Alcohol Rehabs in Brookline, MA

If you struggle to help a family member experiencing alcohol addiction disorder, gaining an understanding of how the recovery process works in most people is an important initial step to take. While you will hopefully find top alcohol rehabs in Brookline, there will be times during the treatment process when you experience doubt and anxiety. In these times, you'll find that insight into the fact that difficulties are par for the course, offers hope and confidence.

Intervention: the First Phase

When you talk to a person addicted to alcohol about seeking treatment, you can expect to see serious resistance. It is a defense mechanism that rises not from reason, but from addiction. Addiction is a condition in which drugs change the way the brain sees substance abuse. The brain is chemically changed to feel great love and emotional attachment toward the habit. Unthinking defensiveness is the only reaction that the mind is capable of in this condition.

In many families, concerned members will try their best to make their loved one see sense, but will then give up when their efforts are rebuffed. They hear that hitting rock bottom is the only way that an addict will ever come around, and, therefore, decide to wait.

Certainly, the strength of an addict's denial can begin to crumble when their habit gets them into trouble -- when they get fired for their habit, see a relationship end, or get into legal trouble. This kind of clear indication of trouble, however, can take time coming. In the meantime, an addiction to alcohol can reach dangerous levels. Such an addiction is much harder to treat.

The answer is to look up a top alcohol rehab in Brookline even before your loved one agrees to go. A professional interventionist at the alcohol rehab center should be able to help your loved one understand the need for rehab. Interventionists have professional training in helping addicts understand.

The Self-Awareness Phase

Once an interventionist manages to reach out to your loved one, they are likely to experience a greater level of awareness of the problem. The addicted person will usually begin gathering information on what addiction is all about. This is healthy and will lead to better engagement with treatment.

It's possible to hasten the arrival of this phase by offering material yourself. There are many good books available, as well as government resources online at the websites of NIDA, SAMHSA and NIAAA. Such information can help addicts understand what it is that alcohol does to the brain, why the phenomenon of addiction exists, how treatment helps, and why it is a dangerous idea to consider quitting on one's own without medical help.

Beginning Alcohol Rehab

When you begin your search for alcohol rehabs in Brookline, it's important that you look for centers that offer evidence-based care. It is these rehabs that offer care in line with modern standards of medical science. Many other kinds of rehab exist that offer nothing close to scientifically valid care. It's important to avoid such rehabs.

Assessment and Individual Treatment Programs

Drug rehabs in Brookline that are not run to evidence-based principles will often attempt to treat every form of addiction with one treatment protocol. Often, alcohol addiction is treated alongside an eating disorder or a gambling disorder, for example. In reality, it is even impossible to treat a person for alcohol addiction on a program designed for heroin addiction or addiction to benzodiazepines.

Programs need to be personalized to the needs of each patient. In an evidence-based rehab, then, the intake panel will consist of a medical doctor, an addiction specialist, and a mental health specialist, all of whom make assessments of the patient's condition. A personalized treatment plan will take into account the patient's mental health, physical health as well as specifics of their addiction.

A patient with an uncomplicated, predictable and short-lived addiction will usually be recommended outpatient treatment. When a patient experiences complications, however, inpatient treatment is likely to be recommended.

Complications may include physical ailments such as heart, liver or kidney disease as a result of prolonged alcohol consumption. Psychiatric disorders or an addiction which the patient uses other drugs in addition to alcohol are common as well. Such addictions can throw up unpredictable challenges along the way. Inpatient treatment -- where the addicted person receives expert monitoring and supervision at all times -- is the best option in these cases.

Medical Detox and Alcohol Rehabs in Brookline

The patient is carefully taken off alcohol. As dangerous alcohol withdrawal symptoms surface, they are attacked with medications. The patient receives help in the form of drug replacement prescriptions, as well, to help calm down the cravings. Medical detox in Brookline is best done in an inpatient setting, with a program that lasts 90 days. This is as long as it takes to ensure reliable withdrawal from alcohol.

Relapse Prevention

When a patient completes medical detox, they are free of their physical dependence on alcohol. Addiction comes with mental dependence, as well, however -- deep emotional love of alcohol that shows up in the form of cravings. These cravings turn up even once alcohol withdrawal treatment concludes. All evidence-based rehabs help the patient after detox by recommending relapse prevention therapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy and other scientific behavior modification approaches are in use today.

Relapse prevention is the most crucial part of a rehab program. While a person may gain sobriety in detox, it is in relapse prevention that they learn how to maintain it. Therapeutic intervention requires high levels of expertise. It's important to look for the best therapists possible.

When treatment continues as long as may be necessary, and the patient keeps in touch with relapse prevention therapy through life, it can help ensure sobriety.

There may be many options available for alcohol rehabs in Brookline. When you begin screening rehabs for their adherence to evidence-based principles, however, you'll have a much smaller list to deal with. You'll then be assured of quality care. Call Brookline Alcohol Treatment Centers now for help (877) 804-1531.