Therapy for Addiction Treatment

If you have been diagnosed with a substance use disorder, you might have to receive a wide variety of addiction treatment programs before you can overcome it. For starters, you will be required to receive medically managed detoxification services. After detox has been deemed to be successful, it would also be useful that you receive addiction treatment therapy services.

Through these services, you will get the opportunity to learn how to manage your drug cravings. The services could also prove useful in helping you avoid the risk of suffering a relapse after you check out of the drug rehab program.

Today, counseling and therapy are considered to be the mainstay of most substance abuse treatment programs. These services are offered in a variety of modes. For instance, you could benefit from family counseling and cognitive behavioral therapy, among other services.

The goal of these therapy services would be to increase your ability to remain clean and free of all intoxicating and mind altering substances. They might also prove effective at dealing with any other co-occurring mental health disorders that you may have been prescribed with.

Understanding Addiction Therapy and Counseling

Substance abuse and addiction involves more than just your physical dependence on the intoxicating and mind altering substances that you have been taking. To this end, going through a medically managed detox program might not be enough.

Although detox could help you address your physical dependence, withdrawal symptoms, and drug cravings, it cannot fully deal with all the other factors surrounding your addiction. The main goal of detox is to ensure that you do not suffer chemical dependence on drugs and alcohol.

At the end of the detox program, you may no longer be addicted to these substances. However, there is still a high risk that you could relapse and start using your favorite drugs and alcohol again.

Additionally, you might encounter other social and psychological factors that could trigger your relapse. These factors include:

• Cues in your immediate environment, such as visiting neighborhoods where you used to buy and/or use drugs
• Social networks, such as by spending time with people who are still using drugs and drinking alcohol
• Stress, particularly sudden life stresses

All these factors could increase your urge to start using drugs again. To ensure that you do not give in to these urges, it is essential that your addiction treatment also includes a component of therapy and counseling.

Therapy can help you escape your drug cravings. Further, it can teach you how to manage anything that you come across in your sober lifestyle without resorting to substance abuse.

Today, there are many counseling therapies that have been proved to be effective at treating substance use disorders. However, you should note that there is no given method that is better than the others.

In the same way, no single approach will work effectively for everyone who is struggling with substance abuse and addiction. To this end, it is essential that the addiction treatment program you choose tailored the right treatment plan to your particular needs and preferences.

Individual and Group Therapy

Although getting some therapy for your substance use disorder is better than getting none, most addiction treatment programs will prefer group therapy to individual therapy. This is because group therapy will provide you with the opportunity to be supported and challenged by your peers who are struggling with similar or related addictions.

Further, most treatment programs will recommend that you participate in 12 step programs such as Narcotics Anonymous (or NA) and Alcoholics Anonymous (or AA). These peer support groups could prove to be a crucial part of your ongoing recovery program. However, these programs are not led by trained psychotherapists. As such, they are different from the group therapy that is offered as part of drug rehab.

Even so, individual therapy might prove useful in certain situations involving substance abuse and addiction. For instance, you may find that this is the right course of action if you have been diagnosed with significant mental health disorders like bipolar disorder and depression.

These mental disorders, in and of themselves, require ongoing treatment and rehabilitation. As such, it is essential that you address them during your addiction treatment to further reduce your risk of relapse.

During your addiction treatment, you can expect to benefit from any of the following types of therapy:

• 12-Step Programming
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Contingency Management Therapy
• Couples Therapy
• Family Therapy
• Maintenance Therapy
• Motivational Interviewing

Therapy During Residential and Outpatient Treatment

When you choose residential treatment, you will be separated from the things, places, and people that led to your substance abuse. Also known as inpatient addiction treatment, residential rehabilitation will require that you check into a specialized facility for several weeks or months. During this time, you will get the opportunity to work through therapy. As such, inpatient treatment can help you learn new skills and habits that could prove useful to the sober lifestyle that you are working towards.

Although this approach will work effectively in the short term, no proof has been released to show that it can keep addiction at bay more than an outpatient program can. If you choose outpatient addiction treatment, you will be required to check into the drug rehab center for several hours every week. When you are not receiving treatment, you can continue living at home or in a sober living facility.

In fact, you have a higher likelihood of experiencing relapse if you move straight from an inpatient treatment program and go back home. This is because you will no longer have the controlled environment offered by residential rehabs.

Additionally, inpatient treatment might be more expensive than outpatient treatment. For instance, you may end up spending thousands of dollars to be able to achieve full sobriety in such a program.

NIDA - the National Institute on Drug Abuse - reports that a combination of inpatient and outpatient addiction treatment might be the right way to overcome your substance use disorder.

Overall, both of these programs will offer you the therapy and counseling services that you need in your battle against addiction. The therapy you receive over the course of your addiction treatment could also prove useful in increasing your chances of achieving full recovery both in the short and in the long term.

CITATIONS

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addiction-treatment/evidence-based-approaches-to-drug-addiction-treatment/behavioral-therapies

https://drugabuse.com/treatment-therapy/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK230395/#_ddd00106_

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/treatment-approaches-drug-addiction

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323468.php