Addiction Treatment – What to Look For
Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment is a free download from NIDA that can help make sense of addiction treatment options.
Making sense of addiction treatment (whether its for drugs or alcohol or both or for a co-occurring disorder), which is having both an addiction and a mental illness, is daunting to say the least. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has created a terrific resource to help people determine what they should look for when looking for treatment. It’s called Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide (Second Edition), and it’s free! [Just click on the title link.]
To give you a sense of what you’ll find there, I’m including 4 of the 13 principles NIDA outlines, below:
2. No single treatment is appropriate for everyone. Matching treatment settings, interventions, and services to an individual’s particular problems and needs is critical to his or her ultimate success in returning to productive functioning in the family, workplace, and society.
4. Effective treatment attends to multiple needs of the individual, not just his or her drug abuse. To be effective, treatment must address the individual’s drug abuse [alcohol is considered a drug] and any associated medical, psychological, social, vocational, and legal problems. It is also important that treatment be appropriate to the individual’s age, gender, ethnicity, and culture.
5. Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical. The appropriate duration for an individual depends on the type and degree of his or her problems and needs. Research indicates that most addicted individuals need at least 3 months in treatment to significantly reduce or stop their drug use and that the best outcomes occur with longer durations of treatment. Recovery from drug addiction is a longterm process and frequently requires multiple episodes of treatment. As with other chronic illnesses, relapses to drug abuse can occur and should signal a need for treatment to be reinstated or adjusted. Because individuals often leave treatment prematurely, programs should include strategies to engage and keep patients in treatment.
7. Medications are an important element of treatment for many patients, especially when combined with counseling and other behavioral therapies. For example, methadone and buprenorphine are effective in helping individuals addicted to heroin or other opioids stabilize their lives and reduce their illicit drug use. Naltrexone is also an effective medication for some opioid-addicted individuals and some patients with alcohol dependence. Other medications for alcohol dependence include acamprosate, disulfiram, and topiramate. For persons addicted to nicotine, a nicotine replacement product (such as patches, gum, or lozenges) or an oral medication (such as bupropion or varenicline) can be an effective component of treatment when part of a comprehensive behavioral treatment program.
Key take-aways:
- Addictions can be successfully treated.
- The person who treats their brain disease of addiction (again, whether it’s to drugs or alcohol or is a co-occurring disorder, such as mental illness) can go on to enjoy a healthy, happier life.
- There are many options for effective treatment.
- A person does not have to hit bottom before they can start treatment.
So check out NIDA’s free PDF — it’s a great resource!
Lisa Frederiksen
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Such great information; I wished I had known this when my sister was still alive. Addictions are so terrible, also for the family to look at it!!
I’m so sorry to hear about your sister, and you are so right — it takes a huge toll on the family, as well. Thank you for your comment!
This is a brilliantly informed post with essential advice if you or someone you know is looking for treatment for addiction.
There is no ‘one size fits all’ programme for addicts and sometimes it is like looking for the right key for the lock. But the best message of all is that with the right treatment and attitude an addict can learn to overcome their misuse and go on to lead a healthy, happy life!
Thanks so much for your comment, Carolyn! It’s so exciting how far addiction treatment has come and to have agencies like NIDA creating such helpful resources.
Lisa, this is a wonderfully informative post. I believe that addictions can be successfully treated, too, and I like how you lay out different options! I especially like how you point out that a person does not need to hit bottom before being helped…absolutely!
Thank you so much for reading and commenting, Sherie!
Addictions come in all shapes, sizes and avenues….most lead to a similar end results. Thanks for the great post.
You’re welcome, and thanks so much for reading and commenting!
It’s good to know that there are many types of treatment available so that a person can get the treatment that will best meet their needs.
I agree — so often people have the perception that a 12-step program is the only way or that you can’t use medications if you’re in a 12-step program… so it’s wonderful that NIDA puts together this kind of resource. Thanks for reading and adding your comment.
Great post. Thank you for sharing. Addiction is something that needs more attention and for people not to be afraid to speak up, learn and get help.
You are so right! Thanks for reading and adding your comment.
The topic of addiction is tackled from so many angles in online articles, from the anecdotal to the highly researched. And they all have their audience and their purpose. What a difference, compared with how difficult it was for people to access viable information just 10 years ago …
That is so true, Sharon! The new brain and addiction-related research of the past 10-15 years is shattering our long-held beliefs about substance abuse, mental illness, addiction and underage drinking. It’s such an exciting time and one that should finally help all of us understand addiction as a brain disease and that we need to treat it as treating a person with an illness, the same way we treat people for other, more understood (therefore more socially accepted) diseases. Thanks for reading and adding your comment!
Such a great information. Some people thought that drugs and alcohol addiction is difficult to leave. But they are wrong many medicines and rehab centres are available for remove addiction problems. The “Narconon Fresh start” program is one of the famous rehab centre which helps to those people who are habitual of drugs and alcohol addictions. You can see this rehab centre on https://twitter.com/Narconon_Fresh.
Thank you, Narconon Fresh Start, for your comment and sharing your program.
Thank you, Narconon Fresh Start, for sharing your comment and program information!