The Complications of Court-Ordered Rehab
Many men and women who have drug charges are sentenced by the court to get sober. They are forced into addiction treatment because of legal consequences. However, when a person is forced into doing something, he or she will have different feelings about sobriety than someone who chose to get sober on their own.
Someone who is forced to get sober might lack the commitment, inner strength, and dedication that sobriety requires. They might go through the motions of treatment, but they might not have the inner resolve to stay sober. These are some of the complications of being court-ordered to get sober.
Yet, what the courts are hoping for is that a person who attends one-on-one counseling, support groups, 12-step meetings, and family therapy will at some point want to get sober on their own. In fact, at some point, in order for a person to stay sober, there must be a transition from the external pressure to get sober to an internal desire to get sober.
It’s a slow process and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight. However, there are thousands of men and women who have made this transition. There are many recovered addicts who slowly internalized the support they were forced to receive in the beginning and they made it their own.
Structure In Drug Treatment
If you notice, drug treatment includes an incredible amount of structure. And it does so for many reasons. The structure keeps a person from sneaking out at night, trying to high in the middle of the night, or stealing from others in order to buy drugs.
The structure is what keeps you and others safe. However, the structure also gives a person a sense of internal structure, something they may not have at all. In fact, for many people, part of getting sober is learning how to develop that internal structure for themselves.
Structure Helps You Recover
Many addicts have little structure in their lives. They are going to bed at 3am, waking up at noon, eating nothing until 7pm, and drinking as soon as they get up. This kind of lifestyle is dangerous and unhealthy. In order to stay sober (even if sobriety was forced upon someone) a person needs to learn how to create that structure for themselves. They need to learn how to take the drug treatment philosophy and apply it to their lives.
In fact, it’s not only the structure that makes its way on the inside, but it’s the beliefs, thoughts, behaviors, and choices that must be internalized. That whole new way of experiencing life that a new recovering addict discovers becomes the life that he or she actually lives. And that is a process of changing the patterns of one’s mind.
This is what the courts are hoping for when they send someone to addiction treatment. They’re hoping that the structure, beliefs, behaviors, and choices of sobriety stick. They’re hoping that a person develop a regular pattern of eating, sleeping, and taking care of themselves.
They’re hoping that a person learns how to pay attention to their thoughts and choices, how to establish a regular routine of going to therapy, and how to internalize a sober mindset.
Of course, adopting the sober mindset, especially when it is forced upon someone, might take time. But it’s possible that someone who enters drug treatment, even against their will, might find treatment meaningful and supportive.
If you are reading this on any other blog than The Lakehouse Recovery Center or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.
Follow us on twitter @TheLakehouseRC
Come and visit our blog at https://lakehouserecoverycenter.com/blog/