Category: Family Resources

Can You Force Someone to Go to Rehab?

If your loved one is struggling with drugs or alcohol, watching them do so can be the hardest thing. Not only are you aware of what they are doing to themselves, you’re aware of treatment and options to help. Rehab clinics or substance use disorder treatment centers are designed to help people overcome physical addiction and then build the life skills they need to build a life where they don’t need drugs or alcohol. But, getting them there can be extremely difficult. That’s especially true considering many people are in denial of their substance abuse problems, think they can quit whenever they want, and may not be ready to get help.

The bad news is that no, you can’t force someone to go to rehab unless they are under the age of 18. If your loved one is a minor, you can make them get treatment providing you’re their parent or guardian. However, in every other case, your loved one will have to choose help for themselves. That’s hard, but it also means they are going to be ready for treatment when they go to look for it.

In this article, we’ll expand on that and some of the steps you can take to make sure your loved one gets into treatment. In addition, we’ll go over the legalities of forcing an adult into treatment by taking them to court.

What is Involuntary Commitment?

Today, an estimated 48.6 million Americans struggle with a substance use disorder. This means that almost one in five Americans has a substance use disorder and needs some form of rehab or treatment. In extreme cases, where the individual in question is deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, you can get the law to step in and force that person into care. In addition, that will be easiest if your loved one breaks the law. For example, if your loved one has a history of driving under the influence, especially if they’ve been arrested in the past.

Civil Commitment or involuntary commitment is not available in every state. Otherwise, you can take your loved one to court with proof of their addiction, proof that they are posing a danger to themselves or others (neglect of themselves, driving under the influence, suicidal ideation, violent ideation) and then hand the decision over to a court. This will involve:

A mental assessment where a medical professional will determine if your loved one is able to make informed decisions about their mental health
The family or family doctor (depending on state) has to make a petition to the court requesting involuntary/civil commitment
The court will evaluate the decision
A hearing will be held where the court will decide if it is valid to force the individual to go to rehab or not.

This type of involuntary commitment is legal in about 30% of states. In many, you’ll need a petition filed by at least two people and the family doctor. Here, Colorado is the easiest place to file for involuntary rehab, as the state makes allowances for up to 180 days of involuntary commitment into rehab.

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What Happens if Involuntary Commitment Works?

If you successfully take your loved one to court and have them involuntarily committed to rehab, what next? In most cases, your loved one will be mandated to 30-180 days of mandatory inpatient or outpatient treatment. Here, most forced rehab is “inpatient” meaning that your loved one stays at a facility chosen by the court for that period. In other cases, your loved one may be asked to attend an outpatient program with a probation officer to ensure they keep going. If they don’t, they could end up in jail.

Motivation is a Crucial Part of Treatment

It’s important that people go to treatment when they are ready. For millions of Americans, getting treatment means acknowledging that they have a problem, that they can’t stop on their own, and that they are out of control. That can require a significant mental shift and is a step that can be extremely painful for many people. We’re all used to people who deny that they have a problem. “I don’t drink that much”, “at least I’m not as bad as X”, “I’m not THAT bad”, “I can quit tomorrow if I want,”. All of these phrases come from people who aren’t yet ready to face that they need help. And, that means they won’t benefit from help without significant motivational therapy upfront.

This is known as “resistance to treatment” and results in non-compliance, non-engagement, and high rates of relapse after treatment ends.

Once you understand that, you can take the approach of building motivation to get help. Helping people realize that their substance use disorder is crippling them, getting in the way of their ability to live and enjoy life, and their ability to reach goals. Many people will painfully feel those impacts, especially if they are still at a point where they are living a normal life, working a job, and taking care of family.

Alternatives to Forcing Treatment

“If only I could just make them get help”, is a tempting thought. At the same time, it can be extremely harmful to your loved one and may not have the results you want. Most states will not allow forced rehab unless the situation is truly dire. For example, if your loved one has lost their house, are homeless, and are not taking care of themselves. If your loved one is still functioning normally, you’re generally better off taking other steps first. For example:

Offering Support – Offering support over the long-term, reinforcing that you’re worried about your loved one, and trying to get your loved one into treatment may have an effect over time. However, progress will be slow.
Interventions – Interventions can be a powerful way to force someone to acknowledge that they are struggling and that they need help. If you’re not sure how to hold an intervention, there are generally professional counselors who can help you plan and hold the intervention to maximum effect.
Harm Reduction – Harm reduction strategies work to reduce the harm of substance abuse without forcing your loved one into treatment. That can mean working to ensure clean needles and safe drugs, ensuring naloxone or other anti-overdose medication is available, and ensuring that your loved one drinks or uses under supervision such as a medication-assisted treatment site. The idea is that they are using anyway, you want them to do so in as safe of a manner as possible before they come to the conclusion that they need help.
Going to Therapy – If you can’t get your loved one into rehab, you might still be able to get them into counseling or therapy. That will, in turn, push them into rehab. Here, you generally want to push getting help with things that they are struggling with like mental health, feeling good, side-effects of substance abuse, work, etc., because you are worried about them.

