Relapse Causes

Relapse all too often in the rehab community is considered almost inevitable. This comes from a defeatist mentality after year of failure in addressing the situation. Relapse CAN be prevented and is not a forgone conclusion. If one fully address and handles cravings, guilt and depression then relapse fades away as a point of concern. This may sound over-simplified but really isn’t. Narconon has a 76% success rate and over 40 years experience in handling exactly these factors with a long term, drug free and non-traditional approach to these exact three points. A Narconon Arrowhead we create drug free productive lives for a lifetime.

Prescription drug addictions are on the rise, not only as primary substances of abuse but also as secondary substances of abuse. At Narconon Arrowhead statistics show significant numbers of program participants involved in multiple prescription drug abuse along with any other reported drug addiction or alcoholism. This is no small problem when one takes into account the severe debilitating effects occurring on both the mental and physical levels from the abuse of these ‘medications’. Couple this with severe and often deadly side effects from mixing these substances and the clear rise in violence and suicide that can accompany withdrawal and ones sees a whole new level of treatment needed in handling today’s addictions.

Alcoholic Anonymous statistics show a retention rate of 5 – 7%. 12 step treatment options definitely work for some but not all by a long ways. Many shorter term inpatient alcohol treatment centers are based on 12 step methodologies and as such often suffer from the same low retention and success rates. Narconon Arrowhead is a long term inpatient alcohol treatment center that used the more effective but less traditional methods of education and empowerment. We do not treat alcoholism as an incurable disease that one is stuck with for life. Our success rates show that when the factors of cravings, guilt and depression are fully confronted and resolved that the need and desire for alcohol, or other substances for that matter, fades into the past as a motivating factor.

There is a lot of media and press on the subject of substance abuse intervention these days, there are even television shows covering the topic. What happens in most cases of drug and alcohol addiction is the person ceases to track with reality to a greater or lesser degree. They simply don’t see the situations or consequences that are as clear as day to you or I. Their ability to move their attention away from their own drug induced mental and physical pain and out onto their environments is markedly reduced and they are not aware. This can be quite frustrating to loved ones trying to help, as what is obvious to us is simply not real to the addict in many cases. A substance abuse intervention should be designed to give the addict enough assistance with his external observations that the situations and consequences that his or her addiction is creating once again become real to him or her. When the addict feels the threat of pain and loss from his environment is greater than the threat of pain or loss from drugs he or she usually becomes willing to do something, thought this may be reluctantly.

Mental as well as physical dependence both fall under the label of drug addictions. These occur when one no longer feels able to control their use despite harm or damage being caused to self or others. There is sometimes the mistaken idea that unless a drug or substance causes physical addiction it is not addictive. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mental drug addictions can be just as debilitating to the individual as physical ones, at times even more so. The surge in violence and suicide among our young people and adolescents trying to break free from the traps of prescribed anti-psychotics and anti-depressants are all too obvious examples. Drug addictions are not confined to street drugs or illegal substances, but are crossing age, race, economic, and education levels. Drugs are never the near cure-alls they are increasingly being made out to be in the advertising arenas.