What is Involved in an Intensive Inpatient Drug Treatment Program?

Luxury rehab facilities, like the ones that cater to celebrities and that are often depicted in popular culture, do exist and a rehab program at one of those facilities might look like a 4-week spa vacation to anyone who is not familiar with addiction recovery. Inpatient drug treatment programs, whether at a luxury or any other facility, almost always involve intensive therapy and near round-the-clock monitoring of recovering addicts. Those programs are nothing like a vacation but are instead an attempt to reboot an addict’s life to keep him away from the drugs or alcohol that first drove him into the program.

Inpatient Drug Treatment Programs

Most inpatient programs require a recovering addict to check into the rehab facility for 28 to 90 days. The actual length of the rehab stay will be a function of the depth of the addictions and other aspects of an addict’s individual profile. The patient will undergo an initial detox period, which might last a week or more, followed by daily counseling and therapy sessions for the remainder of the stay. If the detox phase poses physical or other health dangers, a program might recommend that an addict go through detox at a hospital or other medical facility that can better monitor vital signs and react to seizures and other severe withdrawal symptoms. Subsequent therapy sessions will delve into the cause of the patient’s addictions and give him tools to fend off those causes when he has completed his inpatient stay.Inpatient programs strive to eliminate distractions from a patient’s life. Because of this, those programs typically have strict rules and guidelines for the personal possessions that a patient can bring with him. Inpatient programs rarely, if ever, allow an individual to bring any of his own drug therapies or pharmaceutical products, even extending that ban to common products like aspirin. They might also restrict or limit internet access and preclude patients from bringing personal computers, cell phones and tablets to connect to the internet. Treatment programs will schedule multiple activities to keep their patients involved and active during their stays, but internet usage is deemed to be too individual and at odds with a program’s efforts to teach patients to get past their self-centeredness.

Making Progress Toward Addiction Recovery

Patients might be assigned regular daily chores that are more designed to impose structure on their lives than they are to accomplish the tasks that are assigned to them. Meals are often taken in group environments to give patients an opportunity to socialize, to share their experiences and to receive support from a larger group. Most inpatient programs include individual free time, but counselors and therapists will always be at hand to confirm that a patient is not abusing his free time or doing anything else that is at odds with the goals of the treatment program.Near the end of a treatment program, a recovering addict’s progress will be assessed in anticipation of his discharge from the program. If that progress is determined to be insufficient, an individual’s counselors or therapists might recommend an extension of his inpatient stay or some additional outpatient therapy that can continue for a longer period of time after the discharge. It is important to consider that the end of stay at an inpatient drug treatment center is not the equivalent of being cured of an addiction. It is only the beginning of a cure. The addict will need to continue therapy for many months or years after completing an inpatient program in order to achieve full sobriety.

Finding an Inpatient Rehab Program

Inpatient drug therapy programs can be as different as the hundreds of patients that they treat. If you have questions or you would like more information about different drug treatment programs, please contact the Last Resort Recovery Center (near Austin, Texas) at 512-360-3600. We tailor our programs to each individual’s needs. If our programs are not consistent with what you are seeking, we can help you find the best treatment program for you.