Benefits of residential rehab treatment
By The Hope Team
Topic at one glance:
- Reasons why choosing rehab is the best option for a complete recovery
Are you asking yourself if rehab treatment is really necessary to overcome your addiction? After all, there are other options (e.g. the 12-Step programs) out there that might be successful as well. But hear us out for a moment, please: Ok, we admit, we might be a little biased. However, there are some really good reasons why choosing residential rehab treatment is the best option for a complete recovery. The truth is: The odds are likely going to be stacked against you if you try to quit your addiction at home without any help. Part of the problem is that you are going to be surrounded by the usual temptations and stresses. It is also really hard to make such a major life change without the right type of support – even people who have never been addicted to drugs struggle when it comes to making big changes. The list below is meant to give you a brief idea of what benefits to expect when you admit yourself for treatment:
Bursting your bubble:
First addicts need to be removed from their environment so that they are safe from triggers and can gain a completely new perspective on their life. Also, our using is like being in a bubble and avoiding reality; this one needs to be burst as well.
Reclaim your brain:
During your time in rehab your brain will be exposed to intensive neural recovery from the hijacked brain. We call it “first aid of the brain”.
Re-wiring the brain:
Breaking old habits in favour of new healthy ones. This generates new neural pathways by engaging in recovery rituals and the treatment process.
A safe base:
Rehab offers a medically assisted detox, an alcohol and drug-free environment, also regular drug testing and screening, and of course a place to process therapeutic issues.
Prevention:
Halting the progression of your addiction. Arrest the cycle of damage immediately and stop further harms.
Protection:
For you, your families and loved ones, that means immediate relief for everyone concerned – they need to recover as well.
Stop the auto-pilot:
The automatic or unconscious urge to use and using behaviour is inhibited in rehab and therefore halted.
Freedom:
Being clean is liberating, the ball and chain of having to feed the monster are removed in Rehab. The self-imposed psychological torment and imprisonment from the outside world are no more.
Self-investment:
Time to weigh up the short-term financial cost of entering a rehab program against the long-term benefits to your life.
Recovery University:
Rehab is an intensive program teaching you everything you need to know about recovery, yourself and a new philosophy that keeps you clean.
Combating symptoms of addiction:
Rehab is structured to challenge old symptoms like isolation, social anxiety, intolerance, boredom, and negative thinking that keep you trapped in addictive behaviours.
Overcoming Addict’s Boredom:
Waiting for things to change, instead of changing things; feelings of not being as stimulated as on drugs or alcohol, feeling unsatisfied, or just laziness – by going to rehab you can overcome these old patterns.
Sharing with others:
The paradox of giving it away to keep it. We share our story, space, our time, and support each other. As we say “put your own oxygen mask on first, then help others.”
Flight or fight:
Understand your outdated reactions, learn to handle stress while in rehab, also we help reduce your anxiety and potential for conflict and so reduce the chances of relapse.
The Cocoon Metaphor:
Represents a personal process of change and growth achieved by working through an intensive and challenging program. “A father and his son walk through the forest one late spring. They spot a butterfly struggling to break free from its cocoon. The boy asked his father to free the butterfly from its natural prison, so he takes out his knife and carefully opens up the cocoon. Sadly the butterfly falls to the ground and lays there helplessly trying to flap its wings unable to fly.” What they had not realised was that the struggle inside the cocoon was necessary for the butterfly’s survival like the client’s journey through treatment in order to learn, change, grow and achieve one’s goals.
The onion theory:
Therapy is like removing layers of an onion with the public self on the outside and private self at the core, it can also cause you to cry a lot, just like chopping up an onion.
Emotional sobriety:
This means you learn to manage relationships, your anger and conflicts in a healthy way.
PAWS:
Post-Acute-Withdrawals Syndrome – this refers to the enduring psychological symptoms that you experience after cleaning up.
Locking-on and locking-out:
Changing your focus, known as psychological Scotoma this refers to what you see and what you don’t see. As a using addict or alcoholic you notice drink everywhere – However, after some time in recovery you no longer are tuned into the old interests and see healthy things.
Group-think:
“We look for the similarities not for the differences.” The power is in the group’s feedback and identification – you are not alone. We learn from each other.
The jury method:
Otherwise known as peer-evaluation, the group will help you, and you will do the same for others.
