When you have a loved one or family memeber in a drug an alcohol rehab program, what is your role?   How can you best assist them to achieve their goals in  sobriety and life?  First and foremost I think it is important to remember the ultimate goal of going to rehab.  Secondly it is very important not to get involved in any internal workings of the rehab center for the outside.

The most important goal of a drug and alcohol rehab center is to teach a client the skills neccessary to cope with life without resorting to the use of drugs or alcohol.  They have to learn and practise the skills before they leave.  If everything at a center is perfect and non stessful they will never get the chance to practise anything.  If you as a family member phone a center and "complain" about something, you are denying your family member the opportunity to learn to handle things in a safe enviroment. 

For example let take the food served.  Your son or daughter phones you to complain it is not varied enough, or not exactly to their liking.  The first response before saying anything should be to ask the question of priorties.  Does this situation ultimately have anything to do with getting sober?  Will it make the difference between success or failure?  Is this something he or she will have to learn with in normal day to day life?

The answer is clear here.  Food needs to be of a certain basic quality of health and nutrition.  Once that level is acheived there is no extra impact on sobriety.  Also there will be days in this person's life down the road where they will be in a situation where the food is not up to their expectation.  The need to develop the skills neccessary to handle this without resorting to drug and alcohol use. 

Support their stay, but stay out of the details.  If you get involved and add to the drama, you are not helpiing them.  Let them learn and grow.

It is very hard to predict how long a client should stay in drug and alcohol rehab to get the most benefit.  The evidence seems to suggest that 90 days is the optimal length of stay for most people.  The evidence also seems to suggest that we are poor predictors of how long someone should stay in rehab, as well as how successful someone is after they leave a rehab program.

This I believe would lead us to two conclusions.  If in doubt go for the 90 day program.  The longer you stay sober the greater the chance of styaing sober.  The other is to honor yor commitments and your word.  If you say you are going to stay for 60 days, stay for at least 60 days.  Even if you are convinced that you have turned the corner and have learned all you possibly can by 45 days.  Since no "expert" can make a predicition, neither can you.  By sticking to what you originally agreed to, you can start to re-build the trust with people in your life.  If you tell the world you are "cured" and leave early, you are sowing more seeds of distrust with those close to you in your life.  You are also setting yourself up for a lot of "I told you so's" is you relpase after leaving a drug and alcohol rehab program.  Do everyone a favor and stay the course.

If you are in a position to make or give presentations about drug and alcohol abuse, coming up with quality materials can take a lot of time.  There is some free help out there though, as always if you look hard enough.  Here is a link to an area in a site with good information as well as pre-made powerpoint slides.  All you have to do it download the presentation and take it from there.  If you are doing presentations on drug addiction and rehab it is sure to be of help.  Click here to have a look.

I spent some time on the phone last night with someone wrangling with an addiction.  They knew in their  heart their life wasn't working.  They knew the road they were on was totally unhealthy and would probably lead to their death.  They had tried many things in the quest to health.  While there was some short term success, ultimately nothing had worked for very long.

I presented something different that they had never tried before.  The risks were low.  From a research and evidence prospective there was a better than 50% chance of long term permanent change, and a return to health.  The client had a great deal of resistance to trying. 

What was the reason?  Because they had tried so many times and failed, they just didn't want to get their hopes up again.  Even though they were truly unhappy in the present space in their life, they had come to at least a grudging acceptance of their lot in life.  They just couldn't believe one more time, that they might change their life.

I know many of the clients we see have tried and tried to change their life in the past.  They may feel and may actually feel they have the right to stop trying.  To go back and be willing to fail again requires courage.  It is not any fun to publicly and more importantly privately say you are going to do something and not succeed.  One way to find this courage is to get out of yourself.  Think of a child, friend, parent, spouse, or other significant person in your life.  If they were facing your problem, and facing pain, poor health and ultimately death, what would you say tho them?  Would you say it was O.K. for them to just quit?  How would you coach your best friend to find the strength to try again?

Once you have the courage, look for direction.  There is no one path to sobriety.  Just because it worked for someone else does not mean it is the ONLY path, or is THE path for you.  If you genuinely tried and it didn't work, look at the lessons you learned and look for a different route.  Courage and a NEW direction may make all the difference.

When clients are selecting a drug and alcohol rehab center they have lots of questions.  They have lots of concerns and these must be dealt with fully and professionally.  We often get request and questions about specific things people want to have at their access while going through drug and alcohol rehab.

When asking these questions you must realize something.  If it were possible to quit drugs and alcohol easily in a home type enviroment with total personal freedom, you would have done that already.  Quitting drugs and alcohol permanently, while very doable, is unfortunately not very easy.  To make a drug rehab safe for all clients requires a voluntary suspension of some of your normal expectations.  Remember it is far better to have a voluntary removal of some of your normal freedoms, than wait until the courts for various reasons impose involuntary and far more stringent rules and behavior expectations.

In drug and alcohol rehab centers it is not possible to be all things to all people.  It seems that some drug and alcohol rehab programs are trying this, but how can this make sense?  What I am talking about are programs that profess to be both 12 step and cognitive based at the same time.  How can this be? 

If you follow the 12 steps you must at some point come to accept that you are powerless over drugs and alcohol.  You then are to turn it over to a higher power, what ever you believe that to be.  This may seem like an over simplification, but these are part of the foundation of 12 step.

Cognitive Based Therapy (CBT) is based on the foundation that distorted patterns of thinking are the basis of behavior that does not support your desired goals and lifestyle.  You control these patterns and have the ability to change them. 

How can you teach both of these methods to clients.  In the morning you tell them they are powerless, and need to seek help outside of you, and the afternoon you tell them they control their destiny and are the source of the change.  I can see from a marketing point of veiw how it might make sense to say you teach both methods, but how can you have credibility with such opposite points of view?  I don't think you can.