Inpatient Drug Rehab

Inpatient drug rehabilitation involves the person being treatment for addiction –drug or alcohol – residing in a facility for a designated length of time.  Inpatient treatment is designated as either short-term or long-term, depending on the needs and circumstances of the individual in question.  Both involve similar therapies. Inpatient treatment does not include detoxification, as that usually occurs in a hospital environment, but follows it.

Although inpatient therapy can take place in a hospital environment, for the most part it is conducted in residential centers offering 24-hour care and supervision. The most common method of treatment is a therapeutic community, involving the staff and other patients, and focuses on helping the individual indentify the sources and conditions that lead to and facilitate substance abuse. Medical care is also available.

Short-term inpatient care

Treatment in short-term residential programs provides intense but residential treatment, usually a derivative of a 12-step approach, lasting up to thirty days.  Initially used as therapy for alcohol abuse,  they have become one of the options for drug abuse. Because of a variety of circumstances surrounding health-care coverage, not only have these programs become less common, the length of stay is averaging considerably less than half of the original thirty day period. Give the limited time, most of these programs focus on medical stabilization, abstinence, and lifestyle changes, and are primarily staffed by medical professionals and trained counselors.

Long-term inpatient care

As with short-term residential care, long-term residential programs provide twenty-four hour treatment in a residential community of medical professional, licensed counselors and fellow recovering addicts. The length of stay, however is expanded from thirty to ninety-days or longer.

Long-term residential programs employ a variety of methods in order to achieve effective results, depending on the needs of the individual. Among the treatment procedures are:

Therapeutic community –  This is a drug-free, highly structured program that creates an environment for change centered on personal and social responsibility. Its distinguishing characteristic is that it uses the facility’s entire community as the means to create change.  Both staff, and patients in recovery, work in concert in structured and unstructured environments, to address and change attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors associated with substance abuse.  At its most structured hierarchy employees increasing levels of personal and community responsibility as treatment progresses, with the goal of learning how to live functionally in society.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy – Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) centers on the premise that individuals can and will monitor and control their behavior, if they have the proper skill-sets. The therapy involves changing how the patient thinks about conditions and circumstances, teaching and reinforcing rational processes to control the processes that contribute to substance abuse.

Social Education – This is an integrated approach using principles from several disciplines. Addiction and substance abuse are considered learned behaviors acquired from a variety of sources, including genetic factors. As such, recognizing and imitating acceptable behavioral skills, identifying the impact of environment on behavior, and understanding the influence of socialization processes form the crux of this treatment.

This is by no means a definitive list of the treatment programs available. In any inpatient treatment facility, one of the demonstrated keys to success is employing a flexible approach that is concerned with the needs and circumstances of the individual patient. Although there may be on overarching approach to treatment, outstanding treatment programs select and use the best elements of everything available.