You can expect long term drug treatment if you have a severe addiction. This doesn’t mean that you’ll spend years in a clinic trying to get clean, but you will need continuing care. You may start out in an inpatient program. After you’ve graduated, you will most likely enter an outpatient program. If you remain clean, you’re not necessarily out of the dark. Long term drug treatment may mean lifetime counseling. It’s so easy for users to slip back into the grip of drugs without that continuing care.
Sometimes, a user can do serious damage to themselves when they abuse drugs. Long term drug treatment can also be a part of the long term medical treatment they’ll be getting, should they have health problems because of their addiction. Drugs can cause seizures, strokes, heart attacks and other life threatening risks that may take years of therapy under a doctor’s care to control. Long term drug treatment is not meant to punish; it’s to remind users’ that there is no need to do further damage to themselves.
Long Term Drug Treatment Can be Successful
When this long term treatment is offered, there is a comfort knowing that there will always be someone to talk to about the reoccurring thoughts of addiction. A drug user will be haunted by their past forever, but a good counselor or other trained professional can help the person make peace with themselves after they’re clean. Recovery is a lifelong process that takes true commitment and will power. It’s easier when there is someone to help you along the way.