If Drug Alcohol Rehabs work, why do so many people relapse after successfully completing the process?
posted on: March 5, 2008
This question really boils down to what is being used as the primary criteria for measuring successful drug alcohol rehab and treatment. We like to use the analogy of addiction and alcoholism as a form of cancer. Both are life-threatening and life debilitating diseases. And both are progressive. Both can be put into remission, if the patient goes the treatment process and does their part to actively participate. We are of the opinion that both are genetically driven, at least to some degree, and do not necessarily have any underlying personal cause and effect relationship.
When a chemically dependent person completes treatment in a drug alcohol program, they in effect, are cured. They have used any form of their drug of choice for several weeks, if not more. And they have learned what they need to do to insure they never have to pick up and use again. The trouble is human beings have a tendency to fall back into their old patterns of thinking and behaving. When a person leaves a drug alcohol rehab center, their minds immediately start to revert back to their old ways of living. It is only natural. In addiction, most would agree, there needs to a strong relationship with some power greater than one human being to bring that power to bear on their disease. For all these reasons and others, people “slip” back into their using behavior because they so easily forget how bad it was and will be again if they weaken, even slightly, and they go back out there and start using any mind altering substance. From our prospective, the real reason people relapse is because they are creatures of habit and it only takes one bad idea and decision to be right back out there in trouble again.
Topic: Drug Alcohol Rehab, Relapse |
