Short-Term Addiction Treatment Is Often a Waste of Money

                                                                                         

Relapse rates for drug addicts are notoriously high. Addicts go to an addiction treatment center, get through withdrawal, feel better, and vow to stay off drugs. They may still have cravings, but have seen the error of their ways and are going to change. And they believe they can do it. But most of the time, it doesn’t happen. They get back on drugs. Was the drug rehab program at fault? Not necessarily. The differentiating factor is often the length of treatment.

Long-term treatment can be expensive – some of the well-known boutique rehabs can cost up to $30,000 a month. Fortunately, not every addiction treatment center costs that much but, nevertheless, they’re not cheap.

Largely because of cost – but also due to a lack of understanding of what drug addiction is and what needs to be done to address it successfully – people often choose a short-term treatment program to begin with. Even when they’ve been told it’s not likely to get great results, they opt to start with the 30 days (or whatever), want to see how that goes and, if it doesn’t work, will consider doing something else.

But a National Institute on Drug Abuse study found that addicts who drop out of treatment in less than 90 days have the same success rate as treatment that only lasted a day or two - which means that whatever you spent on it basically went down the toilet.

Some people – both addicts and their families – seem to think that, since the person wants to get off drugs, all they have to do is break the habit. In other words, if they can stop using drugs for a while and are feeling better – which they can do in 30 days or so - they’re free of it. But they’re not. Their brain and body is still damaged and they’re not operating at full steam.

Until a certain amount of brain power is restored to the individual, they’re not even really capable of looking at why they started taking drugs in the first place or figuring out what’s going to have to change in their lives in order to stay clean. When you consider that one night of drinking alcohol impairs critical thinking for a month, you can imagine what months or years of drug use can do. They have to be in good shape to address life’s problems. And that takes a while.

If you’re considering short-term treatment, forget it. It’s been proven over and over again that it’s just not successful. You’ll waste a lot of money and, in the end, you’ll still be worried that your son, daughter, husband, wife, or friend, will overdose or get into other trouble.

I’m not saying that some people can’t make it with short-term treatment. Many do. But if you want to end the worry and frustration, bite the bullet and find a way to get help in a long-term drug rehab program that’s proven to have a high success rate.

About the author:
Gloria MacTaggart is a freelance writer that contributes articles on health.


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