When you receive care for your addiction, the whole point of it, and what you are looking ahead to, is recovery. But the process of recovery is rarely as straightforward as you might hope it to be, and that is something that all addicts should bear in mind when they first seek out help with their addictions.
In this article, we will take you through the basics of addiction recovery, including what you can expect with ongoing, continued care. Knowing this from the outset can make the whole experience a lot easier to manage psychologically, and it means you are empowered to make the right choice for yourself.
The Levels Of Care
Detox
First of all, it might be important to note the various levels of care that you are likely to go through when you seek help with an addiction. First up you have the detox phase. This is where you are actually being medically detoxed from the substance you are addicted to, whether it is alcohol, heroin or whatever else. This is important as your body needs to first be ‘clean’ of the substance before you can move on to other levels of care.
Residential Care
This is not always necessary, but it is for those who might have particularly heavy addictions which require more help. Essentially, with residential care, you are staying in detox for a longer period of time, to ensure there are no relapses and that you are safely detoxing from the drug. It is all about being monitored and stabilized effectively.
Intensive Outpatient
Once that is completed, you move on to what is known as intensive outpatient. It is also sometimes referred to as partial hospitalization, and essentially during this period you are going to stay in a housing unit where you essentially live your life, doing your own cooking and shopping and cleaning and so on, but six days a week you have intensive therapy.
Outpatient
Once you have completed that intensive stage, you can step down to outpatient. What this means is that you are no longer living in the care of the residency – in fact, you are living your normal life back at home, but you are an outpatient now. But you are going to need to come back for group sessions every week, which can be as many as three times per week, depending on what you need.
Beyond that, it is just about reducing the amount of group sessions you have to attend, down to once a week, then once every two months, and finally once a month. Of course, this is all going to be dependent on how well you are recovering, and it is something that is going to be closely monitored at all times throughout the process.
So that is a general overview of what you can expect to get out of the addiction recovery process. Remember that if you want to find out more or seek some help, you can always get in touch with us to do so.
