sobriety is different. Among the most well-known paths to take is going to residential rehab or inpatient treatment as it’s commonly known.
There’s no silver bullet for beating addiction but taking part and investing yourself in the process of recovery with trained, licensed and dedicated addiction specialists gives you a solid foundation upon which to build the rest of your life.
But what exactly is residential rehab?
Residential Rehab: Explained
Residential rehab can be broken down into two main types: long and short term. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) does a wonderful job explaining the concept of both.
“Long-term residential treatment provides care 24 hours a day, generally in non-hospital settings. The best-known residential treatment model is the therapeutic community (TC), with planned lengths of stay of between 6 and 12 months. TCs focus on the “resocialization” of the individual and use the program’s entire community—including other residents, staff, and the social context—as active components of treatment”
And,
“Short-term residential programs provide intensive but relatively brief treatment based on a modified 12-step approach…the original residential treatment model consisted of a 3- to 6-week hospital-based inpatient treatment phase followed by extended outpatient therapy and participation in a self-help group”.
It’s fairly straightforward, the idea being that immersive treatment, without distractions and triggers from home, allows you to focus all your attention and energy on conquering the physical and mental aspects of addiction.
What Happens When You Go to Residential Rehab?
Before entering rehab, you’ll go through detoxification to break your body’s physical dependency on drugs or alcohol. To put it differently, fighting the mental side of addiction is impossible if your body is still deeply craving the substances.
Once you’ve detoxed, the next step is developing a personalized treatment program. All reputable rehab facilities will start with an initial evaluation that seeks to understand you. Taking into account your medical history and substance abuse issues, an individualized plan is developed based on your specific needs.
A one size fits all approach is a definite red flag when looking for a rehab center.
Once you’ve landed on a treatment facility that makes sense for you and have solidified a plan of action and the length of your stay – at Valley Recovery Center we offer 30-, 60- and 90-day residential treatment – the work of recovery begins.
Naturally, the more severe your addiction, the longer you would be advised to stay in rehab because change doesn’t happen overnight as they say.
Rehab is often centered on individual therapy sessions with master’s level therapists as well as group counseling sessions. The goal is to dig deep into the source of your substance abuse and work from there to change your thought patterns. Additionally, there’s a big emphasis on developing healthy coping mechanisms for the triggers you’ll encounter once you reintegrate into your normal life.
Why You or Your Loved One Should Go to Residential Rehab to Treat Addiction
The journey to recovery is rarely an easy one. From withdrawal to cravings to triggers, these things are hard to beat on your own, especially if you or a loved one has been struggling with a substance use disorder for a long time. You haven’t felt “normal” in so long that it might feel alien at first.
Therefore, treating addiction in residential rehab, under the care and guidance of professionals who’ve seen it all before, can truly be a gamechanger in your pursuit of a clean life. A place where the building blocks of sobriety are all laid out before you and you can piece them together at your own pace.
To learn more about our program and philosophy at Valley Recovery Center, reach out to us.