People who aren’t ready to go to rehab are often facing significant stigma and shame. Therefore, one of the most important things you can do for your loved one is to offer support, to destigmatize addiction, and to treat their problem just like you would depression or a broken leg. It’s a problem that needs treatment and then you can recover and be healthy again.

Getting your loved one into treatment can be extremely difficult. If they’re not ready to go, many states don’t even offer a legal alternative. Instead, you’ll be forced into working to motivate your loved one to get help, staging an intervention, and working to reduce harm until they get into treatment. Good luck getting your loved one into rehab.

Does Insurance Pay for Pet Friendly Drug Rehab?

a female client sitting on a grass with her pet

Does Insurance Pay for Pet Friendly Drug Rehab?

If you’re struggling with a substance abuse disorder, worries like who’s going to take care of your pet can actually stop you from going. Today, an estimated 66% of American households have a pet, and if you’re alone, making sure your pet is taken care of is critical. Still, the vast majority of rehab centers don’t accept pets, citing distraction, extra care, and safety concerns like allergies and accidents. As a result, “pet friendly” rehabs or those that do take pets are often specialty institutions with kennels and pet daycare options that you have to pay for as part of treatment.

The big question is, will your insurance provider pay for it? And, if so, how much will they cover? The answer depends on your insurance plan, the rehab center, and what they are charging for, so figuring out the answer will require a bit more research on your part.

Your Insurance Covers Drug Rehab

Your insurance provider is required, by law, to cover drug rehab. The Affordable Care Act classifies substance use disorders as a temporary disability, meaning you are legally entitled to coverage. Your actual coverage amount will range from about 10% for some inpatient treatment to 90% for most outpatient treatment depending on your plan level. However, no matter your plan, your insurance provider is required by law to cover treatment.

Still, most place significant restrictions on care:

The provider has to be in-network/approved
You’ll need a recommendation into treatment
You may have to go through preliminary treatment such as an outpatient treatment program first
You may pay higher deductibles or copays for outpatient treatment
There may be caps on the coverage provided (E.g., some insurance providers cap coverage at about $25,000)

So, your insurance provider will always cover rehab but how much they cover and what specific institutions are covered can vary a great deal.

What Kind of Treatment Are You Going To?

If you’re going to outpatient treatment it’s almost always going to be easy to get coverage for your pets. If you’re going to inpatient treatment, you’re probably going to have a harder time getting coverage to begin with. For example, most insurance providers will cover outpatient treatment to the extent of regular mental healthcare. You might have a deductible per day/per visit or a deductible for the first visit. However, you’ll always get coverage and usually the standard provided by your plan with 40-90% depending on the level of Bronze-Platinum. That means that for outpatient treatment, coverage is normally relatively predictable.

If you’re opting for inpatient treatment, coverage is less clear. For example, some insurance providers will cover 40-90% of treatment costs minus significant deductibles and co-pays. For example, you might have a $200 per day copay. You might also have a 50% copay. These plans will typically all cover plans with pet care or pet friendly arrangements – but it does mean that the more your treatment costs, the more you’ll pay for it.

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What Pet Services Are Provided?

“Pet friendly” drug rehab can translate into a wider range of services. For example, your pet friendly rehab can include:

Pet daycare facilities like kennels and people to watch pets
Pets allowed in rooms
Pets incorporated into treatment and therapy
A mix of the above

So, pets allowed in rooms will normally come with a deposit or surcharge, much like hotels. This means you’ll pay a fee to cover any damage your pet might do in the space and can then bring your pet. Your insurance will almost never cover this fee as it’s not related to mental healthcare at all.

If you’re paying for pet care facilities that aren’t included as part of the base service, you’ll also expect to pay for that out of pocket. However, pet care will typically cost about the same as you would pay for having your pet in a kennel at home – which means you’ll pay about the same while having access to your pet during treatment.

