OVERVIEW OF DRUG REHABILITATION.

Drug rehabilitation (colloquially referred to as drug rehab) is a collective designation of the processes of treatment for dependency or addiction to psychoactive substances. Generally, the processes of treatment are broadly categorized into two groups: medical treatment and psychotherapy; though some drug rehab centers do offer spiritual wisdom, meditation and other spiritually-related interventions for the management of addiction. The most commonly used psychoactive substances are alcohol, amphetamines, cocaine, heroin and some prescription drugs which have effects on the central nervous system. The principal intent of drug rehab is addiction treatment, and aftercare monitoring in order to ensure complete addiction recovery so as to avert the detrimental financial, psychological, physical, legal and adverse social consequences that are associated with drug abuse.

Drug rehab is offered in specialized institutions which are designated using various titles such as drug rehab center, addiction treatment center, drug treatment center and addiction rehab center. In these institutions, the addict receives medications for depression (and other related mental pathologies) and professional counseling, and they are also given an opportunity to share their experience with other addicts. Moreover, the addicts committed to religiously-oriented institutions do also receive spiritual wisdom and also participate in meditation practices alongside their usual conventional treatment. Such spiritual wisdom and other spiritually-related interventions are considered alternative drug rehab practices. Holistic treatment approaches that have been adopted in the various drug rehab programs in drug rehab institutions do ensure that the process of addiction recovery is more complete thereby lessening the chances of addiction relapse.

The mainstay of all drug rehab institutions are the drug rehab programs. All drug rehab programs do address the issue of psychological dependency.  To deal with psychological dependency, the drug rehab programs do train the addict on new ways of interactions with a drug-free environment. Usually, the rehabilitated former addict is encouraged to avoid contact or any other form of interaction (both direct and indirect) with his or her former addict friends who are still abusing psychoactive substances. Most drug rehab programs are modeled on the 12-step program. The 12-step program was originally developed to enable alcoholics to deal with their alcoholism, and its various variants are still the mainstay of alcohol rehab or alcohol treatment in alcohol rehab center or alcohol treatment centers respectively.

The 12-step program has been adopted and adapted into the 12-step recovery, 12-step treatment and 12-step rehab programs which are used in various drug rehab facilities to manage and treat addiction to psychoactive substances other than alcohol. The unique characteristic of the 12-step program that endears it to addiction recovery is its emphasis on the permanency of the addiction recovery. Another advantage of the 12-step program is its ability to be easily integrated into the existing treatment regimens for the addicts. It is also extremely versatile in that it can quickly adapt to radical shifts in the treatment program of the addict, thereby ensuring that the addict receives optimal care in the drug rehab center.

In most drug rehab centers, the rehab program do emphasize on the need to initially moderate the drug intake in order to gradually wean the addict off the psychoactive substance, before finally ensuring that there is complete cessation of drug intake by the former addict. For some psychoactive substances, complete abstention has been found to promote complete addiction recovery. In these instances, the psychoactive substance is substituted with a non-addictive drug which suppresses the urge to use the psychoactive substance. For example, naloxone does reverse the effects of narcotics overdose and also eliminate the cravings for narcotics by blocking the morphine receptors in the central nervous system.

Prescriptions drugs do pose a unique challenge to drug rehab as attempts to moderate its use can lead to incomplete addiction recovery thus relapse. Repeated relapses can make the chronic relapser to be unresponsive to the usual drug rehab programs. In such a situation, the chronic relapser is forced to seek specialized chronic relapse help from a specialized relapse rehab center. However, studies have shown that in some instances, such as alcohol dependency, complete abstention does lead to higher relapse rates as compared to moderation. Fortunately, for the relapsed alcoholics, there are plenty of places that offer alcohol relapse help.

There are different types of drug rehab programs that are offered. The common types are in-patient (or residential) treatment, outpatient treatment, extended care programs, local support groups, addiction counseling, medical care, sober (or recovery) houses and orthomolecular medicine. Some rehab centers do offer gender-specific or age-specific rehab programs. Studies by researchers have shown that spiritual beliefs do impact the success rates of addiction recovery, with the more spiritual addicts having a higher rate of complete addiction recovery as compared to their non-religious counterparts who are more prone to relapses. For this reason, some rehab centers have incorporated spiritual programs in their overall drug rehab programs.

One of the most noticeable effects of substance abuse is behavioral changes with the addicts being prone to engage in risky, uncouth and detrimental behaviors that exposes him or her to disease, injuries, legal litigations, financial ruin, social isolation and even death. For this reason, the drug rehab program must incorporate behavioral therapy in its addiction recovery treatment course. The 12-step program does offer this provision. The 4 most common types of behavioral (or behavior modification) therapies that are included in drug rehab programs are cognitive-behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, multidimensional family interviewing and motivational incentives. They are each briefly discussed below.

In cognitive-behavioral therapy, the addict is assisted by professional psychiatrists or psychologists to recognize situations that are likely to influence him or her to relapse, and in the process learn new ways of avoiding such situations and if avoidance is impossible, the addict is taught how to cope with such situations. Motivational interviewing is designed to motivate the addict to alter his or her behavior in such a way that he or she can enter treatment and also comply with the treatment prescriptions. In multidimensional family therapy, the treatment design is designed to improve family functioning in order to enable the family to support the addiction recovery of the former addict. Lastly, motivational incentives do use positive reinforcements to encourage the former addict to abstain from the addictive psychoactive substance.

Pharmacotherapy is one of the mainstays of addiction treatment and aftercare monitoring. It is usually categorized as either substitution therapy or maintenance therapy. In substitution therapy, a non-addictive drug belonging to the same class as the addictive psychoactive drug is used to either reduce or totally eliminate the cravings for the addictive drug. Maintenance therapies do only reduce the cravings for the drugs. Usually, most pharmacotherapeutic agents used to manage or treat drug addiction act as both substitution and maintenance therapies. For example, opioids such as buprenorphine and methadone are used to treat the dependence on addictive psychoactive opioids such as oxycodone, heroin and morphine.