The Nature of Addiction Treatment Today

One of the hardest problem that our society is facing today is Addiction. The growing problems within the family, as well as many other cultural stressors, make addiction a national and international problem that has grown by leaps and bounds. In U.S. there is a "feel good right now" mentality that tends to feed the addictive process. Based on our current scientific knowledge about addiction, the treatment process at all recovery centers occur in four distinct phases:rn1. Behavioral Intervention: The very basic step in addiction treatment contains the behavioral restraint, stopping the drug from affecting the body. Once the individual feels the tug of addiction as a primitive drive, no further improvement can occur until he stops taking the drug. Acute drug detoxification normally takes several weeks; also it may take months before the brain's chemistry returns to its normal position. During this early phase, alcoholics and other addicts often feel like they have lost their best friend or lover and experience enormous grief and/or anger, as well as depression.rn2. Cognitive Insight:rnOne of the good phases is phase of cognitive insight, during which the person’s recovery begins to identify and make sense of his formerly confound behavior. This usually occurs in a series of fits and starts over a period of about a week. Cognitive insight is one that standpoint that re-evaluates thoughts and beliefs in order to make thoughtful results. It differs from clinical insight, as it focuses on more general metacognitive processes. Therefore, it could be relevant to diverse disorders and non-clinical subjects. There is a growing body of research on cognitive insight in individuals with and without psychosis. rn3. Emotional Integration: rnWhile in the emotional integration phase, the person that is being recover is begins to researching his feelings. This process takes weeks; feelings may have been buried for a long time, and they are usually covered in shame. Among the most disastrous cultural attitudes toward alcoholism and drug addiction is the notion that the addicted person is weak by morally and lack of self-discipline. We sometimes call the phase of emotional integration the phase because it is difficult work that requires courage and perseverance. Mostly who fail to recover from chemical dependence give up or attempt to sidestep this painful phase. 4. Transformation: rnTransformation is the last stage of transition into recovery. Transformation does not mean changing one's mind about using drugs. It means nothing less than seeing the world in a different way. The transformation phase is what recovering addicts often describe as a spiritual experience. Some patients describe the increasingly unfamiliar way they were before, as if they had been looking at life from atop a strange mountain. Others discover a new or rediscover a past spiritual or religious practice. To the individual entering this phase everything and everybody looks different, though it is in fact he who has changed. People who make it to the transformation phase generally lock in their recovery and go on to live life free of drugs and filled with an inner peace that often surprises them and those around them.