Finally, if your pet is incorporated into treatment, you might get coverage from your insurance provider. Pet therapy and animal-assisted therapy are increasingly common – although this might require trained animals, it more often incorporates taking care of and bonding with an animal as part of the treatment. There’s no reason why that can’t be your own pet.

Here, it’s also important to pay attention to what’s offered as part of a pet friendly rehab. For example, if your rehab is only offering a kennel service, you might want to check if you’re allowed to see your pet at all. After all, some people might have allergies, your pet will have to be checked to ensure they can safely socialize with other patients, etc. Those create risks for other patients and for your pet.

What is Your Doctor’s Recommendation?

It’s important to start out your search for a pet friendly drug rehab by talking to your doctor. Here, you’ll want to discuss your reasons for wanting to take your pet with you, lack of pet care as an obstacle to getting treatment, and any emotional or support benefits you get from having a pet. The more strongly your doctor recommends you to a treatment center offering pet care, the more your insurance provider is going to be obligated to offer some coverage for the pet care as well. In addition, you’ll always need the recommendation to treatment to get care at all.

Here, it’s often a good idea to look at your provider’s network and figure out which treatment centers (if any) are in-network, so you have specific options to bring to your doctor before you start the discussion. And, of course, that discussion will almost always start with whether you need treatment at all – but chances are at this point you’ve already had that discussion.

Talking to Your Insurance Provider

The final say on whether your insurance provider covers pet friendly drug rehab is always going to come down to the provider. For example, most providers require that rehab institutions be:

Part of their network. Many plans simply do not offer coverage for out of network facilities. However, many do, so check your plan construction to be sure
A doctor’s recommendation to the facility. Most insurance providers want your doctor to send them a request for treatment and to refer you to that facility. You’ll always have to talk to your doctor.

You’ll also want to call your insurance provider to ask what coverage options are, what extra services are covered, and what the specific rules are. You might find your provider has a whole list of extra services like pet care that are partially covered. You might also find they don’t much care what’s included – so long as you stay within caps and pay everything over that. However, calling and understanding the rates and what the rules are will help you a great deal.

Eventually, finding a pet friendly drug treatment center can make it more accessible for you to get the treatment you need. Not having to worry about a pet means you’ll be better able to focus on treatment. Having the company of a pet can offer a lot of support as well. And, treatment centers are increasingly offering pet care and facilities, so you have more options than ever before.

7 Characteristics of a Good Drug and Alcohol Rehab

mental health expert at a drug and alcohol rehab

7 Characteristics of a Good Drug and Alcohol Rehab

If you or a loved one is struggling with a substance use disorder, getting help and going to rehab is the best way to get started turning your life around. Unfortunately, even choosing a rehab center can be a challenge. In 2022, there were 17,353 registered substance use disorder treatment facilities in the United States. This means you’ll have to navigate a large number of options, look at different treatment methods, and put in work to find the treatment center that works for you.

Those facilities also vary considerably in treatment options, luxury, treatment type, and treatment delivery. For example, you can go to a simple outpatient program where you visit the clinic daily. You can also go to a high-end luxury resort that looks and feels like a vacation with therapy on top. There’s also a large range of options in between, which is the best fit for most people. Whatever you go to, the following 7 characteristics of a good drug and alcohol rehab are crucial for your treatment.

1. They Accept Your Insurance

Substance abuse treatment can be extremely expensive, especially if you’re going to an inpatient treatment facility. Having the surety that your program is covered by your insurance allows you to get the help you need without adding on extra financial stress. In addition, if your treatment facility accepts insurance, that means it’s offering medically recognized treatment, has gone through the process of being locally licensed and certified, and meets the standards for quality set by whatever region it is in.

Of course, that’s not always the case. Some insurance programs simply won’t cover inpatient care. Others require that you go to outpatient care first and only cover inpatient care if you relapse after an outpatient program. So, your rehab center not being covered by your insurance provider may be about policy rather than about the rehab facility being part of an established medical network. However, in general, it’s best to work with rehab centers that work with medical providers, that are part of your network, and that can share data and medical files to your doctor and vice-versa, so you get the best possible care.

2. The Facility and Staff are Licensed

It’s important to check who you are working with and who is providing treatment as part of your rehab program. For example, are you working with registered nurses for your detox program? Are counselors licensed? Is there a psychologist or psychiatrist on the team? How much interaction will you have with those people?

