Anyone who has a problem with alcohol or drugs and is entering a rehab to seek any type of treatment is likely to come up against the term rehab addict, or to be called an alcoholic as well.
A rehab addict understanding, normally refers to someone less had a problem with drugs or alcohol or any other type of addiction, and is seeking help probably without fully understanding the nature of addiction or alcoholism.
The term addict is quite often associated with someone who is a drug addict, and the term alcoholism is normally associated with someone who is an alcoholic or abuses alcohol.
In a rehab, the term addict tends to cover the individual themselves, with the substance or behaviour that they are addicted to normally been referred to as their drug of choice.
As an example, someone has a problem with gambling could be described as an addict, with gambling referred to as a drug of choice.
This can sometimes seem quite confusing to people, and it is important to understand where the rehab which has this approach, is coming from.
REHAB ADDICT – ALCOHOLIC
When people first started seeking treatment for alcoholism, they would normally be detoxed in a hospital, and then released into the community where they would either attend AA meetings, or seek some other form of spiritual or therapeutic help.
As Alcoholics Anonymous grew, and the number of sober alcoholics grew, the need for various treatment options grew and the number of rehabs and treatment centers grew exponentially.
As they grew, rehabs began to realise that they could treat people who had other addictions, mostly to be those with addictions to narcotics and other forms of drugs, gambling, food etc.
As such the notion of an addictive personality within the individual grew, with the drug or behaviour being labelled the drug of choice.
This allowed rehabs and treatment centers to effectively treat that anyone with any type of addiction.
The notion of an addictive personality being the major problem grew out of this we have focused approach to treatment, and has formed the major part of the approach to addiction recovery that has been embraced by many rehabs and treatment centers.
It is important to note that there are many people who do not go along with this approach, both within the world of rehabs and treatment centers, and within the world of alcoholism and addiction recovery generally. The idea of an addictive personality is often disputed, and is an area of clinical dispute that needs much further work and research.