Addiction Treatment and Recovery

Addiction is a complex disease, which makes addiction treatment and recovery a complex process. In order to sustain long-term recovery, professional treatment is the most effective option available to anyone suffering from addiction.

In the initial phases of treatment, the individual suffering from this disease must cope with the physical consequences of chemical dependency. During this period, the chronic illness should be treated under the supervision of an addiction professional. The individual will go into withdrawal, and begin to experience unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms.

Withdrawal symptoms:

In some cases, medications are prescribed to help alleviate the severity of withdrawal symptoms.

The next phase of treatment usually involves behavioral therapy. This is an effort to treat the entire person – not just the physical symptoms of addiction. There are different factors that contribute to addiction in each person. The goal of behavioral therapy is to identify those factors which are within the control of the client.

Individuals recovering from chronic substance abuse can then learn how to modify certain behaviors and responses in order to cope with compulsions and avoid relapse. This includes avoiding the stimuli responsible for driving addictive cravings, as well as learning ways of managing addictive appetites when they are triggered.

Many people view addiction as an acute condition that can be treated and forgotten. While it is true that treatment is available for addiction, there is no ‘cure’. In fact, addiction is a chronic condition that can go into remission and reappear many months or years into recovery.

People with a history of addiction are always at risk for relapse. In fact, the relapse rate for substance addiction is between 40 and 60 percent – a rate that outpaces the relapse rate of people with a history of type 1 diabetes.

That means that not only is relapse possible, but it is also highly probable. However, that does not mean that recovery has failed. It simply means that the addiction recovery plan needs to be revisited or adjusted.