One will often need rehab, or rehabilitation, after an illness or injury. Rehab can occur in a hospital, other in-patient facility, at home or in a walk-in clinic. Rehab can take on many forms, depending on the reason for it. For example, after an injury, one often needs to strengthen an injured limb that may have been in a cast for an extended period of time. Rehab is often needed after surgery also, to help a person use a part of their body. Rehab can involve speech, occupational, and physical therapies.
Addiction rehab is difficult to finish, but it is worth sticking out. Rehab is able to grant you a new start to life — drug free. If you don’t believe that it is worth trying to finish out your rehab, keep reading because it is worth finishing.
A large part of addiction rehab is making sure you have a new, more productive hobby to fall back on in times of stress. This keeps you from going back into the vicious cycle you recently left. Some of the options are art — such as painting or drawing — and other activities that are done with your hands.
Not only will this do wonders, but art specifically has been developed into a therapy for recovering addicts. It’s called art therapy, of course. There are many different types, but the idea is the same with all forms of it: to allow the addict to come away from their addiction without feeling reliant on other drugs.
Art allows the addicts to express themselves. Whether they decide to do it through painting, coloring, or drawing, there is something in the realm of art for everyone in addiction rehab. If art happens to replace the addiction along the way, it only makes it easier to get off the drugs or the alcohol.
Creating Support Systems
Another big part of rehab is making sure that addicts have the support system they need when they feel as if they are going to go into a relapse. This system allows them to go to a few people they feel like they can trust first, and if they really need it, go to more people to help them escape the pressures to use again. The system could include others in the rehab center, their families, friends, and maybe even a few trusted individuals who work at the rehab center.
The support system also helps other addicts in the center. Whether this means simply going to a friend that they’ve made via group therapy sessions or by using free time to take a walk, you will have someone else there who at least understands how powerful addictions can be. They may not be undergoing therapy for the same type of addiction, but they understand.
A Good Kind of Isolation
You will also be isolated from the addictive substance for a while in therapy. Whether this means you don’t have access to the drug or to alcohol will depend, but it offers an environment that can run you to the cold turkey breaking point and help you get away from the addiction. Isolation from the substance also allows you to explore your personality and figure out if you really want to stay addicted — which very few want.
Addiction rehab also isolates you from those who got you started with the addiction. This is particularly helpful for those who are part of a circle of friends who use the substance. You can cut off all communication with them starting there, and then continue to keep the communications off when you get out. Referring back to the support system, you will have new friends who will want you to stay off the addiction.
For example, imagine we had a mutual friend named Lydia. She began to abuse over the counter painkillers to get high in 2010, and you noticed that she was doing this. Instead of imploring her to get rehab for the addiction, she got you using as well. You have both been doing this for five years.
Your parents finally found out, and took both of you to addiction rehab. They split you up at the center, and refuse to let you see each other. After an incident involving painkillers, Lydia, and you, they send Lydia to another branch of the center. They refuse to tell you which branch. Your parents, meanwhile, have removed her number from your phone and the house phone. They have blocked her on all your social media.
Though it is difficult, you finish in the allotted time for one round of rehab. You remain in contact with some friends you made in the center. About three months after you are released from rehab, you lose your job because they found out you were in rehab and turn to your parents for help.
While they give you shelter, you get a major headache. You take a painkiller and begin to itch to take more to get high. Immediately, your parents hide the medicine and you pull out your new sketchpad and colored pencils. With the worn red pencil from the center, you sketch.
You stay clean.
Do you see how the rehab system helps you, even though it is incredibly difficult to go through the first time? You may not succeed in staying clean every time, but you will be given the support you need to stay clean the majority of the time.
Honestly, rehab can change your entire life. You can turn your life around with a 180 after rehab, but it all depends on you utilizing the resources you are given during rehab.
You hear the incredible stories about the addicts who stay clean after they go through rehab. What you don’t hear about those stories are the willpower and the determination it takes to do that. It’s difficult, yes, but there are those who have done it that you can look to for inspiration.
Let’s look at another hypothetical situation. Say you are part of a drug dealing ring. It’s no big secret that drug dealers often save some for themselves, and you become addicted to the drug you sell.
Police bust you, but decide that since you never actually decided to sell any and were only using, you are going to go to rehab instead of jail. Since it’s court ordered, you have to go or face jail time.
With that motivator, you finish out your rehab session. The court says you must take two, so you start a second one. This keeps you away from the news of the ring’s trial. Therefore, you have no idea where they end up by the time you are out of the second session. Meanwhile, you have developed quite the talent for writing horror stories.
You use this talent to keep yourself clean by setting a word count that you wish to write each day. It starts small but gets larger as you need a larger count to keep you busier.
In all, no matter where you decide to go for rehab or how many times it takes you to finish the session, it is incredibly worth it for you, your family, and your friends.