There are several clear facts about effective treatment for addiction to drugs or alcohol.
The first is that if someone addicted to alcohol or other drugs asks for help to quit, the sooner they can access quality addictions treatment the better their chances for a positive outcome.
On the other hand, due to the delusion and denial associated with active addiction most addicted people are squeezed into treatment with little alternative, and it has been proven that external pressure from family, friends, employers and even the judicial system can actually enhance treatment outcomes.
The old myth that one has to “want it” for rehab to work is untrue.
Pressuring a loved one into receiving some form of treatment, has little to do with whether rehab will be successful or not.
This is possibly the greatest addiction treatment myth – that patients need to be “highly motivated” when entering rehab for treatment to be effective – is entirely false.
Being forced into addictions treatment can actually improve treatment effectiveness. It’s important to understand that pre-admission levels of motivation have little to do with successful treatment results.
Once a person is addicted it’s quite natural to have a low level of insight into their condition and minimise the negative consequences that their addiction brings about. This is all quite natural and is a feature of the denial that all people addicted to alcohol or other drugs experience.
However, if the individual does have a moment of clarity and actually asks for advice on how to stop drugging, then we should have that help on hand and available immediately.
The acknowledgement that advice and support are needed may mean this is a great opportunity to help the addicted person experience a meaningful shift in personality. Hopefully a shift so extreme that it brings about a need for them not to return to a life of active addiction.
Many people reach a point in their addiction where the mental obsession and physical compulsion to get and use drugs becomes immensely destructive.
This downward cycle of continuing to find ways to keep getting and using drugs again and again has severe consequences to the addicted person to their families, their finances, their careers as well their emotional, mental and physical health.
At this stage the most commonly available stop drugs advice is exactly that – just stop! Unfortunately this isn’t always that easy. In most cases when a person addicted to alcohol or other drugs quits they need a drug detox.
Sadly there is such a negative stigma attached to the term addiction that many suffering with the effects of using drugs hesitate to ask for advice when trying to stop drugs.
However, it is widely accepted in the professional addictions counselling field that drug addiction is an illness, a brain disease in the same way that diabetes is a disease, it is not curable but it is treatable.
The 12-step programmes first step is an admission of this concept. This acceptance will allow anyone with a drug problem to investigate stop drugs advice that is available. If drug abuse has become a problem sympathetic professional addiction advice is the most immediately beneficial.
Many therapists specialise in addictions counselling, doctors and psychiatrists are increasingly aware of the problems associated with stopping drugs and give advice accordingly.
There are significant numbers of reputable addictions treatment centres or rehabs with a multidisciplinary addictions team who can give stop drugs advice in very real practical terms. More importantly these professional counsellors will be experienced at giving advice on how to stay stopped!
When drug abuse has become a major problem addiction rehab is often the most effective way to stop drugs and begin the progression to a drug free life.
Most upmarket addiction clinics incorporate the 12 Step Programme first developed to help problem drinkers (AA-Alcoholics Anonymous) and now common to many self-help support groups throughout the world. These groups such as NA (Narcotics Anonymous) hold regular meetings where people with drug problems meet regularly to exchange their experiences of using and how they stay away from drugs on a daily basis.
In part 2 of our Stop Drugs Advice article we focus on some of the practicalities to getting off and staying off drugs!