Let's face it.  Sometimes we all can just be a little lazy.  We all like shortcuts or faster ways to do things.  What you do in a drug rehab center is not one of these times.  There are situations in our lives where maybe we do not need a great foundation of understanding.  Someitmes just knowing what to do will work.  You do not have to know why it works, and why it is the right step.

Do not cut corners in drug rehab.  There are going to be lots of challenges in your life.  There are going to be lots of unforseen circumstances after you leave a drug rehab center.  In these tougher moments, rules may not cut it.  Cute phrases will seem hollow and not much support.  It is it the most fluid and surprising hurdles of life, that understanding of the real principles of what you learned in a rehab center will make the difference. 

If you are in a tough situation and you know uncontrolled stress is the number one culprit in relapse, you will make better choices.  You will control your stress level first and deal with the situation second.  That might seem contrary to the first idea of fixing the problem in front of you first.  It is a corny phrase, but knowledge is power.  Take the time to learn if right is drug rehab.  Don't just learn the "rules".  Learn why the rules work!

Empowered is one of those words sometimes I do not like.  Comes across as sort of new age assertion type of thing.  What is an empowered client in a drug rehab center?  I think it may involve some of the following things.  Firstly they would know the rationale and evidence of the treatment they are participating in at a drug rehab center, and are comfortable with it.  They also know how to maximize the benefits they get in drug rehab.

Simple things like arriving on time and organized for their one to one counseling.  Write down your questions as they occur during the day. Then you will not have to remember them during your counseling session.  Write down things during the drug rehab groups that are confusing to you.  Again order them as to which are more important to you in your life.  Then proceed through the list with your counselor.

Do your reading before going to group.  Being familiar with the material will greatly aid in how much you gain from the discussion.  Simply by reading, you will understand any of the terms or lingo used.  Another simple thing to improve you results in drug rehab is to be sure to eat properly.  Have breakfast, even if you are not feeling great.  Coffee will not give you the energy to focus and learn in the morning.

Be polite in your requests and questions.  If you are at all acusatory in your approach, people will spend less time an tend to avoid you.  If you start with, "Sorry for all these questions, maybe I'm just having a slow brain day, would you mind helping me through them?", everyone will help you.  You may be able to get people to help only because you are paying and you can "demand" service, but you will never get the very best effort out of the other person.  Just be polite is a good rule.

Thank people for their help.  Even if they cannot get you the answer, thank them for their effort.  Let your conselors know when they did something that really helped you.  Everyone needs real praise for a job well done.  If you try most of the suggestions here you will gain much more than just putting in time at drug rehab.  It is your time and money, spend both of them wisely.

I found this in “Dispelling The Myths About Addiction, Strategies To Increase Understanding And Strengthen Research,” Institute Of Medicine, National Academy Press, Washington, 1997, pages 73-74.

“One of the most enduring myths about addiction is that treatment for these disorders is ineffective.'

"O’Brien and McLellan (1996) reviewed and compared treatment literature for addictive disorders and three common health problems – hypertension, diabetes, and asthma. Treatment effectiveness for addiction was defined as a 50% decrease in drug taking after 6 months. The literature reviewed showed treatment for alcoholism to be successful for 40% to 70% of patients; success rates for cocaine addiction were 50% to 60%, opioids 50% to 80%, and nicotine 20% to 40%.  Interestingly, review of studies relevant to diabetes, hypertension and asthma revealed that high proportions of these patients did not follow their physician’s advice and did not adhere to diet and other behavioral components of their treatment. For example, among patients with insulin-dependent diabetes, less than 50% adhered to their medication regimen and less than 30% conformed to their diet and other self-care requirements.  Less than 30% of patents with asthma and hypertension were found to take their medication as instructed.  Noncompliance and other factors, according to the studies reviewed, resulted in 50% to 60% of hypertension and 60 to 80% of asthmas patients needing to be retreated within a year.

The comparability of these data argue that addiction is similar to these three common medical illnesses in that they all can be treated successfully in many patients, but none can be cured and all 4 often require retreatment.

Yet, there are important differences between addiction and these other illnesses in the perception of the public, insurance companies and physicians. Few would argue that retreatment for diabetes, hypertension, or asthma indicates treatment failure, or that treatment should be withheld from or denied to these patients when they relapse and their symptoms reoccur. Yet such an argument is commonly made about addiction.”