Depending on the drug and alcohol rehab team, you’re likely to work with a mix of counselor, nurses, and doctors. You’ll want to see what staff are like and how qualified they. The best programs largely rely on skilled specialist counselors with therapists and doctors to back up those programs, so you get a mix of treatment.

3. The Facility Offers Personalized Treatment

Whether it’s called personalization, trauma-informed care, or a program that’s adjusted to your needs as you move through it, you want to look for personalization. This means that the facility adapts your treatment to you and your needs. This is important because many people going into addiction treatment struggle with unique problems like trauma, co-occurring mental health disorders, and behavioral problems. If you’re having trouble motivating yourself to believe in therapy, therapy should adapt to offer you a motivational program. If you’re struggling to commit to treatment because you’re feeling suicidal, therapy should adapt to address that first.

Personalized treatment means you get the care you need, when you need it, instead of being forced through a cookie-cutter program. That will improve your outcome and will ensure you get the support you need as you need it. However, it can also mean programs last much longer, as you might have to delay treatment to address other symptoms or slow down treatment to your pace.

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4. Low Patient to Staff Ratios

The more one-on-one time you get with staff and counselors, the more value you’ll get from the treatment center. Of course, you also benefit a great deal from interacting with your peers and from group therapy. That’s why basically every treatment option incorporates group therapy as a baseline. It’s good for you to see and experience how others are going through and have gone through addiction, it’s good for you to understand your peers, and it’s good for you to be able to see which aspects of your personality and behavior are you and which are “just” addiction. At the same time, the best drug and alcohol rehab centers maintain a low staff to patient ratio.

In general, ratings are:

14+ patients per staff member – High
4-14 patients per staff member – Average
4 or less patients per staff member – Low

It’s also important to keep in mind that the lower staff to patient ratios are, the more you’ll pay for treatment. However, you’ll also get more direct attention, more personalization, and more insight into your own personal needs. And, that can be extremely valuable, whether you’re going to an inpatient or an outpatient program.

5. Diverse Treatment Options

Most people are aware that there are dozens of ways to treat substance use disorders. Here, you want to look for a program that uses multiple treatment options so that they can adapt your treatment and your program to your needs. For example, if your treatment center is only offering counseling, it might not be a great resource for you.

A good mix of treatment options looks like:

Diverse behavioral therapies like CBT, DBT, and EMDR
Counseling
Group Therapy
Motivational Therapies like ACT
Complementary therapies like music therapy, nutritional therapy
Exercise and fitness programs

Essentially, you want a program that uses a mix of resources, so it can offer you what you need, when you need it.

6. Aftercare Programs

The dream is that you go through rehab and you walk out the other side, a new person, ready to recover. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. Most people end up needing aftercare including ongoing therapy and counseling. Sometimes that’s to give you the support you need to stay clean and sober. In other cases, it’s to give you the support you need to go back to recovery after a relapse. However, any good rehab program will realize that you need this aftercare. Aftercare can mean sober homes, ongoing support and counseling, telehealth support, fast-track readmission in case of a relapse, an outpatient program, checkups and key dates, etc. The important thing is that it’s there, that you discuss with your rehab center what you need and why, and that you have the tools to get that ongoing support.

7. Support for Co-occurring Disorders

More than half of all people with a substance use disorder also have a co-occurring mental health disorder. Many of those include disorders that require medication and treatment. You need to ensure that your facility has the tools to help you manage co-occurring disorders, to help you treat the symptoms of substance use disorders around mental health disorders, and that address how substance use disorders impact your vulnerability to substance abuse and to relapse.

There’s a lot that goes into choosing a drug and alcohol rehab program. Often, you should start by talking to your doctor, decide what you’re looking for, and then figure out where you’re looking for treatment. From there, it’s easier to narrow down treatment options – and you may find that there are only a few that meet the criteria you’re looking for. Hopefully, you can find a great rehab center that meets your needs and helps you take the next step towards recovery.

The Differences and Similarities Between Meth and Crack

Various-colorful-pills-and-syringe-on-black-background

The Differences and Similarities Between Meth and Crack

Recreational drug use is at an all-time high in the United States, with an estimated 48.7 million Americans struggling with a substance use disorder. Crack or crack cocaine and meth are two of the most common of those drugs, although both fall well behind opioids, sedatives, and tranquilizers like heroin, sleeping medication, prescription pain pills, and benzodiazepines in popularity. Crack and meth have many similarities on a surface level. For example, both are sold as “crystal” and both are called “rock” in some street language. And, both are often smoked using a glass pipe but can be injected. In fact, if you don’t know what you’re looking at, it can be difficult to tell the difference between the two when you catch someone using.

