Flying back last night I met a wonderful man on the airplane.  He was a personal corporate coach.  He has been helping people learn better communiation skills and getting them to change for over 20 years.  Needlees to say we had a couple of things in common.  One question I asked him was, what is the number one thing that stops people from changing.  In a split second he said FEAR!  Fear was the number one issue he has to deal with.  The number two was the concept of not knowing how are where to start.

CEO's of corporations, have exactly the same difficualties when aproaching change as clients in drug rehab.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of if it will work.  Fear of losing face.  Fear of discomfort.  One of these will usually be present in some degree when facing something new.  It often is what keeps people addicted or in an uncomfortable place for far longer than neccesary.  If you look at the second reason, well it is now wonder people do not like to change.  Does it make any sense to do something you are afraid of and are not really sure where or how to start?  Kind of like a one, two punch, to your motivation. 

This lead us both to the concept of mentors.  Having someone you trust, who has been down a similar road before.  Mentors can help provide the trust in you plans to move past the fears.  Mentors will ask the quality questions needed to put fears aside.  When you can confidently answer the questions put to you by your mentor, you know that you are strong enough to move past the obsticles in front of you.  Modeling and mentoring are two highly successful concepts that are far too underutilized in society today.

We all want to help our friends and family.  It is heartwrenching to watch a loved one gradually lose more and more things in their life.  Their relationships, their job and career all deteriorate.  It is so easy to see the solution to some one else's problem.  How do you get them to change?  How do you get them to see solutions?

Firstly you cannot tell people solutions.  Nobody likes to be told what to do?  If you start discussing the negatives in peoples lives, they will just get defensive.  They will just justify their actions against your judgements.  People will only work towards their own solutions.  People will sobatage any external solutions forced on them.  You help, if it is to be effective is to assist them to find their own solutions.  The key, as always lies in asking quality questions.  Ask what is imporatnt in their life.  Ask what they want to accomplish.  Ask what they want to change.  Ask what they have to learn.  Help them find a solution to using drugs and alcohol.  Stop telling people what to do. 

Last night was the time we move the clocks ahead.  I think a lot of us feel a little out of sync today.  Our time clock is a bit off for the next day or two.  I also think there is another factor in this.  We all "lost" some time last night.  An hour just disappeared.  When an hour can disappear in a second, it is a very visible reminder of the march of time we all face.  It also can remind us of all the time we have wasted or lost in different ways.

In a drug rehab program there are lots of momments like this.  While learning new ideas about how to handle things, it is hard to eascape the realization that our old ways of handling things cost us days, weeks months and possible years of our lives.  Gone from our grasp.  Rehab is a place to stop this waste.  Ironic that you have to spend time at a rehab program to learn how not to waste time.  You have to invest time to learn to be more efficeint at life. 

It is also true that if you work at learning new techniques, you will be given new opportunities to connect and reconnect with people.  You can build a history of accomplishment and service to others.  Life does hand out second chances.  Even look at daylight saving's time.  In the fall after you work all summer, it gives you the hour back.  Why not make losing the hour last night a chance to decide to not waste more time in your life?  What have you got to lose?

Drug rehab is an area of life where the boundaries between religion and state are blurred for more than other areas of life.  One of the core values of 12 step is the concept of God and a Higher Power.  I know it is said that a Higher Power can be anything, but the prayer repeated at every 12 step meeting is "God Grant me the Serenity….".  There is a lot of "God" in addiction treatment.  That is wonderful for those whom the concept of God is meaningful.  However it leads almost to the question of do you have to find God, in order to find sobreity?  Since the vast majority of drug and alcohol treatment is based in the 12 steps today, purely from a view of statistics, it would seem for a large number of clients the answer is yes.

Addiction treatment is about skills learning and develpoment.  It is quite possible to do this in a non-religious setting as well as religious.  We have had private religious schools and non religious schools live side by side for many years.  They both turn out quality people.  Why is addiction treatment not allowing people the same degree and freedom of choice?  Is learning to cope with stress and anxiety in your life that much different that learning how to become a doctor or a lawyer?  Is not education no matter what the subject simply education?  There is room in the world for all beliefs.  For some people God and addiction are meaningful.  For some packaging God with addiction just gives them another reason to leave a drug rehab center.

Sometimes in drug rehab we can get caught up in statistics.  When dealing with percentages it makes it easy to talk about what is likely to happen.  Somehow it makes it easier to discuss.  Only all to often we are faced with the fact, people are not stats and numbers.  People do not come in fractions.  Clients come in units of one.  When a client leaves a drug rehab center and returns to their addiction it does not feel like 20% relapse rate.  For everyone concerned, some days it just feels like total failure. 

Family members feel let down and crushed.  Their disappointment is only overshadowed by the fear their family member will end up dead.  There are only a couple of things that can be done at these moments.  Fisrtly, what one thing can be done to increase the safety of the client who has left?  Were they given adequate precautions about drug reuse and accidental overdose.  Remind them if that do reuse, not to be alone.  Remind them their body has detoxed and will respond much more to any drug than before drug rehab.  Remind them to find a safe place to reuse, if they are going to.  This is not giving someone permission to use.  It is information to lessen the risk if they do reuse.

You can also ask what one thing might have you done differently, to change the outcome?  This is not a scorecard where everywone beats themselves up.  It is simply to ponder if any other avenues could have been tried.  What can be done to get the client back to future focus and back to moving past addiction?  The last thing to to be thankful for the effort everyone involved who tried to help.

