Rehab means different things to people. When my youngest daughter’s friends‘ parents started giving me funny looks. I realised, my daughter had said I was in rehab. So the parents thought my rehab was about alcohol. It was actually rehab to help me walk again. Although I had not wanted to stay overnight it proved to be a good option because I was just so exhausted after each day’s programmes. It also meant nice meals were served up to me . I slept well as I had a private room. All important issues if you’re considering a residential rehab.
The Parent’s reactions though really brought home to me the stigma about saying you need help for alcohol misuse. That’s why our online courses are run on first name or user name only.
Rehab is different depending on where you go.
In alcohol treatments rehab often means staying in a residential treatment centre. Different centres have different entry criteria and you stay there for different lengths of time.
For example, some centres insist you do not take medications such as anti-anxiety drugs.
Centres offer different treatments and have different approaches. Many centres operate a strict Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step approach based on not drinking at all. These centres do not offer harm reduction approaches which help people to reduce their drinking to low risk limits.
Many centres do not deal with mental health issues such as depression. Now if alcohol is causing your depression that may not be a problem. But if you’re misusing alcohol because you are depressed then that service may not be helpful for you. A service which provides counselling to help you deal with your depression will be more useful.
In Ireland, there is no statutory regulation or monitoring of treatment centre outcomes, so you will need to ask questions to make sure the treatment centre is right for you.
All people with an alcohol misuse problem need a residential rehab.
The notion that all people with an alcohol problem need a residential rehab is a myth. Research shows the majority of people abusing alcohol do not need a residential treatment. Situations where a residential stay may be useful include
- Your life is totally chaotic and out of control
- You need “protected” time from your usual responsibilities to focus solely on your recovery
- You’re a danger to yourself e.g. actively suicidal, or consistent drink driving
- You’re unable to reduce your problem drinking to low risk limits despite help from expert programmes
- You have a significant mental illnesses which is not well controlled. Confusingly in Ireland though, the majority of residential centres do not accept people with mental illnesses.
A key thing to look for is support for when you leave the centre. Some centres offer this support which is often called “after care”. You may have to pay extra for this aftercare.
Do I need a residential rehab?
Whether you need a residential stay or not is really an individual decision, based on your needs and the services available in your area. Assuming the factors above do not apply to you, the following supports may be helpful
Educating yourself about alcohol misuse and how to reduce alcohol misuse. You can use the courses on this website or find a suitable community based programme on www.drugs.ie
Joining a peer support group which can be online or face to face meetings. For example our partner Soberistas is an online group. Groups such as AA, or Life ring hold meetings in physical locations. Peer support groups do differ in how they operate. So find one that matches your needs. It should support both your drinking goals and your personality.
Coaching or counselling from an experienced or qualified counsellor can be helpful. We’ll expand on this in a future post.
What do you think ? We’d love to hear your views in the comments below.
Think that ‘s a great idea. http://www.drugs.ie do operate a helpline Mon to Friday but I’m not sure if they have all that information. ideally it would be good to see what other people have to say about their experiences and to actually report on how people are doing after their treatments. There is a new website http://www.patientopinion.ie to allow people to tell their stories anonymously and it would be great to see this being used for alcohol treatments as well.
Love this blog Carol. Finding the right rehab is so hard because if you don’t know what it is you need it’s hard to find what’s going to suit you. I wish there one a “one stop shop” where a person can go to talk with someone who knows every single rehab and how they operate (I was often promised treatments that were to be part of my full care but often it was never delivered) so if one person knew all the centres they could advise a person based on their needs, moral values, lifestyle choices, cash flow and religious ways of life to the best suited residential rehab. I feel this would avoid a lot of “being accepted or rejected for treatment because you have the right or wrong insurance or your signing up for something you don’t really understand” and the outcomes would be better all around.