A Short Drug Rehab Can’t Overcome Long Term Problems

Is it unbelievable that Amy Winehouse could possibly be back on drugs? No – for anyone who understands drug addiction it will come as no surprise. Amy has barely spent enough time in drug rehab to get the drugs out of her system, let alone handle the problems behind her addiction.

Despite the number of times Amy’s been in drug treatment facilities over the last several months, every one of her stints have been short term. And it usually requires months of treatment to overcome an addiction problem that severe.

Here’s what people don’t understand about drug addiction, and about drug rehab:
 

While it’s true that taking drugs complicates the problems a person is having, they often don’t cause them. The problems begin before the person starts taking drugs, not as a result of taking them. And those problems are the reason behind drug addiction, or alcohol addiction or addiction to anything that alters one’s perception of reality. That, in fact, is what someone who takes drugs or drinks alcohol is after. They don’t like reality – whatever they perceive that to be. It’s uncomfortable, painful, or confusing, or it makes them feel hopeless, inadequate, or frightened.
 

People take drugs in an attempt to change their life, or how they view it, or how it affects them. But the drugs don’t change anything other than their perception. At least, not at first. Eventually they’ll change a lot of things: they alienate friends, they ruin careers, they break up families, they wear out bodies constantly fighting off the toxins – they may even kill you. But, they’re not going to change the real problems that caused the person to start taking drugs or drinking in the first place. Remove the drugs, and the problem is still there.

That’s why you can’t handle drug addiction with an alleged drug rehab program that does little more, if anything, than get the person to stop taking drugs for a few weeks. They’re still left with the same problems they couldn’t handle in the first place.

Don’t expect anyone to get off drugs, and stay off them, with only a few weeks of drug rehab. Sometimes it can take months to get to the bottom of things and enable the person to really get a handle on it. If you know someone who is going to drug rehab to handle their drug addiction problem, don’t let them go through treatment that just lets them dry out for a while. Find a drug rehab program that gets people through their underlying problems.