Ending your relationship with something that you are addicted to is a hard thing to explain to someone who hasn’t been in your shoes. From the outside, addiction is hard to comprehend because it appears like the only issue present is that you need to stop using a particular substance or performing a certain behavior.
While on one level, that is what’s happening, it’s a lot harder to address than someone standing outside could understand, and that’s because addictions tend to be highly complex things that are entangled with many aspects of your being. Your childhood and early adolescence, your past relationships, your emotional, mental and physical needs that have been habitually unmet and your sense of control over your own life are all factors at play, and this means treating addiction requires an awareness of this.
Addictions don’t form in vacuums, and this means there are often things outside of the addiction that needs to be addressed for a full recovery. With that in mind, the following will explore one potential pathway for healing from addiction: residential treatment plans.
What Is Residential Treatment?
Residential treatment for addiction is sometimes also called in-patient drug rehab. It’s an addiction treatment process that involves a live-in experience at a treatment facility. The main reason someone would seek out residential treatment over a non-residential treatment plan is that it allows individuals to be provided with 24-hour care while they end their relationship with an addictive substance or behavior. The care offered is often fully comprehensive and can entail a wide variety of therapies and supportive activities.
Residential treatment facilities welcome people of all ages, genders, and sexual orientations. There are facilities for specific age groups or for people facing specific addictions.
You can find a “womens treatment program” an addiction-specific treatment program, or a program that takes into account specific past experiences. There are women-only facilities as well as co-ed options. Stays can range from anywhere between 28 days to six months or more.
Every residential treatment facility has its own culture, and this means that there’s a wide variety of options. There are retreat-based treatment centers where a portion of the treatment approach involves a focus on stepping back from the chaos of everyday life and enjoying the beautiful scenery. There are treatment facilities that focus on the healing that can occur when humans interact with animals. There are art-based retreatment facilities where therapeutic uses of the arts are taught and employed.
Detox Support
For some, recovering from addiction involves a detox period. Often this process is uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing. Going through this part of the recovery process with healthcare and wellness professionals nearby can help reduce the worry that comes with the experience. You know that any health issues that arise will be dealt with immediately. You will also be provided with everything you need to feel more comfortable throughout the process.
A Supportive Community
One of the major benefits of a residential treatment plan involves being surrounded by a supportive community. It’s not uncommon for people who struggle with addiction to have friends, family members, or work colleagues that are deeply entrenched in the substances or behaviors they would like to leave behind. In a residential treatment facility, every person you interact with wants to support your recovery or is likewise trying to move on from addiction. The people around you will have an understanding of your situation, and many will have past personal experiences that allow them to relate to you and your struggles. This can be incredibly conducive to healing as well as foster genuine, healthy, supportive relationships.
Often times group therapy is an option within residential treatment plans. Sharing and connecting with other people who have faced some of the same challenges that you have can be incredibly healing.
Tranquil Environment
Another benefit of a residential addiction treatment plan is the tranquil environment. In-patient facilities present people with a calm, safe environment in which they can detox and heal. It’s common for facilities to have no internet access as well, ensuring that clients are about to completely pull back from social pressures and the outside world, giving them time to focus on themselves and their wellbeing.
Removing the everyday stressors of life like taking out the trash, vacuuming, going to work or looking for work, picking up groceries, cooking healthy meals, and all the other daily obligations that fill our lives can give you the mental space you need to listen to your inner self and feel out emotions that you’ve had to suppress in order to make it through the day. Many people find the step back allows them to form healthier habits that support recovery.
Having space from your triggers and stressors can facilitate your recovery. The environment is also free of temptations; it involves a literal distance between you and the substances you would like to avoid.
Nutritional And Health Support
It’s not uncommon for people struggling with addictions to have suffered negative effects on their physical health. In-patient treatment facilities can provide people with the nutritional education and health support they need to physically recover from months or years of addiction. Doctors are present who can examine your physical needs and help you find ways to meet them, treating any physical ailments or side effects of your addiction that need treating. It’s not uncommon for people with addictions to have sources of physical pain as part of their daily lives; sometimes, they’ve had these pains for so long that they don’t even consider that they can be gotten rid of.
The above information should have outlined a few of the reasons why someone might want to use a residential component of their treatment plan for addictions. If any of the above benefits resonate with you, it would be a good idea to bring this up with your healthcare provider. They should be able to direct you to a couple of options that might be good first for you. It’s important to take the time to call potential residential treatment facilities to speak about their focuses and perspectives on recovery. Addictions recovery often involves vulnerability and trust, and this means your feelings about a facility are an important factor in deciding which treatment plan is right for you.
