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The Most Important Data You can Have Regarding Treatment for Addictions or Unwanted Emotional Feelings:
Those professionals that have been in the forefront of effective alcohol and drug programs have contended for years that many programs that use "Mental Health" testing and diagnosis to determine that addicts have a "chemical imballance" and should, therefore, be placed on psychiatric medicaitons are now, finally, getting support from real science and the media.
Everyone should read the article: The Depressing News About Antidepressants showing that Studies suggest that the popular drugs are no more effective than a placebo. In fact, they may be worse. http://www.newsweek.com/id/232781
Only drug-free programs can reclaim someone's life that has been addicted to alcohol or other drugs.
Here are some of the programs that are available, but the real expertise will come when you call 877-444-1137 and speak to a Masters level counselor with over 30 years experience seeing the effects of these different programs:
12-Step Method
These methods are better known as Alcoholics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. 12-Step approach to recovery was developed in 1934 by two Alcoholics who found a way to stay sober using these steps with others in support group meetings held locally. When alcohol and drug treatment became institutionalized and established in free-standing residential settings as well as hosopital-based facilities, the 12-step approach to recovery was addopted as a clinical method. With insurance paying for treatment and the public needing care, these 12-step residential programs copied one another and grew quickly in the 1970s and 80s. Charter Hospitals and the CARE Units were the two largest. Programs using this modality are usually 21- 30 days in length and were termed short-term treatment. These alcohol and drug rehab centers are still the most prevalent form of residential treatment, even though they have proven to have a success rate of 5-8%.
With the continual relapses, the public has begun to believe that "treatment doesn't work". In response to these sentiments and pressure from Drug-Courts, some of these centers have become long-term, 90 days or more, treatment facilities. This response comes from the idea that you can't have success in 30 days, so a longer period of treatment is needed. What was rarely questioned was wether the 12-step modality was the right clinical approach. Most of the state-funded programs use 12-step treatment modality because it is the easiest clinical regime to administer and requires the least amount of staff. There are many strengths to this approach. Clients have time away from their drugs, they begin to start communicating with each other and start thinking about how to handle their lives without alcohol and other drugs. However, addiction is such a strong and compelling force that if you don't handle all aspects of addiction, it is very likely that the recoverying addict or alcoholic will relapse and need additional treatment.
It has been said that the 12-step approach to drug treatment has given the public false ideas about addiction. With these programs being seen as the authorities in addiction, their justifications for their losses have begun to become "facts" about addiction. Since they haven't been very successful in producing long-term successes, the public believes the idea that they use as an excuse, that addiction is a chronic and progressive disease, meaning that it last forever and gets worse in time. Therefore, no one is ever cured, but only in a state of recovery.
Programs using Behavioral Modification.
Behavior Modificaiton programs are not very prevalent presently, but in the 1980s they were marketing to alcoholics and addicts who had failed with other forms of treatment or those who couldn't afford to take off 30 days for treatment. These programs relate to man as an anima or a stimulus-response machine. Programs using this philosophy of treatment include Therapeutic Communities (TCs) and programs using direct adversive stimulus to change behavior. Some of these programs will take alcoholics and give them Antibuse, which is a drug that makes one sick when they ingest alcohol, and put them in a barroom setting to be served alcohol and when they become sick, the "brain" is suppossed to connect this adverse stimulus with alcohol and cause the person to be revolted by the sight, smell or taste of alcohol. Since man is much more complex, thank God, then this model believes, these programs are no only unsuccessful, but cause a person to be more addicted then they were before. TC's use behavior modification in a active working environment with a person being adversely affected by his supervisors when he exhibits addict-type behaviors. There has been some use for this method with young teenagers who are on a warpath to destroy society. TC's re most prevalent in prisons and diversion sentencing programs.
Religious-Based Programs.
These program are usually a mix of the 12-step approach with spiritual guidance from different religious practices. The Christian Recovery Network has 12-step cyber cafes were recovering addicts can log on to their website and learn about recovery. The Buddhist Recovery website focuses on resources that can help illuminate the Buddhist path to freedom from alcoholism and addiction. Their website post articles, reviews books and links to chat rooms as well as list of meetings and organizatin that promote the Buddhist approach to recovery. Celebrate Recovery was stated by a church in Southern California about eight years ago to provide a strong Christain spriritual orientation to the 12-step approach to recovery. From this beginning, over 500 ministries across the nation have been developed. JACS (Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others, is dedicated to assisting Jewish people in recovery by promotinog understanding of addiction as it relates to the Jewish community, providing resources and support to its members. Their website post meetings in the US, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. Reformers Unanimous International, is a Christ Center Addiction Program that is based in local church programs. It is headquartered under North Love Baptist Chruch in Rockford, Ill. and has 86 groups meeetins all of the the U.S. and Canada. Training programs are available to chruches to help them implement their own programs.
Drug Rehab Programs using Bio-Physical method.
Biophysical treatment methods get the residue of the drugs out of the body. Through research, it has been found that the human body will store a residue, called a metabolite of the drug, in the dromat fat tissue for 5 – 7 years after drug use/abuse. When a person stops using drugs, this residue of the fat-soluable drugs begins to be released back into the blood stream which causes cravings, anxiety, and depression in the addict who may be trying desparately to curtail his use.
This can go on for literally years and is the major reason why many programs claim that addiction is a life-long disease. As these toxins are released back into the blood stream, it causes the struggling drug affected person to experience some of the original drug effect and causes depression and mental health problems that lead many to see advice from psychiatrist who will then perscribe a psychiatric medication, which leads to more toxins in the body to add to the emotional rollercoaster that most recovering people experience daily.
Drugs like heroin, oxycontin, cocaine, and meth are more powerful than the natural chemicals the brain produces to be happy, so these "flash-back" type experiences overpower ones natural chemistry. It takes at least a year for this natural chemical balance to be restored and most "recoverying" addicts cannot take the anxiety and depression they are causing for any length of time without relapsing back to otheir drug of choice or drug of availability.
The Biophysical method uses a purification technology in conjunction with vitamins and minerals to release these toxic residues stored in fat tissue, back into the blood stream where they are then forced out of the body, leaving the person free of this contamination and free of the cravings, anxiety or depression caused by the side effects of these drugs. This enables a return to a natural chemical balance, which is wjy these types of programs don't subscribe to the addige, "Once and Addict, Always and Addict". This type of drug rehabilitation center uses a social educational model to restore ethics and build life-skills to ensure their graduates are drug free and productive members of society. Drug Rehab Programs with this method are having a success rate of over 78%. This is why Biophysical drug treatment centers are the most highly recommended and fastest growning form of treatment.
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