What exactly is addiciton treatment?

Addiction (or substance use disorder) is the compulsive use of any substance (alcohol or drugs) despite adverse consequences. It also entails loss of control over its consumption – attempts to control its use repeatedly fail.

Addiction is a multi-faceted problem

Drug addiciton and alcohol problem drinking leads to major issues – physical, mental, social (relationships), emotional and spiritual (erosion of ethical or value system).

Several diseases such as liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis, brain stroke, heart disease, etc are directly linked to alcohol problem (physical consequences). Drug addiction leads to job or educational problems, crime and broken relationships. An individual with alcohol problem of drug addiciton tends to lose control of his emotional state – he or she gets angry easily and is not able to manage emotions normally.

Other problems include a negative attitude, loss of memory and concentration, holding resentments and low self-worth and psychosis (psychiatric issues).

Drug addiciton and alcohol problem also causes impaired judgement and irrational thinking – most notably denial. Denial means the person having a drug addiciton or an alcohol problem doesn’t believe he or she has an addiciton problem. Or he or she minimizes or justifies the addictive behavior. So, if the individual does not believe that he or she has a problem, why would they accept a solution (treatment)? This makes it very difficult to get the addict or alcoholic into addiction treatment.

Addiction treatment needs to be holistic

Since addiction affects all areas of the individual’s life, addiction treatment needs to be holistic. In short, this is called ‘rehabilitation’.

The treatment module has to go beyond detox (medical management of withdrawal symptoms) and address areas such as relationships, attitudes, childhood trauma (if any), emotional identification and stress management, restoring a healthy lifestyle and inculcating open-mindedness, honesty and providing strong motivation. Negative emotions such as shame, guilt, fear and anger (abundantly present in individuals with drug addiction and alcohol problem) have to be addressed and therapeutically resolved.

Since addiciton is highly relapse-prone, an effective relapse prevention program needs to be put in place for maintaining abstinence. Good rehabs provide follow-up programs.

Hope for addiciton treatment

Hope Trust rehab in India (established in 2002) is equipped with a multi-disciplinary team to provide comprehensive and holistic addiciton treatment – from detox to relapse-prevention to after care. It also has a strong Family Support Program to provide support for the affected family – after all drug addiction and alcohol problem impacts the family too. It also offers online after care to clients from all over the world.

Hope Trust incorporates CBT (cognitive behavior therapy), 12 Steps facilitation, individual and group counselling, audio-video inputs, psychiatric and medical back-up, and Yoga and meditation to provide a strong and empathetic individualized support program for addiciton recovery. It has vast experience in holistic addiction treatment that is culturally sensitive and gender specific.