Recent world events have greatly increased stress levels and left many people in severe isolation. If your experience with all this pressures has led to experimentation with addictive substances, you’re not alone. However, it’s possible to get help with your addiction concerns and continue to live your life. A review of how outpatient alcohol treatment works may help.
Rehab and treatment allow you to build a healthier response to pain and stress. If you have a family history of addiction, you may have built up a layer of shame around alcohol addiction, or you may have the mindset that alcohol addiction is the source of all troubles in your life and conquering addiction will conquer all problems. Finally, you may have been taught to believe that addiction is a matter of willpower. The counseling and therapies that are part of both inpatient and outpatient rehab can help manage all of this pressure.
Outpatient Rehab is Flexible Support
You can get quality support from an outpatient program, but you may have homework. If you’re in an outpatient program, you will need to attend private counseling and group therapies. You may need to undergo regular drug screenings, up to and including bloodwork. Your family may also be required to participate in therapies for their own healing and in support of you.
One of the things that inpatient therapy can give you is nutritional and hydration support. Be prepared to keep a food and liquids journal throughout the day to boost your physical health. There are many emotional reactions that can come up if you’re dehydrated and hungry that can make it much harder to manage your cravings. Keep this journal close and track your emotions prior to and after each meal and snack.
Detox May Need to Be Inpatient
There may be some people who can undergo detox outside an inpatient facility. For example, if the addiction has not been active for very long or you have a very safe, stable home situation, a home detox may be possible. However, for too many people, this is simply not possible.
Rehab is all about healing by building new skills. Detox from alcohol can be fatal if you’re not well-monitored, hydrated, and supported. The folks who work in detox may be used to dealing with an angry, nauseous and possibly violent person in the throes of withdrawal but your family will not be. You may do serious damage to an already fragile relationship by trying to detox with the support of a loved one. If you can’t find an inpatient detox that offers outpatient alcohol rehab, you may need to look for a halfway house that you can use for your detox.
Owning Your Environment
As you work through your outpatient treatment program, you will still spend a lot of time in the environment that contributed to your addiction. If you have addiction in your family, that stress and pressure may still be acting on you. If your social group uses alcohol regularly, you may end up feeling quite lonely or out of place. You may struggle to remove alcohol from your life and not lose relationships.
Part of the work of outpatient rehab includes heading to the rehab facility on a regular basis for group meetings and individual counseling. Your spouse, parents and even your children may need to join you for some of these sessions. Every aspect of your outpatient treatment can be focused on the future that you want to build, but you may need to strike out on your own in the free time that you do have to find a more supportive community.
If you were required to undergo rehab by the courts, some of those social decisions may have been made for you. You may also be working hard to salvage a marriage or maintain contact with your children. A quality outpatient rehab program can help you manage the legal requirements as well as reconnecting with estranged family.
Help and healing are possible. Detox will not be easy and an outpatient rehab program will put a great deal of pressure on you to meet requirements. However, you can stay with your family and in your community and still get help. Ready to get started? Call us today at 833.970.2054.
