Thursday, December 31, 2009

Alcohol Treatment Center: Three Things You Should Know

By Justin Lieberman

Do you have a loved one that is an alcoholic? If so, you need to read this article. You have probably already tried to get your loved one to seek alcohol addiction treatment.....and you have failed. That is not surprising because it often takes an arrest for DWI or some violent crime for an alcoholic to agree to seek treatment.

But, if you can get him into treatment, he can get the alcohol out. Then he can get good food into his body and counseling into his mind. It really does not matter how he gets there, does it? After all, the right drug treatment center will take the responsibility off of you and put it on him....and that is where it belongs.

You often have to force an alcoholic to get treatment. In fact, it takes some sort of criminal arrest or other trouble in order to get an alcoholic to seek help. Whether it be an arrest for DUI, domestic violence or job loss, the alcoholic will only seek treatment when he has run out of options.

Regardless of how your loved one gets to this point, you need to make sure that he seeks treatment from an alcohol treatment facility that will offer a full range of services including detox, individual and group counseling as well as an effective aftercare and integration program.

Alcohol treatment facilities offer a standard thirty day alcohol rehab program. However, additional treatment can be arranged if needed. The first seven days are devoted to purging the alcohol from the patient's system (called "detox").

Afterward, the patient is fed a healthy diet and taught proper nutrition and undergoes an intensive regimen of individual and group therapy. At the end of the thirty day time period, the patient is evaluated to determine if he can begin reintegration or needs additional inpatient treatment.

Reintegration is the process whereby the recovering alcoholic is returned to society and is the most important part of the recovery process. This is also the time that the alcoholic is most likely to relapse. Most alcohol treatment centers continue with outpatient counseling and assist the patient in finding a support group.

The combination of therapy and accountability creates a two pronged approach to assist the alcoholic in maintaining sobriety.

Understand how an alcohol treatment center works now? Good. Then you will put to rest these notions that you can somehow heal your loved one's alcohol addiction without professional help. Look, if you do not get him help, he is going to hurt someone.

Get him into treatment so that he can get the alcohol out of his system and good food and nutrition in. Get him the intensive inpatient mental health services that he needs to maintain sobriety both in, and out of, the alcohol treatment center. Don't wait until your family member breaks a law of kills someone. The time is now to call an alcohol treatment center to find out more about how to get your loved one the treatment he requires.

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