There are a couple of turning points in someone's journey through drug rehab and on to sobriety.  The number one turning point is doing exactly what you say you are going to do.  In simple words, living in truth.  If you say you are going to do something, you complete it.  Even if you do not have to.  You complete it even if there might be a better use of your time.  You start to live in total truth. 

With you are living in an addictive cycle, you get used to telling stories to "cover your tracks".  These stories become a part of your life.  In a drug rehab program you learn to live without stories.  You just do it because you said you would.  You have to learn to stop explaining everything you do.  When you are living a lie, you tell stories about everything so you can stay in control.  The best defense is offence, sort of thing.  Once you learn to live and tell the truth, you have to stop explaining everything.  You do not have to stay in control. 

This comes to the second turning point.  You stop telling eveyone what you are doing, and you give up control.  You stop talking about your addiction.  You just live an honest life.  When asked, you answer with the total truth.  You stop wearing the I'm an addict badge, and start wearing the I live a great life smile.  After a period of time you will figure out the happy medium for disclosing details about your past life.  After living a long time in the land of lies, the way out in not through talking, it is through doing.

We started writing our first book a little over a year ago.  Using the experience we gained from our drug rehab center  we have come up with a superb guide to making a great relapse prevention plan.   I can honestly say that I thought it would not take a year to get done, but as many things in life it took just a little longer than we first thought.  It will help and guide people through all the steps of a great relapse prevention plan. It is meant to be a workbook and was designed to be writen on, in and about.  Irene Clarkson is the author, with 3 decades of experience in addiction, medicine, and mental health.

It could help just about anyone and would also help those with addictions or negative behaviors past drugs and alcohol.  It will really help those in a drug rehab center and those who are also trying to do it on their own.  If you are looking for great material, come back in a week or two and it will be available for sale right here.  With a little bit of help and desire, you can make your last relapse, the very last one you ever have! 

What ever drug and alcohol rehab program you are of have tried, if you keep relapsing back into drug and alcohol abuse, you may want to consider something else.  I know there is the slogan at the end of every 12 step meeting, "Keep coming back, it works!".  I am all for not giving up.  However if you are really giving a quality effort, and your are not getting the desired result, TRY SOMETHING ELSE!  Add something else to what you are attempting.  Try a different style of program.  Try a different location.  Try one that has a large work component.  Try learing something new a different.  Try helping someone else learn.

Many years ago I first heard these words, I'm not sure who said them first.  To repeatedly try the same thing, but to somehow expect a different result, is the definition of insanity.  If you keep doing the same thing, you will get the same result.   No program is 100% sucessful all of the time.  Relapse is a sign that your life and your skill level are not where they have to be.  When you relapse, you need to do something different than what you were doing before the relapse, or you will relapse again, only sooner.   Relapse is not a sign of moral weakness.  It is not a sign of lack of comittment.  It is a sign that you have not completed what you set out to do.  You have more to learn.  Look at what happened that lead to the relapse. What skills if you possessed, would have stopped the progression to the relapse?  Where can you learn those skills?  Once you answer these questions, go out and act on them.

If a nice facility was really a critical point in the success in drug rehab, how come the Hilton or the Marriott are not advertising for drug rehab clients?  Drug rehab is about changing yourself and your life.  If getting spoiled and pampered in a beautiful stting had anything to do with sobriety, why is there any drug addiction at all in Hollywood?  The rich and famous have no problems at all with addiction.  They have such beautiful homes they get "cured" while they sleep ….. right?

If the building is clean and has the facilities to teach, work out, eat and sleep, that is pretty much all you need.  If you are paying for your drug rehab treatment you hve the "right" to be as picky as you want I guess, but if your family is paying for you, you might want to consider being a little more reasonable.  Or is it a case of you really do not care how much money your family pays out for you? Be picky about the program.  Be picky about how they treat you.  But ease up on looking for the all-inclusive resort feel at a moderate price.  Yes rehab is not cheap.  But spending a lot of money to stay in a fancy building will do nothing to teach you the skills you need to cope with stress and addiction in your life.  It just proves you are willing to waste other people's money. 

How many books hould you bring to a drug rehab program?  Silly as it sounds this question has far more to it than at first glance.  A great answer would be none.  If a program has a lot to teach you a lot, if you want a permanent change to the way you handle your life.  You have to read, focus and practise a lot if you are to effectively replace an old, very entrenched pattern.

There is nothing wrong with pleasure reading.  There is nothing wrong with passing the time with a good story.  I hope that going to a drug rehab is more than passing time.  Going to a drug rehab program is hopefully a life changing event.  Spare time in a drug rehab program, firstly might go to planning.  Spare time might go to working out.  Spare time could be focused on helping others in the program.  Spare time could go into drug refusal skills.  Spare time could go into practising improved communication skills.

Good drug and alcohol rehab has to be more than sitting around reading and playing ping pong.  Read books about change. Read books about improving your skills.  Read books about addiction.  Leave the mysteries and romance novels at home.  Rehab is for focused change.

