Failures in Drug Rehab

One problem with drug addiction rehabilitation is the failure of rehab programs to adequately address all the problems surrounding addiction. Just as killing a weed requires pulling it up by the roots, so handling drug addiction requires finding and fixing the causes behind addiction. Many rehab programs focus only on the physical aspects of addiction—getting the drug out of the body and keeping the person “clean” for a prescribed time period. Others simply substitute prescription drugs for the drugs the addict was taking. Neither of these can achieve lasting results. To really rehabilitate the drug addict or alcoholic, all the factors of addiction must be taken into account.


First of all, let’s take a look at what factors might influence a person to turn to drugs or alcohol. Some experts have theorized that addiction could be genetic, but there is little evidence to support this theory. Others say that it is an incurable disease. But if you look at anyone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol, you can easily see they all have one thing in common: they are using drugs as a way to avoid or escape emotional or physical pain. People who are truly happy do not turn to drugs.

Drugs provide an escape from pain in several ways: first, they numb physical pain by interacting with the nerve channels in the body, second, they provide relief from mental pain by making the person feel removed or released from his problems. They do not actually fix anything, however, and no matter how much better a person may feel while he is taking the drug, once the drug wears off the mental or physical pain comes back worse than before. Here is the dwindling cycle that leads to addiction: the individual has to continue taking the drug and in greater and greater quantity in order to fend off increasingly intolerable physical or emotional stress.

For this reason, treating addiction must address the physical, mental, and emotional pain underlying the problem with drugs or alcohol. This is the actual root of the problem. If the pain is addressed it enables the person to feel happy again. Once he is no longer haunted by ghosts of the past, guilt over his misdeeds, regret over his failures, grief over past losses, or even actual physical pain, the person ceases to need drugs to cover these things up. If he can be happy on his own, he does not need anything to make him happy. This is one of the reasons that anti-depressants are not a successful treatment for drug addiction—they are simply another drug that substitutes for the substance he was abusing. Over time, the person can start abusing anti-depressants and other prescription drugs or return to using illegal drugs again.

Drug Rehab Referral Services (www.drugrehabreferralservices.org) is a referral program for those seeking help with addiction. They refer clients to treatment programs with a holistic approach, meaning they address the person as a whole, not just his body. These programs do not substitute one drug for another but rather seek to address the root of the drug problem so that the person does not feel the need to return to drug use. They have a very high success rate. They return to the former addict his sense of self-worth and restore his self-esteem. With these things in place, the person no longer needs drugs or alcohol to feel better—he feels good on his own.