Addiction is a mental health condition that can be difficult to break free from. Thankfully, addiction treatment programs like those at Sanford Behavioral Health are highly effective at combatting addiction.
Treatment comes in multiple levels of care: residential addiction treatment, outpatient addiction treatment, and much more. Any one of these programs can help you or your loved ones achieve addiction recovery.
Understanding Substance Use Disorders
Addiction is not a choice. When people use addictive substances for extended periods, their brains make lasting changes that diminish their ability to choose to stop. In time, the prospect of achieving recovery can seem impossible. Physical and mental health symptoms arise whenever they stop using substances for even the briefest periods.
Addiction can have many other negative effects, including:
- Difficulty enjoying tasks or hobbies that used to be important
- Trouble maintaining relationships
- Interference at work
- Invasive and unwanted drug or alcohol cravings
- Increasing tolerance
- Worsening of physical or mental health
Thankfully, people can recover from the brain changes associated with addiction, but it requires a prolonged period of abstinence that is difficult for people to achieve on their own. So how can addiction be treated successfully?
How Can Addiction Be Treated Successfully?
Addiction treatment uses several tools and therapies to help people break through the difficult first stage of recovery and build the skills to maintain abstinence.
These options can include medications to treat physical withdrawal symptoms, mental health treatment for co-occurring mental health concerns and skill-building therapies that help people resist relapse.
Recovery from a substance use disorder is a process, and it typically takes a couple of months for treatment to stick. But the benefits of addiction treatment make it worth the effort.
Benefits of Addiction Treatment
Addiction treatment options have several benefits that often extend outside the primary goal of abstinence. Just a few of the benefits you could expect to receive from addiction treatment include:
- Developing effective communication skills
- Learning to manage substance use cravings and urges without relapsing
- Treating physical withdrawal symptoms from a substance use disorder
- Building peer networks that support your recovery
- Overcoming co-occurring mental health concerns that fuel addiction
- Building life skills that help you live a happier and more productive life in addiction recovery
Addiction treatment is a transformative process. Treatment often provides therapies for every aspect of your daily life. The goal is to achieve sobriety and build a healthier and more fulfilling life in recovery.
Different Types and Levels of Addiction Treatment Programs
In answering the question, “How can addiction be treated successfully?” scientists and clinicians have determined that several levels of care are often necessary to produce lasting sobriety. Each of these levels of care focuses on a different aspect of addiction treatment and plays an important role in the recovery process.
For example, medical detox primarily focuses on helping people overcome physical withdrawal symptoms. Residential programs offer intensive therapies to patients who live on-site, which can prevent environmental triggers from interfering during the critical early stages of sobriety.
Outpatient programs are less intensive but allow people to put their skills to the test in changing environments and offer long-term support for patients recovering from substance use disorders.
Discover a Lifetime of Addiction Recovery
Research has shown that most people with a substance use disorder will recover—provided they receive evidence-based treatment at an addiction treatment center.
While there is growing concern in the United States about the rates of addiction and substance use problems, there is hope in understanding that addiction is a treatable and manageable condition. You, too, can recover. The first step that you need to take for your recovery is toward evidence-based care.