For many parents, crack was the concern when they were kids. Today, methamphetamine is the new drug of choice for kids, often because it’s accessible and cheap, rather than because it’s cheap. At the same time, it’s important to understand the differences, because both have different effects, different risks, and require different strategies to use safely.

What is Crack Cocaine?

Cocaine is a processed product from the coca plant, which is made by processing the leaves into a paste and then further processing it with ammonia to remove the pulp to create pure cocaine. Crack is cocaine that has been processed a third time with solvents to further remove any non-active ingredients, creating a hard, rock-like substance that is sold in chunks known as “rocks”. It’s also generally mixed with sodium bicarbonate, which allows it to be smoked at a lower temperature (cocaine doesn’t start to smoke until almost 400 degrees Fahrenheit, which also destroys the drug but bicarbonate smokes at 208 F, which doesn’t destroy the drug).

The result is a highly concentrated form of cocaine that offers a significant high and euphoria. Unlike cocaine, crack is also highly addictive. And, unlike cocaine, smoking it means it results in significant physical health risks including burns, damage to the lungs, tooth loss, and more. Cocaine also only lasts about 15 minutes, meaning that users frequently consistently pass a pipe around to stay high – resulting in increased risk of overdose and danger.

What is Meth?

Meth or “crystal meth” is an illicit drug that’s sold in a number of ways but most famously as crystals or “rock”. Methamphetamine is an amphetamine drug, similar to what you get if you buy Ritalin or Adderall. However, meth has more of the psychoactive amphetamine salt, meaning that it creates a more intense high, more euphoria, and more risks of side-effects.

Meth is typically made illicitly by distilling the active ingredients out of other products, such as cold and cough medicine. However, in other cases, it’s synthesized directly. In either case, the drug is typically sold as powder. In some cases, it’s solidified and sold as crystal meth, or dry rocks known as “rock”, “crystal” and sometimes “shatter” (although the latter is more often reserved for hash and concentrated THC products from marijuana.

Like crack, meth is a stimulant. However, it lasts 4-16 hours. In addition, it can be more noticeable than crack, as users may not sleep for the entire period they are high. For people who continue to smoke while high, that can mean periods of 32+ hours of being awake. Meth is also more common, with almost twice the number of regular users as crack cocaine.

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What are the Similarities Between Meth and Crack Cocaine?

Meth and crack cocaine have a lot in common. For example, they are both stimulant drugs. This means that both impact the central nervous system causing a high, euphoria, and feelings of being powerful. People using crack or meth will show signs of hyperactivity, wakefulness, and restlessness. They might not be able to sit still, talk at a normal pace, or they might talk with nervous energy or jitters.

Crack – Users are likely to experience euphoria and a high, with paranoia, hallucinations, anger, psychosis, and some hostility or aggression towards others.
Meth – Users are likely to experience euphoria and a high with paranoia, hallucinations, anger, psychosis, and some aggression and hostility towards themselves and others.

Crack cocaine and meth are also both schedule II-controlled substances. This means that they’re both illegal to poses or use in the United States. They’re classified as dangerous, and addictive and it can be a crime to be caught with either drug in your possession.

Crystal meth can also look very similar to crack cocaine. However, “standard” meth is more likely to be sold as a powder.

As stimulant, both also have similar long-term effects. For example:

Cracked and blistered lips from smoking
Weight loss
Tooth decay
Paranoia and psychosis

A heavy crack user will look similar to a heavy meth user in many ways. Both also have similar overdose risks and similar risks of cardiovascular and heart failure.

Both can be smoked or injected
Both are often consumed from glass pipes
Both cause a euphoric high with nervous energy

What are the Differences Between Meth and Crack Cocaine?

Crack and meth are very different drugs. As a result, there will be many differences. However, you’ll most often notice them in how long the drug acts and what the long-term side-effects are. Here, meth mostly stands out by lasting for longer. Users are also less likely to sleep and more likely to start showing ticks and psychosis over time.

Meth lasts for up to 16 hours while crack only lasts for about 15 minutes
Meth tends to result in a more haggard appearance over time and weight loss may be more extreme – because it causes more loss of sleep
Meth highs tend to result in sugar and junk food binges
Meth tends to result in more symptoms of psychosis over time, meaning that individuals are more likely to twitch, show paranoia, and to show side-effects even when not high.

