You have an addiction.  You accept your need some help, and to learn some new skills to get and stay sober.  So you just go to drug rehab and 90 days later your life is changed and everything gets better.  How I wish that were true.  Unfortunately while effort and results are related, you cannot get one without the other, the problem lies in the fact there is not a direct correlation.  Nothing along the line of 5 hours of effort equals 2 things new and better in your life.  Your drug rehab may have a schedule, but your life may not choose to follow the schedule.  You can choose the direction of your life in drug rehab, and you can choose the results you would like with your goals.  You cannot however choose when those results arrive.  It is the space between effort and the time the desired result arrives that drive most of us bonkers.  It is in that space where phrases like, "Life isn't fair!"  come from.

It is in this space where the negative voice in our heads causes so much damage to ourselves and those we love and care for.  Drug rehab is a great place to take on this voice and retrain it.  What are some of the ways to deal with the voice?  One of them is to examine and judge your efforts, not the results.  If you have worked hard and stayed sober in your drug rehab program, simply look at that.  When and where your family and friends start to believe in the new you is out of your control.

I am not saying to ignore the result, but to not judge it.  If the result is not what you want, do not immediately denigrate your effort.  Ask if your effort was focused in the correct direction, and the correct intensity?  But do not judge the quality of your effort.  Also remind yourself that the number one goal in drug rehab is to change your own behavior, not how the world veiws and rewards that behavior.  By controling focus, your control the negative voice, and all the negative things that come with it.

In life there are times when things do not work out as you had hoped.  The sobriety and life you want and desire has slipped out of your grasp. What do you do?  Do you give up?  Do you change your goals to something you can reach?  Do you just give up on change and drug rehab, and stay addicted?

No of course not.  It is imporant that you challenge your methods, and constantly ask, "Is there a better way to make this happen?"  Ask if you are missing something.  Ask if you need an outside opinion.  The question to stay away from is about the validity of your goal and the worthiness of yourself.  By charting the course and working at it, you are deemed worthy.  If the drug rehab program is not working for you, look at how you can learn it or try it in a different place or method.  "How can I try this again, and give myself a better chance than last time?  This is a question to ask.

Drug rehab is about being flexible in your course and your methods, it is not a place to lower or change your real dreams.

Losing weight is a visible change.  Everyone will notice it and most people will comment on it. While you may lose or gain weight in drug rehab, most of the changes you make will be on the inside.  While your behavior will change, most people may not notice the real change and believe it for a long time.  Before you went into drug rehab they may have been let down so many times, that even if they notice the change after rehab they still may hold back.  They are waiting to see if you revert back to the same behavior you exhibited before going to drug rehab.

This may not seem fair, and it will add stress to your life.  It is isolating to change, and feel nobody really knows who you are.  If you are going to prevent this from changing your emotional state, and lead you back to drug use, you have to have a plan.  What if nobody really does not notice all the improvements you have worked on in a drug rehab program?  The answer is simple.  You have to notice.  You have to chart and measure your progress.  And you have to keep that progress in front of yourself at all tiime.  Start counting the productive hours you put in a day.  Compare that to before drug rehab.  Look at the feeling you get when you wake up sober and not hung over.  Compare that to the mornings before drug rehab.

Over time people will notice, and the nice part about that is it won't matter to you.  You will have noticed.  You will see the progress. You will be the one making a difference. 

Dr. David Burns I think coined the phrase "all or none thinking".  It refers to making things or situations black or white.  Looking at the world in an either - or, type situation.  The world is all grey, very little of it is actually black or white.  All or none thinking is a cognitive distortion that is of partictular danger in drug rehab.  Statement like I can never quit usings drugs, or I always relapse and go back to alcohol, are typical statements of this type. 

The true danger of cognitive distortions is that they invariably lead to poor decisions.  "I can never quit drugs, so I might as well quit this stupid drug rehab anyway!"  See what I mean, all of none thinking is very self defeating.  All or none thinking can even be applied to the drug rehab itself. The program is either great or it is a total waste of time.  Most drug rehabs, if not all drug rehabs fall in between these two extremes, at least at some time during your stay.

The reall way out of all or none thinking is to ask yourself, "I think I might be exagerating a bit, so what % of the time, REALISTICALLY does this REALLY happen?"  Even if your answer is 90%, that still means 10% of the time it does NOT.  This also means you can aske an amazing and powerful new question.  "What would I have to do to get is so 80 or 70% of the time this does not happen?"  Once you get to 70% you can start to go to 50%.  All of nothing thinking keeps you locked in inaction.  Inaction in an addiction is dangerous. 

Make moving past all of none thinking one of your goals in drug rehab.  If you are thinking about leaving a drug and alcohol rehab program early it is all or none thinking at work.  Ask some better questions, and your chances of moving past addiction go way past, " All or None ".

I am watching one of my favorite movies of all time, it is kind of a Christmas tradition.  I'm sure all of you have seen it many times as well.  Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life".  It doesn't matter how many times I see it, the story pulls me in every time.  It is about all the people we touch in our lives, and how we impact them.  I think everyone has some periods in their life where they think the world and their family might be better off without them.  The story looks at the point of veiw that nothing could be further from the truth.  All the people you touch and help in the world.

