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Long-term residential drug treatment

   Somethimes, the drug addiction is so strong that in the absence of a very strict observation, the chances for a proper and complete recovery are equal to zero... even though most  drug addicts, in the beginning, try to stop using several times on their own. While it is notorious that success rates depends on each person and his or her commitment to recovery, long-term residential drug treatment provides a time and a place to learn and gain the necessary skills in maintaining a sober life.

   This specific type of recovery program provides drug-free treatment services in a residential drug rehabilitation community of counselors and fellow recovering addicts. Patients, adults or adolescents, usually stay in these programs several months or up to a year or more. The main idea behind the long-term residential treatment is that the individuals suffering from drug addiction are able to live in an environment which is drug free. Step by step, they handle more and more responsibilities within the residential treatment facility and are expected to be part of the community in which they live. This means helping those who are just beginning as well as those around them.

   Long-term residential drug treatment, also known as therapeutic communities (TC) are located in residential non-hospital facilities, providing care 24 hours per day and focused on the "resocialization" of the individual by using the program's entire "community," including other residents, staff and the social context, as active components of drug treatment.

   Inside the therapeutic communities the drug treatment is highly structured and the residents are encouraged to examine the roots of their addiction in order to avoid relapse. Addiction is viewed in the context of an individual's social and psychological deficits so the main purpose of the drug treatment focuses on developing personal responsibility and socially productive lives, by learning and assimilating social norms.

   Therapeutic communities can be modified to treat also individuals with special needs, including adolescents, women, those with severe mental disorders or individuals in the criminal justice system. In patients who have participated in a TC program, the incidence of criminal activity was reduced and full-time employment increased three to five years after program completion.

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