Eventually, both meth and crack cocaine are dangerous drugs that can result in mental and physical health problems including overdose, death, and addiction. Of the two, methamphetamine is more popular. Today, an estimated 1% of the population use meth. About 0.4% of the population use crack cocaine. Therefore, if you’re not sure, you can generally assume that methamphetamine is more than twice as common.

Getting Help

Both crack cocaine and meth are dangerous, addictive, and potentially deadly drugs. Both cause long-term side-effects to mental and physical health. And both can have markedly similar side-effects and risks. Eventually, if you or a loved one is using either, it’s important to realize that you are putting yourself at risk every time you use. Stepping back and looking into getting help, detox assistance for getting clean, and long-term support and rehab to help with substance abuse recovery can be an important step. Here, modern drug addiction treatment means counseling and behavioral therapy to help you identify the underlying causes behind substance abuse, to find coping mechanisms for cravings, and to build life-skills that allow you to navigate life in a happy and healthy way without drugs.

Meth and crack are both extremely dangerous and addictive drugs. If you’re using them, it’s important to talk to your doctor, get help if you need it, and make sure you’re doing everything you can to stay safe.

Why Long-Term Addiction Rehab Produces Better Outcomes

a man from a long term rehab center looking at the camera

Why Long-Term Addiction Rehab Produces Better Outcomes

For most people, rehab means a 28-30-day stint in a recovery clinic. That standard care often feels like a long time for many of us, especially when we have to take time off of work, away from childcare, and away from other life responsibilities and goals. At the same time, modern medicine and research increasingly shows that 30 days is not enough to offer the full term of support and care that most people need. For that reason, long-term addiction rehab, or rehab that extends up to 6 months, is increasingly available. Here, long-term addiction rehab facilities often adjust the treatment model to the patient. This means that you receive care for as long as your doctor and provider thinks you need it.

The 30-day treatment model still offers convenience and an alternative to those who can’t afford a longer term of care. However, continuing with outpatient treatment after an inpatient stay is still recommended. There are many reasons why long-term addiction rehab produces better outcomes than the traditional model. If you’re considering investing in longer care for you or your loved one, it’s important to understand why, and what the differences are.

Based on Biological Recovery

Most people are aware that recovering from the physical impacts of addiction can take a very long time. Few of us are aware of just how long. For example, the early impacts of addiction on the reward system typically fade within 30-90 days depending on the individual. After 30-90 days of treatment, your brain will be at a semi-permanent state of “recovery” for the next 12-24 months. From there, you’ll continue to heal, but more slowly.

For many people, it does take 1-2 years before your brain resembles a “control” subject of someone who hasn’t been addicted to drugs or alcohol. For example, it typically takes about 14 months for your brain to show levels of dopamine transporters at levels similar to those of persons who have never been addicted. Brain imaging from persons who were abstinent after alcoholism also showed that the longer individuals were abstinent, the better brain recovery was. For example, individuals who were abstinent for 10 months were significantly more likely to show normal volumes in areas of the brain related to executive control, salience, and emotional processing than individuals who were sober for 1 month.

On the other hand, your brain may never fully recover from addiction. The earlier you start using or drinking, the more permanent changes will be. For example, adolescents who heavily drink are likely to never have a brain that functions the same as a control subject who never had an addiction. Still, that just means you’ll need more ongoing support, rather than that you can’t live without drugs or alcohol.

Essentially, your body takes a long time to recover from addiction. Spending one month in rehab can help you to overcome the worst of cravings. For many others, that process takes up to 90 days. From there, you’ll still have a long uphill battle as your brain slowly returns to normal.

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Benefits of Long-Term Drug Rehab

Long-term drug rehab is typically delivered in one of several ways, depending on your resources and time. These include:

A longer stay of 90+ days in a rehab facility where you’ll receive full support and ongoing care in a facility, followed by aftercare when you leave
A 30-day stay in residential treatment followed by 6+ months of outpatient treatment
A 30-day stay in residential treatment followed by a stay in a sober home and 6+ months of outpatient treatment

Here, you’ll normally get a therapy and counseling schedule that’s very similar to what you’d get in a shorter-term rehab. However, it will extend for longer. You’ll also get additional tracks of long-term self-care, physical health, mental recovery, social recovery, etc., to help you rehabilitate back into your life, rather than just helping with the immediate pressing issue of the substance use disorder.

