Inpatient substance abuse treatment has proven to be one of the most effective ways for confronting a substance abuse problem head-on. During time in an inpatient facility, recovering addicts are not confronted by the pressures of the outside world and can devote themselves full-time to recovery. They aren’t in contact with old using pals, don’t have to face the damage from addiction all at once in an environment of temptation, and have full access to counselors and mental health professionals 24-hours a day. A common question among those entering long-term facilities is just how long they can stay in one of these long-term residential treatment centers.
Stages of Treatment
There are four primary stages of treatment in most recovery centers, as outlined below:
- Detox (A week or less)
- Hospital Treatment (About 14 days)
- Long-term Residential Treatment (30 Days and Over)
These lengths of stay are not set in stone, and every center will have a different length of stay from another. The most common long-term treatment centers, though, will have a stay of at least 30 days, and most of the time, it’s 90 days and longer. In fact, there are some long-term care programs that have residents staying for a year or longer. These programs are intensive and are usually thought of as “halfway houses” in the community.
Halfway houses are structured to allow addicts to have a safe, sober environment to recover while still having access to critical, intensive counseling and group meetings. While recovering addicts will have access to outside experiences, such as working or going to school, they will still reside in the halfway house with their peers and undergo a rigorous program of recovery.
Why Long-term Residential Works
It’s easy to see why someone immediately leaving a detox center after only 7 days of sobriety might struggle when they go right back to the environment they used in. They might have reminders at their home of their last use or might even have drugs or alcohol at the home they go back to. It’s a very short time period away from last use and a very quick re-entry into an unhealthy environment with only a week or two of counseling and group meetings in-between. If the addiction was severe enough, this would be a nightmare relapse scenario for most addicts.
Instead of going right back home and around the same people they used around, many addicts prefer to continue their recovery in a long-term treatment center. It’s often the best method to fend off a quick relapse and get on the road to a stable, comfortable recovery. Learning how to live life sober again is a challenge to people who have used for years and don’t even know where to begin. Even long-time sober recovered people sometimes struggle to remain sober. So it makes good sense that addicts with a severe addiction would choose a long-term program.
Help in a Long-term Facility
A long-term residential program gives recovering people a safe and sober environment, but it gives them much more than that. With individual counseling sessions, social services, and ongoing group meetings and peer support, recovering individuals have the ideal place to get well and stay that way. Addicts in long-term care have a great deal of assurance that there’s always someone to turn to when they have difficulty maintaining sobriety for that day, and of course, there’s the social worker who can help them safely rebuild their lives in an environment where they have enough to eat and potential work ahead of them. These assurances don’t exist when an recovering person simply goes home from the hospital after only 7 days of sobriety.
Programs available for recovery include relapse prevention classes, individual counseling such as dialectical behavioral therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, and peer support through guided group meetings and AA/NA meetings. In addition to having a complete program of recovery laid out for them every day, recovering patients also have the peace of mind that comes from knowing none of your neighbors are using drugs. If you have temptations, there’s always a peer or counselor to talk to, and it’s a great environment to be in.
If you want to learn more about long-term residential treatment, we’re the people to call. Our helpful counselors will sit down with you and understand your situation and help you work out a plan of action. Just get in touch with us at (440) 253-9915.