Drug rehab may feel kind of like this movie at sometimes.  Maybe you feel like a burden on the world.  Maybe some of your dreams did not come true.  But you are touching other people.  By sharing your pain and experience you can make a difference in the lives of those who are going to drug rehab with you.  You can make a difference simply by listening, letting others know you care.  You can make a difference by being willing to try something new, and trying to learn it even if it feels uncomfortable.  You can make a difference simply by refusing to give up.  You do make a difference.

If you were to list the top ten searches on the internet for illegal drugs what would you guess would be the top one?  We hear so much about the meth epidemic sweeping the nation you might think it would be the most searched.  Actually the number one spot and the number two spot are held down by Crack and Cocaine.  Meth actually comes in fourth.  This seems to be the case with our clients as well, as the most common drug we deal with in our rehab is crack and cocaine.  Click here to see the whole list of drugs and the number of respective searches on-line.

December is a tough month for clients in a drug rehab.  It is hard to be away from family and friends at anytime of the year, but being in drug rehab around Christmas is especially tough.  Clients who started drug rehab in October are probably finding these last few weeks hard to focus and stay.  They have been there for 9 or 10 weeks of a 12 week program.  It is easy to listen to the voice in their head urging them to leave. 

Add in the pull of the holiday season and you have a recipe for early departures from a drug rehab center.  There is a natural tendancy towards the end of a drug rehab program to ask the question, "What will I learn in the last few days?".  Is it worth missing out on the connection with my family?  I am dying to show them the new me.

The problem lies in that if you do not stay and complete the drug rehab program you will not be showing them the "NEW" you.  In fact you will just be showing them a sober version of the old you.  The old you didn't keep there word.  The old you was impulsive and selfish.  The old you didn't complete things. 

By not finishing the program you are simply behaving as the "old you".  So your first act as a sober person shows the world, you have not changed.  Don't be seduced by the lure of leaving early.  Pro atheletes never leave practice early.  They never ask, will these last 5 practice shots make any difference.  They know in their hearts it will make a difference.  Make your stay in a drug rehab center the first step of a new person who ALWAYS completes what they set out to do.  Have a Happy Christmas, stay and finish your drug rehab program.

I was out Christmas shopping yesterday, (with all the rest of you) and met some wonderful people.  Lines-ups at this time of year seem to be easier to take for some reason.  People are more polite and forgiving, and they are just more willing to talk.  I had a great conversation with a lady that was in front of me in a line to purchase our presents.  After the usual chit chat, she asked me what I do for a living.  After a brief explanation, she immediately started talking about all the people in her life who had been affected by drug abuse.  Some had sought out treatment at a drug rehab center and others had dealt with it in different ways. 

What was truly interesting was how little she actually understood about addiction, even though she was literally surrounded by it.  I gave her a mini lesoon in stress and self medication and it was as if someone had told her about the world for the first time.  It was obvious she really wanted some way to understand what people in her life were doing and why.  She also said she never really understood the purpose of drug rehab, and thought people who went there were just weak, because they didn't stop on their own.

The five minutes we spent together in line disappeared in a blink.  She thanked me and wished me a merry Christmas, took a few steps away, then stopped.  Whe came back and said, "Don't stop what you are doing, and I am glad there are rehabs, and thank you for telling me why they work."  I laughed and thought to myself, everyone is touched by drug rehab, even when they don't know it.

Many clients arrive at a drug rehab center with more than one addiction.  Obviously there are people who use multiple drugs, but this is not what I am discussing here.  I am alluding to the people who have addictions in other areas of their life as well.  Gambling, overeating, problems with inappropriate sexuality, compulsive shopping, internet and games…. well the list is almost endless.  Ultimately to have control of your own life and to be headed in the direction you truely want in life you must deal with these behaviors as well.

All of these compulsive type behaviors have in them some element of dealing with stress and coping in your life. Many of them simply invove escaping the normal daily stress and adding the "rush" of the activity.  All of them have trigger and patterns , and all of them have cues.  They may not be the same cues and triggers as you have for using drugs and alcohol, but they are there, none the less.  You simply have to examine and look for them.  If you have multiple addictive behaviors, dealing with them in drug rehab will involve extra work, however it is certainly doable.  The simplest method is just doing all the exercises and stategies for each of your addictive behaviors.  If you do drugs and gamble, then do every exercise in the drug rehab program twice.  Once for the concern of drug abuse, and then do it again from the view of your gambling.  Many times the result for bath may be almost identical.  The triggers and cues however will probably be the areas where you will find the biggest difference in your addictions. 

The harder part may be funneling all this information into one "master" relapse prevention plan.  Combining all the elements and solutions for all these negative behaviors into this plan will be a lot of work.  It may invlove a bit of creative thinking and solution seeking as coming up with simple clear boundaries, goals, and commitments in several areas is not easy.  Ask for help, as dealing with only one addiction will still leave you unhappy and most likely the one addiction will pull you back into the other as well.

Free drug rehab or very low cost drug rehab infromation is still needed.  I have gotten a few leads but there has to be more information out there.  We average around 5 phones calls a day looking for free drug and alcohol rehab services.  One other good source is Oxford House.  These are self run free drug and alcohol free rehab centers.  They are found in many locations across the country.  They have over 600 locations and around 5000 beds available.  They have a relapse rate posted on their website of around 20%.  All in all very impressive for a low cost self run organization.  On their website you can look for present vacancies available for free rehab beds available.  Click here to find out all about the Oxford Houses and their great program of free and affordable drug rehab.  By the way if anyone out there knows of more Free Drug Rehab available, let me know and I will keep passing it along.