Outpatient Addiction Treatment

For those who are not familiar with the treatment of addiction, or substance use disorders, if you prefer, it helps to know the different levels of care. A person seeking treatment might be familiar only with inpatient treatment, because they’ve heard of The Betty Ford Center, or some other famous center that treats celebrities and gets into the news.

Celebrities can afford certain levels of treatment that most people with an alcohol or other drug problem can’t afford. For most people treatment must fit the need and the resources to pay for treatment. Even if treatment is provided by the state and costs the client very little, there’s still the problem of limited state resources.

If someone needs detox and can’t get into a program until first the withdrawal is medically managed, they might have to go into an inpatient facility for 24 care until they’re past the withdrawal phase, then they’d go to outpatient addiction treatment outside a 24 hour care facility.

Some people who’re dealing with an alcohol or other drug problem can go straight into outpatient, although they might require some type of medication management for the first week or so, but outside a 24 hour care facility. It depends on the severity of the addiction and the person’s ability to stay away from the alcohol or other drug without being locked away from the temptations.

Sometimes, a person might go to outpatient simply because they can’t afford inpatient and don’t meet the criteria for state assistance. In this case, the treatment professionals will do all they can to help the person maintain abstinence while receiving group therapy and individual counseling. It helps if the client also goes to an outside support group like AA or NA while attending outpatient. Between medical management of withdrawals, group therapy, individual counseling, family support, hopefully, and attendance at a support group, the client ought to have good chance of remaining abstinent long enough to develop a plan of recovery for the long term.

Intensive outpatient gives the client the best chance to remain abstinent and receive the education and counseling necessary to combat the cravings, negative thoughts, emotional confusion and peer pressure. Intensive outpatient usually entails about 12 hours of treatment a week, mostly in the form of group therapy. The client gains strength when others are also going through the same experience. When group members begin helping one another stay clean and sober, it’s a far more effective form of therapy than one on one counseling once or twice a week.

Too many people with an addiction problem think that any therapist can help them get better, but if the treatment is not provided by professionals trained in addictive disorders who understand the process of recovery, then lasting change is unlikely. Addiction is a specific brain disease with specific behaviors and experiences and should be treated by specialists just as cancer or specific mental health disorders are treated by specialists. Intensive outpatient is an effective form of treatment, either on its own or as a follow up to inpatient stabilization.