Addiction Recovery Takes More Than 30 Days
Thirty days of residential inpatient treatment used to be considered the standard of treatment. The short period of time worked for providers, worked for people taking time off of work, and worked for insurance providers. Just thirty days of treatment, however wasn’t working for the people going to treatment.
As addiction has become more prevalent and a wider problem thousands are relapsing and overdosing every day. What is likely years of hard substance abuse cannot be changed in thirty days. Great changes can and will be made within the amount of time someone spends at a residential treatment program.
How Longer Term Care Helps
Longer term care, like including a step down process of lower levels of care after treatment, is proven to be more effective in creating long term recovery. The ratio is simple to understand: long term substance abuse, short term treatment, short term recovery versus long term substance abuse, long term treatment, long term recovery. Longer periods of treatment allow the body to make its changes, for bumps in the road to be experienced in a safe and structured environment full of trained professionals with personal experience who are available 24 hours a day.
At Lakehouse Recovery Center, we offer residential inpatient as well as intensive outpatient. Our residential graduates have access to our intensive outpatient program after they graduate. We also provide a twelve month aftercare program to help monitor progress, keep clients accountable, and help the get back on track if they start to slip.
Lower levels of care don’t often change the quality of treatment. Each level of care reduces the amount of time o e spends in treatment and the amount of structure as well as responsibility. For example, in residential inpatient there is typically a chef preparing the meals. In lower levels of care at least one meal a day will be the responsibility of the client. T
his slow transition into independence might seem futile without understanding the delicacy of addiction in the brain. Too much responsibility, too much pressure, too soon, can trigger a relapse. Despite spending thirty days in a treatment setting, someone who goes to treatment is only just beginning to learn how to practice their new skills for managing stress, taking care of themselves, and staying sober.
Continuing to stay in treatment long term means taking on those responsibilities and putting new tools to the test- in a safe and structured environment. At home, without the help of a treatment program, it is easy to fall into old thought patterns and default solutions. This isn’t because addicts are weak or cannot take care of themselves. It is because they are learning how to take care of themselves in an entirely new way, which requires practice.
Ultimately, the reason only attending inpatient treatment might not be considered “enough” is because the threat of not getting “enough” treatment is overdose. Addiction is a chronically progressive and fatal disease. People who go to treatment deserve the time they need to learn how to live safely and thrive for the rest of their life without drugs and alcohol.
Lakehouse Recovery Center takes recovery seriously. We know that there is a solution for everyone who needs to learn how to live without drugs and alcohol. For information on our residential detox and inpatient programs as well as our intensive outpatient and aftercare, call us today: 877.762.3707