What do you do after you discharge from a drug or alcohol Rehab? Most Drug Rehab Programs refer individuals to an aftercare program or a primary therapist. In Some cases individuals leaving a residential treatment program, will be encouraged by the staff to enter into a sober living environment.
There are reasons for a rehab program to suggest that someone go into a Sober Living environment. In most cases the treatment program is trying to help the individual avoid a high risk situation that could cause a relapse or avoid an environment that would be unsafe for the individual. Sometimes the staff of a drug rehab facility might believe that the individual needs to break ties with the enabling of the family so the individual can learn independence and financial responsibility. Sober living homes would be ideal for allowing and individual to begin this process.
Below is a list of reasons to use a Sober Living Homes:
• Safety of Individual would be compromised if they were to return to old environment.
• Need a fresh start away from old friends and playmates.
• To learn Independence and break the enabling cycle.
• Need more support around people who are engaged in recovery practices.
• Have a tendency to isolate upon discharging from a rehab •
Have a history of relapse and need accountability.
• Still need a structured environment to finish taking the 12-Steps.
There are many other reasons to go into a sober living home upon discharge from a Residential Drug Rehab Program.
ScienceDaily (Dec. 17, 2010) — A little-used medication can help treat alcoholism, an updated review of studies confirms. At any given time, about 5 percent of the population suffers from an addiction to alcohol, often with devastating consequences to work, family, friends and health. Twelve-step programs have been the mainstay for helping alcoholics to quit drinking, but a significant number of people who try these programs do not find them helpful or suffer relapses.
The Cochrane review finds that the medication naltrexone -- brand names are Depade and ReVia -- when combined with counseling or interventions like Alcoholics Anonymous, can help cut the risk of heavy drinking in patients who are dependent on alcohol.
Naltrexone works by blocking the pleasurable feelings, or "high," a person gets from drinking alcohol, thereby reducing motivation to drink. Naltrexone can be taken daily as a pill and is available as a long-acting injection.
The review was published by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
"Hundreds of drugs have been tried for relapse prevention [in alcoholism] and basically all others have failed," said Michael Soyka, M.D., senior author of the review. "From a clinical point of view, there are few pharmacologic options for the treatment of alcohol dependence, so it is important to study those options that look promising." Soyka and lead review author Suanne Roesner are associated with the psychiatric hospital at the University of Munich.
Alcohol dependence is different from alcohol abuse or misuse. The symptoms of alcohol dependence include craving for alcohol, an inability to control drinking, the presence of withdrawal symptoms if one tries to quit and tolerance -- the need to increase alcohol amounts to feel the same effect. People who only abuse alcohol and are not dependent on it have no trouble controlling their drinking, once they decide to do so.
Soyka and colleagues examined the results of 50 previously published high-quality studies on naltrexone and alcohol dependence. Overall, the studies enrolled nearly 7,800 patients diagnosed with alcohol dependence. Of these, about 4,200 patients took naltrexone or a similar drug called nalmefene. The rest of the patients took a placebo or had some other type of treatment. Treatment with naltrexone ranged from four weeks to a year, with most patients receiving about 12 weeks of treatment. Most patients also received counseling.
Researchers found that patients who received naltrexone were 17 percent less likely to return to heavy drinking than were patients who received a placebo treatment. "That would mean that naltrexone can be expected to prevent heavy drinking in one out of eight patients who would otherwise have returned to a heavy drinking pattern," Soyka said.
Naltrexone also increased the number of people who were able to stay abstinent by 4 percent.
While at first glance that might not seem like a miracle cure for alcoholism, Soyka said that the effectiveness of naltrexone is on par with medications used for other psychiatric conditions.
"Naltrexone is moderately effective in reducing alcohol intake. It's about as effective as antidepressants in depressive disorders," he said. "From a safety point of view, there are few safety concerns. Nausea is the most frequent side effect."
Carlton Erickson, Ph.D., director of the Addiction Science Research and Education Center at the University of Texas in Austin, says naltrexone can help a person with alcohol dependence move toward the goal of abstinence.
"Anytime you reduce the severity of drinking, the individual is more open to treatment for abstinence," he said. "It's almost like putting them through a series of steps if you can get them to cut down; once they start to cut down they are more likely to become abstinent with continued treatment and continued exposure to 12-step programs." Erickson is not associated with the review or any of its authors.
Despite its possible benefits in treating alcohol dependency, naltrexone is not widely used in the United States or elsewhere, Erickson said. Some addiction specialists fear that the widespread use of naltrexone or other medications will result in patients not receiving the counseling or psychological interventions they need.
There is also a lingering attitude that the treatment of alcohol dependency must rely solely on psychological or spiritual methods.
"People in 12-step programs typically don't believe in medications for the treatment of alcoholism," Erickson said. "Therefore they are unlikely to accept anyone into their 12-step meetings who is on a medication like naltrexone. Secondly, they would not want to accept it for themselves, unless a physician talked them into it as part of their treatment plan."
In addition, most large alcohol treatment centers, with the exception of Hazelden, do not advocate for the use of medications in the management of addiction, he said.
However, Erickson said that naltrexone is FDA-approved only as an adjunct to abstinence-based therapies, like Alcoholics Anonymous. "Naltrexone is not something you give to someone who says 'I want to stop drinking, give me a pill.' Naltrexone is only a helper to that process. The medication itself is not a magic bullet."
The review discloses that two authors received speaker/consultancy/advisory board honoraria from pharmaceutical companies.
Addiction is a chronic disorder proposed to be precipitated by a combination of genetic, biological/pharmacological and social factors.
Addiction is a compulsion to repeat a behaviour regardless of its consequences.
A person who is addicted is sometimes called an addict.
Addiction is often characterized by a craving for more of the drug or behavior, increased physiological tolerance to exposure, and withdrawal symptoms in the absence of the stimulus.
Many drugs and behaviours that provide either pleasure or relief from pain pose a risk of addiction or dependency.
For more information about the topic Addiction, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:
Substance abuse — Substance abuse refers to the overindulgence in and dependence on a stimulant, depressant, chemical substance, herb (plant) or fungus leading to ... > read more
Drug addiction — Drug addiction, or substance dependence is the compulsive use of psychoactive drugs, to the point where the user has no effective choice but to ... > read more
Narcotic — A narcotic is an addictive drug that reduces pain, induces sleep and may alter mood or behaviour. In US legal context, narcotic refers to opium, ... > read more
Detox — Detox, short for detoxification, in general is the removal of toxic substances from the body. It is one of the functions of the liver and kidneys, ... > read more