When I am writing this rehab blog, I can not help but get nosey and see what other people writing in the rehab blog field are also doing.  While doing this I had one of those "aha" moments when you figure out your onw view of the world sometimes keep you from seeing the big picture.  You see, because I am seeing the world through the eyes of someone in the drug rehab field, rehab has one meaning in my head.  Rehab is a place where you go to get off drug abuse and alcohol abuse.  Guess what the number one blog on google with the term rehab is?  It is about rehab for physical injuries.  Car accicdents, sports injuries, and post surgury to get back all the mobility life requires. 

I really started to laugh.  The neat thing about getting older is all the things you learn, and the experience you have.  However it is those very things that may form a set of glasses that you view the world through.  It is not that this is wrong, it is just that you need to be reminded of it once in a while.  So I read the number one rehab blog on google and quite enjoyed it.  I also learned a little bit about myself along the way.

When you change in a drug rehab program, you are growing.  You cannot change by shrinking.  A person is a large group of beliefs, values and behaviors.  Your talents are your assets.  If you were investing money, making it double overnight is very risky.  If you continue to take high risk chances with your money, you will quite quickly go broke.

Personal growth in a drug rehab program is very much the same.  Wholesale massive change without develpoing the foundation to support it is dangerous and not sustainable.  If you go the the gym and try to lift tons of weights and get in shape in one day ….. well you will just injure yourself.  However, if you just change and improve 1% of your behaviors for one day, that is easy and sustainable.  The power lies in consistently doing this.  Just a one per cent change every day will mean over 1000% improvemnt in just one year.  That is why is it so important to work on the "down" days.  It is the momentum you gain when you continue to try to change even when you really do not feel like it that success is found. 

The value of compound interest is also why 90 day stays in drug rehab work and 30 day stays in drug rehab do not.  It is not that you change faster in the last 60 days.  It is that you continue to grow slowly on the foundation you have built in the first 30 days.  With coumpound interest a 3 month drug rehab program is 5 to 6 times as effective as a 30 day drug rehab stay.  Not just the 3 times you might guess.  Small incremental consistent change, just like regular inversting is the key to a wonderful life.

When people call in the quest to find a free drug rehab center for a friend or family member, the degree of frustration is very high.  Often it is a client themselves who is calling around looking for a solution.  Their addiction has drained all the resources they had and yet need to find money for treatment.  They are stuck in this cycle of they can afford to stay addicted, sort of, but they cannot afford to get clean. 

Weird because the cost of a drug habit is MORE than the cost of the solution.  It is just that you can buy one hours worth of drugs at a time.  The smallest increment of drug rehab treatment you can buy is 1 month.  Because the drug dealers have easier "payments" people stay addicted.  So maybe we don't even need Free drug rehab.  Maybe we only need pay as you go by the day drug rehab.  I know that is a silly statement, and yet I am trying to make the point that if we could be more creative in arranging payments, a lot more people would stop abusing drugs and alcohol.  Most people are not really looking for free drug rehab.  They are looking for a way to attend drug rehab and make payments in the realm the can actually handle.  If you think about it, that is not really an unresonable request.

I'm complaining to your superior!  Just wait til your boos hear's about this.  You will hear from my lawyer!  We hear these phrases every day.  Maybe while you were upset about something, yoy have even said them or something similar.  It is surprising how aften people resort to threats.  In drug addiction and drug rehab, unfortunately threats occur far to often.  Many time it is essentially a threat that gets some people into drug rehab.  The family gets together and says, "If you don't go to drug rehab we are cutting off all contact with…..".  You can fill in what ever was appropriate. 

The problem with threats is two fold.  Firstly they never work long term.  Even if the person gives in they do so with a grudge and will only comply with for while you are looking.  The other danger is ths type of behavior can escalate rapidly.  As people become immune to the threats, each following threat has to be more scary and crushing.  If threatened enough people will react by violently and quickly.

Let's all stop and think about common ground.  Let's think about what we all want ultimately in the future.  Threats degrade us all and are never justified, even when lives are at stake with getting someone into drug rehab.

When facing drug rehab and addiction sometimes it may seem overwhelming.  Everyone has moments of despair.  There may be moments when it seems like it is hopeless and everything you try will fail.  There is a simple solution that at times may help you break this mental block.  If you are faced with a change such as is required in a drug rehab program and you find you are stuck, mentally assume another identity. 

Here is what I mean.  Think of all the people you know in your life.  Decide which one is the most competent in a crisis.  Think of the one with the ability to turn around a bad situation.  I have one friend in my life who above all others has these skills.  So many times when facing a tough problem, I ask myself, "What would Dave do in theis situation?  How would Dave procede?"  Many times your brain will immediately come back with, "you are not Dave and that is why you are in this mess!" Don't be mislead.  Simply ask yourself the question again or as many times as you have to.  Sooner or later you will start to come up with quality answers.  Stay in the persona of this repected person as you start to take action.  "How quickly would Dave act on this?"  "How would Dave act and handle himself in front of other people while doing this?" 

By assuming Dave's identity for a while it can short circuit the voice in your head saying, "you can never do this".  Maybe you can't do this, but Dave can.  Sometimes in drug rehab, all you need is to get unstuck and take some action.  This is the very tool for just doing such a thing.