5 Ways Inpatient Drug Rehab Can Change Your Life

Many individuals struggle to make the choice to attend inpatient rehab. It can be difficult to live away from your family and to stay in a facility full of strangers. In addition, the program can often be expensive and unnecessary depending on a particular patient’s needs and diagnosis. However, inpatient drug rehab can be absolutely essential to certain individuals, even becoming the defining time of their recovery. Here are 5 ways that inpatient drug rehab can change your life for the better.

We can help you find inpatient rehab. Call 800-430-1407Who Answers? toll free to for help today.

1. You Can Make a Friend for Life.

Attending inpatient rehab at a facility with other patients can seem daunting at first; you will not know the other individuals and you may be wondering if it will be hard to fit in or even to talk with them. The truth is that you and all the other patients in your treatment program will have a shared experience: the experience of addiction and the desire to make a change.

Many inpatient programs utilize group therapy, especially therapeutic communities and other models that rely on resocialization, to help patients communicate with one another and reflect on their own experiences. According to the NIDA, “Research has shown that when group therapy either is offered in conjunction with individualized drug counseling or is formatted to reflect the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy or contingency management, positive outcomes are achieved.”

Group therapy, leisure time, and other essential components of inpatient drug rehab allow you to socialize and come to know other patients at the facility. These individuals may become important to you, and you could start a friendship that could carry on even after treatment. In addition, some individuals are able to find this kind of connection with a doctor, nurse, counselor, or therapist which allows them to forge a bond with the individual giving them their treatment. In whatever way, inpatient treatment can allow you to meet others who may become more essential to your new sober life than you ever would have realized.

2. You Can Discover a Co-occurring Disorder You Didn’t Know You Had.

Inpatient treatment will help you heal from the inside out.

This may seem like a negative aspect, but inpatient facilities are the best places to work through and receive treatment for another co-occurring disorder such as

• Depression
• Bipolar disorder
• PTSD
• Panic disorder
• Agoraphobia
• Generalized anxiety disorder
• Schizophrenia
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

According to the NLM, “At least half of those who become addicted” have a mental disorder or illness that feeds into their constant drug abuse. It can often be difficult to tell if the disorder or the addiction came first, but one should not be treated for one without treatment for the other. Many patients start attending rehab without even realizing that they are suffering in this way and are able to learn that the development of their addiction was more complicated than they once believed.

Receiving treatment for an issue like this at an inpatient facility can change a person’s entire life for the better; by receiving a dual diagnosis and treatment for both disorders, patients can learn better coping skills and see a change in the way they are affected by the everyday experiences in their lives.

Inpatient rehab centers can provide you with the support you need. Call 800-430-1407Who Answers? toll free to find the right treatment center for you.

3. You Can Remember What It Is Like to Live Without Drugs.

Whether your inpatient treatment program is 30 days or 6 months long, you will finally be reminded of what it is like to live without drugs. If you have been addicted to a substance for several months or longer, it may have become something you’ve taken for granted, and you could have possibly felt on occasion that you would never be able to stop.

While you will likely be given medication during rehab, there is a large difference between abusing drugs and taking doctor-recommended medication for your symptoms. Attending inpatient rehab will give you hope that you can live without drugs. That hope you will feel, “the belief that these challenges and conditions can be overcome, is the foundation of recovery” (SAMHSA). It will absolutely change your life to be reminded that living without drugs can be done.

4. You Can Learn Ways to Cope with Stresses, Triggers, and Cravings for After Treatment.

It is much easier to stay away from dangerous drugs in a controlled environment like inpatient treatment than when you leave and go back to your previous life. Many individuals choose not to do so and may decide to transition into an aftercare facility like a sober living house or a halfway house with which your caregivers at the inpatient program will help you. However, you can also learn other ways to cope with the issues in your life that would be likely to cause relapse including

• Ways to recognize your personal triggers
• Ways to avoid cravings or how to cope with them using alternative methods to abusing drugs
• Ways to more easily and safely deal with stress
• Ways to shift your focus onto positive solutions instead of negative ones

In therapy, you will learn may ways to fight the behavioral that led to and sustained your drug abuse. You will also learn to better cope with the stresses of your life through activities like breathing exercises, journaling, etc. Many inpatient facilities even include holistic treatments like art therapy, music, yoga, and tai chi that can also continue to be useful after rehab as well. Instead of feeling that the only way you can help yourself is to take drugs, you will have an arsenal of other options at your command once leaving treatment.

For help finding treatment call 800-430-1407Who Answers? toll free today.

5. You Can Learn to Appreciate Your Life Again.

Being away from your daily life and your loved ones can be a challenge for those in inpatient treatment. However, this can also allow you to learn to appreciate the positive aspects of your life again. Having time away from your loved ones will make you feel grateful for everything they have done to help you and for their presence in your life. You may also begin to acknowledge the positives of your home, job, school, and other aspects of your day-to-day life.

Drug addiction can cause you to become numb and apathetic toward everything expect abusing the substance of your choice. But stepping back can make you realize just how much everything else in your life matters and how you may not be willing to lose those things, which would be likely to happen should you continue abusing drugs.