Reality check:
Instead of avoiding reality you will face your true situation and actions. You learn to do this daily by checking in with the group.
Decompression chamber:
Rehab is also a serene place to recover from bouts of depression. A pressure release valve.
Control factor:
Recovering addicts learn to surrender control and practice handing over control to trusted counsellors in rehab. This paradox of letting go will help you manage your life effectively.
Microcosm of Society:
The rehab community is like a microcosm of wider society, it’s like putting yourself under a microscope.
Structure:
The most difficult part of change is that we tend to revert to what we’ve always done – the familiar can appear to offer comfort. Changing habits is the toughest part of long-term behavioural change. AA is structured to be every bit as habit forming as alcohol.
Discipline:
Addicts lack discipline and will learn valuable self-managing techniques, but this requires help due to the hijacked brain, self-control recovery rituals, daily inventory, positive affirmations, 12-Step meetings, therapy, meditation, prayer.
The Warehouse Effect:
This is one of the most successful elements of a long-term rehab program. This refers to the idea that it takes around 90 days for a person to “break a habit” and in general the idea works. By “warehousing” addicts in a safe place that provides therapies and education.
Flight to health:
A quick “detox” (acute phase) will certainly never be a lasting answer, it’s a quick fix like the using itself, or “flight to health” as we say.
Positive withdrawal:
Positive self-image and rehab – some people struggle with their “identity” in early recovery, and this is an important factor in staying clean. Research suggested that people sometimes achieve this by “positive withdrawal” from old environments.
Going to a rehab far from where you live:
You’ll experience fewer triggers to use. The brain forms contextual associations during active addiction; those associations can come back to haunt an addict when they see a person they used with, a building or street where they spent a great deal of time or other local triggers that cause the addict to feel a severe compulsion to get high.
Residential rehab will provide you with the tools for long-term recovery
By entering a suitable residential rehab center, you greatly increase the likelihood that you will achieve lasting recovery. This is because you will be in the right environment for change, and there will be treatments available in this facility to ease your transition to a new life (e.g. treatments to make withdrawal symptoms easier to deal with). Most importantly of all, you will have a chance to pick up the tools you need to build a better life.
Residential rehab is an investment in your future
You have probably already guessed by now that the real challenge when it comes to recovery from drugs and alcohol is not stopping but staying stopped. You will have been using these substances to help you cope with life, and if you don’t develop new coping strategies, you may struggle to deal with things – this means the temptation to relapse will be high.
If you are serious about quitting addiction, don’t you want to choose the option that gives you the best chance of achieving your goal? You could look at residential rehab as an investment in your future, and it can be one of the best investments you ever make.
Why Choose Our Residential Rehab in Thailand?
Maybe you already accept that you would benefit from some professional help with quitting your addiction, but why would you want to travel all the way to Thailand for a residential rehab? Well, for one thing, our program contains a mix of the evidence-based practices that will give you a solid foundation for your recovery. There are also aspects of our treatment approach that you will not find anywhere else in the world (e.g. Thai mindfulness practices or Thai massage therapy).
Many of our clients are originally drawn to considering a residential rehab in Thailand due to their limited options at home. A private treatment center in somewhere like the UK, US, or Australia tends to be exorbitantly expensive, and state-funded rehab is becoming harder to qualify for, and often involves a long waiting list if you do qualify. There is also the problem that many treatment facilities in the West are resistant to change, and they continue to push a ‘one-size fits all’ approach’ or rely too heavily on the psychiatric and pharmaceutical approach.
The majority of foreigners that travel to Thailand for Rehab, just can’t find the help they need at home. Originally all Paul allowed himself to Hope for, was another detox and to take a break from his depressing circumstances. However, he soon realised that Hope’s program offered more than just the quick fix, like the drugs he was prescribed in Melbourne. “These guys gave me HOPE when I had none. I was told I had a disease and was taught how to re-program my addict-brain. I initially signed up for two months but stayed for three because after a taste of really being alive for the first time in my life.” Paul no longer relies on a bag of drugs just to function; his life is no longer out of control. Treatment Director at Hope Rehab, Simon Mott, says “Paul has experienced a remarkable transformation in the three months he has been with us. He has been determined from the very beginning. He is willing to do whatever it takes to make sobriety work.
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