirable goals, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with them.

As time progresses at a drug rehab and more clarity and confidence sets in.  Often the goals start to get more detailed and may start to grow.  Instead of just a job, often a client decides to go back to school to become something the always dreamed of being.  They may decide to start businesses or start a whole new life in a different part of the country from where they started.  Big goals have some advantages over small goals.  One is motivation.  It is easier to get exicted about something large and grand.  It is hard to stay happy and fulfilled if your only goal is to get through the day. 

The best advantage of big goals is the person you will have to become to achieve them.  Setting a goal to make one million dollars a year is a big goal for most people.  The money however is really the secondary benefit someone would receive from this goal.  To make a million dollars a year someone would have to become, organized, skillful, hardworking, talented and experienced.  They would most likely have to learn how to serve and help a lot of people.  These changes are far more important than the money.

Big goals lead to big changes and large amounts of personal growth.  So if you are in a drug and alcohol rehab program do not be afraid to dream big.  Sobriety is a big goal, but it is just a step to the bigger and more amazing things you will accomplish in your life.  Be a big dreamer.