Building Structure – The longer your stint in rehab, the more time you’ll have to build the structure and habits that allow you to live in a healthy way. For example, most people are aware of the “24 days to build a habit” maxim. Few of us are aware that in reality that scales from 14-90+ days. The longer you have to repeat habits like daily exercise, cleaning, self-care, meals, etc., the more you’ll be able to make those routines a normal part of your life, without extra effort. Therefore, spending more time in rehab means you’ll have more time to make structure a normal part of your life. You’ll also have more time to benefit from structure set up by someone else, so you don’t have to worry about or think about things like ensuring you’re eating well, that you’re getting enough exercise, etc. You’ll get the healthy lifestyle while having the headspace to focus on your recovery, managing your mental health, and working through counseling and therapy.

Ongoing Care –Traditional rehab means you get a few weeks of detox followed by a few weeks of intensive therapy and care. With long-term rehab, you get detox and then as much ongoing therapy as you need. This means that your program is completely scaled to meet your needs to help you work through pressing issues as they come up and then to continue to help you build healthy coping skills, healthy life skills, social skills, etc.

A Focus on Life Rehabilitation – Long-term drug rehab means you can shift the focus of mental healthcare away from triage and focusing on immediate issues like cravings and addiction and towards helping you build the skills for a healthy and happy life. That means skills to cope with cravings, time management, emotional regulation, learning to build healthy and fulfilling social relationships, introducing self-care, learning to manage mental health, etc. That will, eventually, mean you’re set up to be much more stable and healthy when you do go back to your life.

Support as Long as You Need It – If you’re staying in rehab as long as you need it, you can get the care you need. That means continuing each part of your track until you’re actually ready to graduate. That means you can focus on recovering from and dealing with cravings for as long as you need. When you’re ready to move on from that, you can do so. You can spend as much time as you need to learn how to manage stress, emotional regulation, and anything else that comes up during the course of your treatment. That will, eventually, give you a much better baseline to deal with and manage yourself and your life. Recovery at your own pace also means you can get treatment for years on an outpatient basis, and you don’t have to stop going to care until you’re ready to do so.

Aftercare – It doesn’t matter how long treatment is, you should always get aftercare. That means options to restart treatment and to have checkups, ongoing sessions with counselors, and meetups with your peers. Long-term addiction rehab typically provides that as a standard part of treatment, meaning you know that when you graduate from care, you’ll have follow-up sessions to ensure you’re still doing well, you’ll have opportunities to reconnect with people, and you’ll have opportunities to give back where you want to.

Long-term addiction rehab is an investment because it takes more of your time and for longer. However, it provides you with a baseline to build a healthy life, to get treatment at your own pace, and to stay in care for as long as you need it. It’s not the right solution for everyone, but for many people, it means you’re opting into long-term support and structure, so you get what you need to stay clean and sober.

If you or your loved-one struggles from alcoholism or other substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our alcohol rehab, detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. 10 Acre Ranch also has specialty tracks like our pet friendly drug rehab and couples substance abuse treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.

The 7 Most Commonly Abused Drugs in College

alcohol, drugs, pills on a wooden background

The 7 Most Commonly Abused Drugs in College

For many college students, going to college is the first point in life when they have to be alone, self-sufficient, and responsible for themselves. That also means that for many, college is a time of self-exploration, creating and setting boundaries, and dealing with high levels of stress at the same time. As a result, nearly all college students will experiment with drugs at some point. For most, that means trying cannabis or even trying something like Ritalin. And, for many, it ends there. For others, that goes on to become a long-term problem.

College students drink and use drugs for a lot of reasons. Those include peer pressure, with students in sororities more likely to drink and binge drink and also more likely to have alcohol abuse problems later in life. They also include for stress management, with many college students using drugs to “self medicate” stress, to sleep despite stress, or to reduce anxiety. Others use “study drugs” like Ritalin to try to boost exam results. As a result, more than 22% of college students regularly use drugs and another 55% regularly drink, and heavily.

The following data covers the 7 most commonly used drugs in colleges.

Marijuana

Marijuana or Cannabis is one of the most commonly abused drugs in the United States. That’s partially driven by the fact that many people don’t see it as harmful. In other cases, it’s because students use it to self-medicate and reduce stress. At the same time, in 2016, 20% of full time college students used cannabis regularly. In 2021, 11% of college students reported using cannabis daily, up from 6% in 2011. This means that cannabis is more popular in colleges than ever, with more and more students using it every single day. Cannabis is most-often used to control anxiety and to de-stress. However, some students also use specific strains as a study drug, although this is less common.

