LGBT Drug Treatment Blog

Drug rehabilitation drug rehab or just rehab, is an umbrella term for the processes of medical and/or psychotherapeutic treatment, for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and so-called street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines. The generally stated intent of drug rehab is to enable the patient to cease his substance abuse, for the sake of avoiding the psychological, legal, financial, social, and physical consequences that can be caused especially by extreme abuse.
Drug rehabilitation tends to address a stated two-fold nature of drug dependency: physical and psychological dependency. Physical dependency involves a detoxification process to cope with withdrawal symptoms from regular use of a drug. With regular use of many drugs, legal or otherwise, the brain gradually adapts to the presence of the drug so that normal functioning can occur. This is how physical tolerance develops to drugs such as heroin, amphetamines, cocaine, nicotine or alcohol. It is also why more of the drug is needed to get the same effect with regular use. The abrupt cessation of taking a drug can lead to withdrawal symptoms where the body may take weeks or months (depending on the drug involved) to return to normal.
Psychological dependency is addressed in many drug rehab programs by attempting to teach the patient new methods of interacting in a drug-free environment. In particular, patients are generally encouraged or required not to associate with friends who still use the addictive substance. Twelve-step programs encourage addicts not only to stop using alcohol or other drugs, but to examine and change habits related to their addictions. Many drug rehab programs emphasize that recovery is a permanent process without a culmination. For legal drugs such as alcohol complete abstention–rather than attempts at moderation, which may lead to relapse–is also emphasized (”One drink is too many; one hundred drinks is not enough.”) Whether moderation is achievable by persons with a history of drug abuse remains a controversial point but is generally considered unsustainable.
There are various types of addiction treatment programs that offer help in drug rehab, including: residential treatment (in-patient), out-patient, local support groups, extended care centers, and sober houses.
Pharmacotherapy’s, to a greater or lesser extent, have come to play a part in drug rehab. Certain opiate medications such as methadone and more recently buprenorphine are widely used and show significant efficacy in the treatment of dependence on other opiates such as heroin, morphine or oxycodone. Methadone and buprenorphine are maintenance therapies used with intent of stabilizing an abnormal opiate system and used for long durations of time though both may be used to withdraw patients from narcotics over short term periods as well. Some antidepressants also show use in moderating drug use, particularly to nicotine, and it has become common for researchers to reexamine already approved drugs for new uses in drug rehabilitation.
Drug rehab is sometimes part of the criminal justice system. People convicted of minor drug offenses may be sentenced to rehabilitation instead of prison, and those convicted of driving while intoxicated are sometimes required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. There have been lawsuits filed, and won, regarding the requirement of attending Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step meetings as being inconsistent with the United States’ Constitutional mandate of separation of church and state.
There are psychotherapists who question the entire validity of the “diseased person” model upon which the drug rehabilitation “industry” is based. Instead, they state that the individual person is entirely capable of rejecting previous behaviors. Further, they contend that the use of the disease model of addiction simply perpetuates the addict’s feelings of worthlessness, powerlessness, and inevitably causes inner conflicts that would be easily resolved if the addict were to approach addiction as simply behavior that is no longer productive, the same as childhood tantrums. Drug rehabilitation does not utilize any of these ideas, inasmuch as they intrinsically contradict the assumption that the addict is a sick person in need of help.