Now Is The Time To Contact An Alcohol Treatment Center

By Quentin Y. Lee

If you are a family member of an alcoholic, you need to stop right now and read this article. I am confident that you already know that you are going to have a tough time getting your loved one into alcohol treatment. In fact, he'll probably have to get arrested for DUI or violence before he will seek alcohol addiction treatment.

The good news is that, once he is in treatment, he can get the alcohol out of his system, start eating right and get the help he needs. Once he has entered treatment, he can get better and get out or stay longer if he needs additional treatment. Regardless of how your family member gets into alcohol addiction treatment, the right alcohol treatment center can take the burden off of you and onto the shoulders of your loved one. And....that is where it belongs.

You often have to force an alcoholic to get treatment. In fact, it takes some sort of criminal arrest or other trouble in order to get an alcoholic to seek help. Whether it be an arrest for DUI, domestic violence or job loss, the alcoholic will only seek treatment when he has run out of options.

Regardless of how your loved one gets to this point, you need to make sure that he seeks treatment from an alcohol treatment facility that will offer a full range of services including detox, individual and group counseling as well as an effective aftercare and integration program.

The standard alcohol treatment program involves an initial thirty day inpatient program. However, if the circumstances require, the patient can stay for a much longer period of time. Usually, the first seven days are devoted to detox, a process by which the alcohol is purged from the alcoholic's system.

Afterward, the patient begins eating right and participates in intensive individual and group therapy. After thirty days, if all goes as planned, the patient can begin the integration ( or aftercare) portion of the program. However, if the patient needs additional inpatient treatment, such treatment can be arranged.

Aftercare, also called "reintegration" is the most important phase of the recovery process because it is the phase where relapse is most likely. As a result, most alcohol treatment centers continue out patient counseling and require that the patient join an addiction recovery group.

The intensive therapy and accountability of a support group often provides the level of stability necessary for the patient to stay sober.

Understand how an alcohol treatment center works now? Good. Then you will put to rest these notions that you can somehow heal your loved one's alcohol addiction without professional help. Look, if you do not get him help, he is going to hurt someone.

On the other hand, once in treatment, your family member will be able to get rid of the booze and learn to live and eat right. He will get the mental health services that he needs both in the center and during the aftercare process. Why would you wait until your loved one hurts or kills someone? Now is the right time to contact an alcohol treatment center and get the help your loved one needs. - 30540

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