Alcoholism treatment centers are often referred to simply as rehabs, and in fact most treatment centers or rehabs will deal with not only alcoholism, but also a wide variety of other addictions or addictive type behaviour.
Alcoholism treatment centers are in the main focused on the notion or belief that alcoholism is an illness, and that the time spent in a rehab or treatment center, normally around 30 days or so, can begin the process of helping the individual to understand and accept this belief.
Any individual entering an alcoholism treatment center or rehab is likely to have spent a significant part of their life drinking or using or misusing alcohol. However this is not always the case with young people who are often put into a rehab, normally by parents, who see a trend or pattern emerging that they believe to be alcoholic.
However these young people can learn from the experience of people who have gone before them, and if they are alcoholics they can use other people’s experience as a way of having to avoid continuing to drink for a long period of time.
Alcoholism treatment centers will have a wide range of addiction treatment programs that they use to help the individual come to accept that alcoholism is an illness.
It is likely that these addiction treatment programs and treatment facilities will be based on the principles embodied in the 12 step program of Alcoholics Anonymous.It is important to note that no rehab or treatment center will have any official connection with Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a completely separate organisation and fellowship.
Alcoholism Treatment Centers – Acceptance
A large part of the therapeutic work that is done in a rehab treatment center will be focused on helping the individual to see their life in the context of alcohol being a problem. Whilst this may be fairly obvious to a large number of people involved in the life of such an individual, it is an important point to note that any individual who is an alcoholic is likely to be in serious denial of this fact.
Denial for an alcoholic around their drinking alcoholism is a highly protective process, a process the alcoholic is likely to have developed over a long period of time.
Most alcoholics believe or come to believe over a period of time that alcohol is the only thing that it effectively holding them together emotionally. This belief transcends the reality that they end up living in as a consequence of their drinking, and is effectively the belief that underpins their denial of the fact that they have a drink problem.