We are very proud to announce the opening of our on line book store.  SoberMart is now up and running.  For the first few weeks we will be offering our relapse prevention plan workbook for sale.  It was developed through use in a drug rehab center.  It is a step by step guide to coming up with a clear and strong plan to move past addiction. 

It was written by Irene Clarkson, who has over 30 years of experience in the field. The name of this workbook is, MAKE YOUR LAST RELAPSE, YOUR LAST. Over the next month we will be adding our on line lessons to add to the book.  These will be visual text as well as voice to allow you to easily and clearly formulate the plan you require. 

Also in the next month we will be adding a book for parents and loved ones of someone in rehab.  It will be a step by step guide on what to do while they are in rehab.  What to do when they leave.  What to do to support them and yourself all the way along.  It will allow you to truly understand addiction, and what support for someone dealing with addiction should really look like. 

Click here to check out our new on line store SOBERMART!

There are many choices when it comes to drug rehab centers. We get phone calls every day with client somewhat overwhelmed and lost. There is a real fear of making the wrong decision. The cost always adds a stress. Failure after rehab may cost someone their health and their life. What are some things you can do to decrease this stress?

Firstly ask a lot of questions. Start with yourself. What do you things do you think you have to learn or change to move past addiction in your life? If you could magically have certain skills that you KNOW would help you deal with addiction, what would those be? What other things would you need to know to move past addiction? Realistically, under perfect circumstances, how long would it take you to learn these things?

With these questions you now have some information to start looking at different rehab centers. Look for a program with a long enough time line to teach you the things you require. Then ask the rehab center how they teach and what methods, do they use to help you learn the skills, you know you need to acquire. They answers you receive should be clear and make sense. Ask what materials they use to help teach you. Ask if you can buy some of the materials first to look at them and their quality. Rehabs with real materials and printed materials have gone to the trouble to actually make a program. If there are no printed materials, chances are there is no program either.

In my unscientific and informal methods of tracking the calls we receive the requests for free drug rehab just continue to grow. I have been also asking what sort of budget, could you really afford if you had to pay something. It seems most of the people who call looking for free drug and alcohol rehab might be capable of paying around $2500 to $3000 in total. This is important to realize this amount. What these clients are saying, essentially is, I’m not looking for a handout.

They are willing to pay something towards their treatment. It is unfortunately not enough to get into a lot of drug rehab centers. Apparently a lot of drug rehab centers are telling people to check around a look for scholarships at rehabs. I get asked everyday if I know of where these are. I wish I did. Can anyone help us out there? Also maybe the drug rehabs that are recommending these free drug rehab scholarships could tell clients where they are. Maybe it seems like a polite way of getting someone off the phone if they are asking for free drug rehab, but it may be a waste of time if they are searching for something that does not really exist.

We are looking at ways to offer drug rehab at a much more affordable price. By offering a few less perks and still offering the core program will be able to give clients the chance to attend our program for a savings of 25% less than our previous price. We are hoping this will along more clients to seek the treatment they want. I am still willing to pass along any ideas people have about free drug rehab. Any creative ways you found to finance your own treatment or the treatment of someone else would also be greatly appreciated.

Text messaging is certainly all the rage with teenagers today. It is a form a communication with its own language. It also requires a level of dexterity to chat with any speed but a snail’s pace for me. I was actually doing some texting last night. It was the read a message, send a message thing, but each message was being sent a couple of hours apart. Somehow the person I was texting and I got out of sync with each other. I would send a message, and then receive one 10 or 15 minutes later. The problem was the text I got in return was not in response to my last message, but the one before it.

Needless to say I got quite confused. At one point I even got a little offended at one response. Being a slow learner, it took me a little while to catch on. Once I realized we were having two different conversations, I got back in sync, and everything made sense.

I started to think about this and how often this happens in our own life without texting. How many times are we having a conversation “in our head” while at the same time trying to converse with the real person. I see it in our drug rehab center all the time. I see clients and staff talking with themselves and each other, but sometimes not connecting. It is easy to get confused and sometimes even offended if you are not carefully listening to the other person. You have to turn off the conversation in your head. The only words in your head while someone is talking to you should be their words. Actually hear what they are saying in real time. Slow down and enjoy it. It is so much better to have one productive conversation, then 2 or 3 botched ones.

There are always choices in life. Nobody is ever a label. When dealing with an addicted family member and the issue of drug rehab programs there are many steps along the way. Several people will be involved all discussing issues and concerns. Stress and worry are present every step along the way. I often here from family members, overwhelmed by the diversity and scope of choice available to them when seeking treatment.

There are a couple simple steps anyone can take to may this process a little easier. The first step is to write it down. Take notes when talking to the individual drug rehab centers. You may think it is all on their website, but when you are making a decision it will be very nice if you can lay your own notes out in front of you. The other important aspect of note taking is you will not confuse in your own mind the pluses and minuses of each program. When you talk to a number of individuals, it is easy to confuse what place has which benefit.

Write down all the discussions you have with other family members and the potential client. Again it is very easy to get confused about which person, is doing each of the steps, involved in the drug rehab process. Ultimately nominate one person to do all the communication with the rehab, and have that person be sure to take good notes.

The last step is to try as much as humanely possible to take the high road. If someone in your family snaps or is short with you along this process, know they are doing the best they can. There is no, going to rehab 101, they can take before attempting this. Now is not the time to point out some one’s lack of tact, or communication skills. If someone makes a mistake, forgive them. The objective is to get a family member, the help they need for their addiction, by getting them into an effective drug rehab center. Stressing out and having a heart attack along the way will help no one.