In addition, while cannabis has a low abuse profile compared to some drugs like opioids, it’s still highly addictive, with an estimated 1 in 4 daily users suffering from addiction.

Ritalin

Ritalin is so well-known as a study drug that it’s sometimes more associated with college students and abuse than with ADHD treatment. Today, somewhere between 5 and 30% of all college students have used or are currently using the drug. This prescription stimulant is intended to reduce the symptoms of ADHD and ADD. However, college students use it to increase alertness, to improve focus, and to stay awake during study, lectures, and tests.

While not highly addictive, Ritalin is illegal to use outside of a prescription. It can also cause heart irregularities and may increase risk of heart attack. And, when mixed with alcohol and other drugs, Ritalin can significantly increase the risks of overdose.

Adderall

Adderall is another prescription stimulant that’s rapidly becoming more and more popular among college students as a study drug. This means that students are very likely to use it in the same capacity as Ritalin, as they are a very similar drug. Adderall lasts for either 6 hours or 14 hours, which means it’s more likely to still be active when students start drinking or using other drugs. In addition, college students are 3% more likely to use Adderall when age matched to non-college student populations.

Adderall is also illegal to use without a prescription. However, the risks are virtually identical to Ritalin.

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Hallucinogenic

MDMA, LSD, ecstasy, and other hallucinogenic drugs remain extremely popular on campuses across the United States. Often, this means these drugs are taken as party drugs. However, microdosing is also increasingly popular, as students take tiny doses of the drug to boost performance, reduce stress, or create subtle psychedelic effects. Most students think of microdosing as safer than taking a full dose, but over the course of the day, often build up higher levels of hallucinogenic in their system than by taking a single dose at once.

While the addiction profile for hallucinogenic is low, these drugs are still dangerous. Many have a risk of causing psychosis, months-long symptoms, and extreme reactions like vomiting that can be life-threatening. As a result, ER-related visits have gone up by close to 4.7% since 2011.

Cocaine

Cocaine was the fourth most commonly used drug on college campuses in 2017. In one study, 4% of full-time college students used cocaine. In others, cocaine is shown to be much more common, with as many as 13% of students in some universities using it. Cocaine is primarily used as a party drug, which is popular for being relatively safe and for wearing off quickly. However, cocaine still exposes users to significant risks including hypertension, mental health disorders, hyperactive disorder, heart problems, increases in paranoia, and increases in anxiety. As a result, students use the drug thinking it’s a relatively harmless party drug but end up facing significant side-effects and cravings at the same time as high stress and peer pressure.

Opioids

Today, an estimated half a million college-aged adults have an opioid use disorder. This means that 1.2% of all people in this age group are addicted to opioids, with many more using them. Changes in how opioids are prescribed to young people have also resulted in increasing reliance on street drugs like heroin and fentanyl, including mixes of fentanyl and Adderall, which pose significantly high risks of overdose. Opioids are primarily used as a party drug or self-medicating drug, with people using them to destress, to feel better, and to escape from the stress of college life. At the same time, these drugs pose a significant risk of addiction as well as of physical and mental health complications.

Alcohol

Alcohol is the single most abused drug on college campuses. While not traditionally though of as a drug, this intoxicating substance is abused by more than 55% of all college students. In fact, 39% of college students report binge drinking. Men in sororities are most vulnerable, with increased risk of binge drinking, substance use disorder, and later life substance use disorder. Alcohol creates risks of addiction, mental health problems, and physical health problems. For many students, it also makes it harder to study, harder to focus and stay alert in class, and harder to have the mental energy for study.

This means that alcohol abuse can significantly sabotage study and your ability to feel good around college. It can also mean making impulsive decisions like drinking too much, not doing homework, and staying up too late, which makes the rest of study harder.

Getting Help

If you or a loved one is struggling with drugs or alcohol, it’s important to reach out and get help. Today, most college campuses offer resources for students who need help. For example, you can often get therapy, work towards enrollment in a rehabilitation program, and get therapy right from campus. However, it’s also important to talk to your doctor, to figure out the underlying causes behind substance abuse, and to work towards building coping mechanisms and skills that will allow you to navigate college without turning to drugs and alcohol. For many college students that means going to therapy, getting longer-term treatment and support, and ensuring that you have a good support network in place, even when going off on your own to a college.