Alcohol Abuse Rehab
Alcohol is an extremely popular and easily accessible drug. It is legal in almost every country around the world and even in those few places where it is illegal, it is still somewhat tolerated underground.
Alcoholism is an addiction which requires a serious commitment to Alcohol Abuse Rehab. The signs of dependency on alcohol are:
- The individual has a compulsion or craving for an alcohol most of the time.
- The individual has lost control over their alcohol consumption, how much to drink and how often.
- The individual continues to drink despite negative consequences, such as interpersonal relationships, family situations, and interference with obligations
Withdrawal from alcohol can begin four to eight hours after the last drink and may last for days. Some of the symptoms of withdrawal include:
- Vomiting
- Insomnia
- Anxiety
- Agitation
- Sweating
- Increased pulse rate
- Hand tremors
- Nausea
- Hallucinations (rare)
- Seizures (rare)
When these symptoms are recognized there is no further choice but to rush the person to an Alcohol Abuse Rehab for immediate treatment, as their life may be in danger.
Alcohol Abuse Rehab focuses directly on reducing or stopping the alcoholic's consumption of massive amounts of alcohol, while it is addressing the various related areas which impair the normal every day functioning of the alcoholic, such as illegal activities, social problems, employment status, and family troubles.
Through Alcohol Abuse Rehab's emphasis on short-term behavioral goals, individualized alcoholism counseling can assist the alcoholic to develop a portfolio of personally effective strategies and tools to prepare themselves for a lifetime of abstinence and the constant struggle to keep from falling back into a critical and tragic relapse.
Alcohol Abuse Rehab provides care twenty four hours per day, seven days a week, and is generally set in comfortable and relaxing settings which bear absolutely no comparison with the stereotypical hospital environment. The best-known residential treatment model is the therapeutic community. However residential treatment may also utilize a wide range of other models, such as cognitive behavioral therapy which has proven to be very successful when applied specifically to the problem of Relapse Prevention.
Therapeutic communities are residential programs with predetermined fixed lengths of stay of between six months and a full year. These therapeutic communities utilize as functional and indispensable components of the alcoholics' treatment a process of the “resocialization” of the individual through integration with the whole “community,” including other patients, community personnel and other ancillary staff.
Addiction to alcohol is thus seen in the light of an individual’s social and psychological troubles and problems while the treatment centers on developing personal responsibility as well as rebuilding lives to be constructive and accepted within society at large.
Alcohol Abuse Rehab treatment within these therapeutic communities is tightly controlled, managed and structured, thus has the tendency to become confrontational at times, since it focuses on activities designed to help recovering alcoholics analyze their own damaging belief matrices, concepts of the self, and ingrained structures of behaviour in order to rebuild the foundation whereby they interact with other people for the rest of their lives which will be spent constantly resisting the temptation to relapse into self-destructive prior forms of alcoholic consumption and high risk behaviors.
Alcohol Abuse Rehabs also are able to offer outpatient drug-free treatment which varies significantly according to the types, frequency and density of the various services which are offered. These outpatient programs generally are far more affordable than therapeutic residential community options and are more suitable for those individuals who can count on significant social supports.
Alcohol Abuse Rehabs are generally not directly involved with the various twelve step programs, although they too have reported a successful number of alcoholics who are able to go through very long periods of time without relapsing into self-destructive consumption of excess amounts of alcohol and the personal and social tragedies that accompany them.
The most well known twelve step program is Alcoholics Anonymous. It has a remarkable success rate, but it is not universally favored since it seems to cross the line between the secular and the religious context. There are many references to theology in Alcoholics Anonymous twelve step dictum which makes some people uneasy about participating in the program, regardless of the success rate. The twelve steps according to Alcoholics Anonymous can be summarized and paraphrased as:
1. Admitting that the alcoholic's life is no longer manageable.
2. Realizing that God could restore sanity.
3. Turning their lives over to God.
4. Making an inventory of individual morality.
5. Admit to everyone that the alcoholic was wrong.
6. Allow God to fix these character flaws.
7. Ask God to remove these particular addictive shortcomings.
8. Make amends to all people who have been wronged.
9. Ensure no injury comes to people who have been wronged.
10. Admit to having been wrong through a personal inventory.
11. Pray for the power to be able to avoid alcoholism.
12. Carry this message to alcoholics and continue to walk this path.
Alcohol Abuse Rehabs have become a staple of celebrity and personality life as it sometimes seems like some well-known characters are constantly running in and out of Alcohol Abuse Rehabs. The alcoholic and their families should not concern themselves with stereotypes played out on the media to get news coverage for celebrities. Alcohol Abuse Rehabs are a valid and important factor in the rehabilitation of alcoholics from all walks of life, and have saved the lives of countless thousands of alcoholics.
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