There is no universal answer to the question if one needs a residential detox clinic or not however it is worth talking to an addiction professional to gain an understanding of the process.

The detoxification process for drugs and or alcohol in many cases be mild enough for most people to manage on their own (provided there is a structured process and strategy in place). For people that have progressed further into the cycle of addiction things become increasingly harder and require more formalised and trained individuals to help.

The reality with the problem of addiction is that it is progressive, and at some indefinite point it becomes harder and harder for the patient to detox on their own. Depending on the substance and the psychosis of the problem, their routines and their enabling factors which all play a role in the decision to enter into a care facility or not.

Many binge addicts / alcoholics are able to and do detox on their own and do so frequently as they abstain between bouts, but eventually they get drawn into classic addiction cycles and the abuse becomes part of their day to day lives. Catching addiction in it’s early stages, creating the awareness and dealing with the issues sooner rather than later is always a best case scenario.

At the point where addiction becomes unmanageable treatment facilities admit patients into 30 day 60 day 90 day recovery programs which break the cycle long enough to make sober decision about their lives going forward.

In most cases the actual withdrawal process does not exceed 8 to 10 days thereafter the Programme enters the patient into a managed routine, based around life skills that effectively teach alcoholics and drug addicts how to abstain from their particular substance abuse.

One of the universal truths is that the longer patients are able to stay in a recovery Programme the greater the chances are of an actual recovery.

Henceforth, forthwith anonymous groups repetition (while unmanaged) has a relative success ratio. (This is why Relapse Prevention runs a never ending addiction recovery Programme online.)

In the case of private residential care the 30, 60, 90 day process may exceed the budget or lifestyle of the patient. This fact of life causes many patients to relapse and find themselves back in the same residential detox situation they began with.

While there is no magic in the 30, 60, 90 day detox there is a distinct merit in understanding addiction in the context of the individual and their “relationship” to the substance.

In most detox clinic pre-admission processes the patient is subjected to a series of questions about their substance abuse and if we had to digest this psyco-babble down to a relevant scale we would use this self-evaluation scenario.

Understandably there is an issue or you would not be reading this.

How long can you manage without [substance].

  1. 24h
  2. 48h
  3. 72h
  4. 1 Week
  5. 2 Weeks
  6. 1 Month

As you increment stages from 1 to 6 so does the risk of you requiring a detox centre begin to diminish.

Holding off for a month of not taking a drink or a drug would be a fair indication that you are unlikely to need a residential detox program, conversely if you cannot abstain for 24 hours the indication would be that you are unlikely to be able to detox without the aid of a residential clinic.

Ultimately it comes down to the absolute and undeniable fact that you can do anything you set your mind to.

So set your mind to it and just do it.

Highly Addictive Substance Detox

The myth that heroin users and meth addicts are an irrecoverable lost cause is just another society myth.

Perhaps the greatest testament to the 12 step Programme are the millions of hardened addicts that have set a 1 day, 2 day, 3 day, 1 week etc goals and worked toward it to the point where they have been able to recover their lives free from the substance.

1 Day at a time

Daily personal goals are the substance of recovery and understanding that detox is the first of many steps in dealing with the problem, thereafter it’s about taking each day as it comes at you knowing you just need to make it to tomorrow.

Understanding that there is an issue, and then, the scale of the issue, then setting day to day goals in place to resolve the issue.

Using a residential detox clinic means that you will receive a managed process for detoxification, will be introduced to a variety or programs and will have the opportunity to meet other people in similar detox situations. Disadvantages hinge largely on cost / time or admission waiting periods in public facilities or inadequate, poorly explained processes.

Different kinds of detox methods are used in drug and alcohol detox process. Getting through the detox process for a person and their families is a trying time that should be handled in formalised professional treatment programmes where the patients are supported preferably by a substance abuse counsellor that understands the family dynamics and can play a lead mediatory role from the intervention through to the complete recovery. The family role is often neglected in addiction treatment and yet it is often one of the biggest contributing factors of patient zeros addiction triggers and or causes. Addiction treatment professionals are starting to veer away from the previous diagnosis that addiction is a disorder and focusing on the resolution of individual traumatic experiences that plague addicts and become the drivers of addictive behaviours or other clinical psychological definitions like anxiety and depression which most frequently co-occur with drug and alcohol addiction and with other disorders like sex addiction and eating disorders. Codependency issues speak further to these dysfunctional family or relationship structures that can and should be dealt with using a third party sounding board to mediate family members dialogue and the after detox process of long-term and successful rehabilitation.