I find this is interesting considering the number of people who when they hear about my work for a drub rehab center, and ask me questions that start out with in a doubting tone, “And what is your success rate?”  How many people ask the same question to the physician or othe rhealth care provider, in the first line of a conversation…….hmmmm.   What do you think?

My frustrating search for free and low cost drug rehab programs continues.  It is easy to see why those who absolutely need free drug rehab services continue to call from one place to another.  If you type free drug rehab as a search into google, the first page has no listings at all that are free.  There are four free drug rehab consultations.  There are toll free numbers.  There are rehabs that will make you drug free.  Apparently google is unable to sort out the actual drug rehab programs that might be free.  The second page of listings is not much better.  Two of the listings actually deal with free drug rehab, the other eight so not.  The rest are back to the free drug rehab consultations again.

The point I am trying to make here is that if google cannot find these resources with all their computing power, how is the average person with a severe drug addiction and few or no resources supposed to find them?  The only way I can see, is if we all start posting these places in our websites so they can be found.  If everyone with a website with material on drug rehab, gave a link or two showing where some free drug rehab programs could be found, then google and the other search engines could find them and a lot of pain and frustration from families in this situation could be prevented.  So if you know of some that I have not mentioned, come on, what are you waiting for?  Tell me, or somebody else.

Is there danger in letting your mind wander and imagine drug use?  If after attending a drug rehab program should you train your mind to quickly move on to other topics when you mind starts to imagine drug use?  A simpler question to ask might be what good things could happen by slipping into a fantasy of drug use?  That seems like an easier question to answer.  I guess someone could make a sort of remote arguement that in the fantasy you could make drug use painful or damaging and therefore promote sobriety, but I think really there is not a lot of good that can come out of these fantasies.

The real danger lies in that in fantasy, we always have control.  We never get caught.  We never get diseases.  We never get arrested.  Drug rehab is about remembering all these other possibilities.  Fantasy can be a preamble to a real relapse, so is it really worth the risk?  Any behavior that carries a real risk of relapse is just not worth it.  There are simple methods to stop a fantasy in it's tracks and stay focused on the path you chose in drug rehab.  Simply ask yourself a quality question.  "What one thing could I be doing now to make my life better, instead of dreaming about drugs?"  Or how about," What are three negative things that will happen if I experiment with drugs again?  This will stop any fantasy cold in it's tracks.  Play it smart, dream about things that really will make your life better.

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. 

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.

You know, we all need to look at the funny side of life, even with serious topics like addiction.  I found this blog with the great idea of listing things that we all could do, instead of resorting to using a drug or having a drink.  If you need a chuckle check this out by clicking here.

When you go to a boomtown like Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta, you can make a lot of money fast.  You can go from almost nothing to owning your own company and living life large in 2 or 3 years.  The problems of sudden wealth and long hours are not without dangers though.  Since I wrote a spot about the need for drug rehab programs for the rapidly growing drug addiction problem in Fort McMurray, I have recieved calls detailing some of the extent on how drugs can undermine hardworking, focused, young people and destroy their lives.  Things like working 28 days in a row for months to build a small successful company.  Having growth and new employees join them.  Then all destoyed by crack cocaine and meth.  From profits to big debts in 6 months. 

My interest in the drug addiction problem is two fold.  One is purely from the point of veiw of finding drug rehab for everyone, where ever they are.  The second is that Fort McMurray shows just how vulnerable we all are to addiction.  Many of the people getting in trouble in Fort McMurray are NOT people stuck in a slum with no job and no hope.  They are very hard working, very independant people.  Drug addiction strikes people at vulneralbe moments in their life.  It is not just about vulnerable people.

Buprenorhine is one way to detox and stop talking opiates, such as heroin and oxycontin.  It may have several advantages of methadone and rapid opiate detox.  It boils down to getting quality information and help, followed by making the decision that is right for you and your circumstances.  You need a successful detox if you are to have a good drug rehab.  The following is a webiste by a non-profit organization dealing with the issues involved in the detox from opiates.

Click here for more information about Buprenorhine treatment and Physicians that can help you.