A rehab has traditionally focused on recovery from alcoholism/alcohol abuse and drug abuse. Although alcoholism/alcohol abuse has been around for a long time in human history, it is only fairly recently, in the 1930s, that there has begun to be an acceptance of alcoholism/alcohol abuse as an illness.
When rehabs began to treat people for the illness of alcoholism/alcohol abuse it became obvious that many people were in effect dual addicted. This in effect means that not only were people suffering from alcoholism/alcohol abuse but they were also using prohibited or illegal drugs as well.
It thus became a feature of rehabs that they would treat people who were suffering from either or both of these conditions. In rehab terms, this became known as a dual diagnosis. In many respects this remains the main focus of programs that rehabs offer.
The type of program will be a mix of various therapeutic techniques, quite probably including an adaptation of various 12 step programs, individual or group therapy, various life skills and other approaches to getting and staying sober.
Rehabs have evolved this approach over time and from the idea of treating people who have a dual diagnosis, a whole range of programs are available for different approaches to people who are affected by either of these conditions.
Rehab Addiction Treatment Programs
This means that a rehab/treatment center is quite likely to advertise its programs as been focused to certain different groups of people. These are likely to include an approach to young adults, and at the other end of the spectrum people who would be classified as executives in business or commerce.
A rehab/treatment center may sell itself as being a luxury rehab, often meaning that it doesn’t impose the restrictions on people in terms of a structure that many rehabs do.
Many rehabs now offer programs aimed at people with eating disorders, people who are addicted to prescription drugs, as well as rehabs that are specifically either for men or for women only.
A rehab/treatment center may quite often be focused on people in various professions or trades, such as the military or the clergy.
Part of the attraction of this type of program is the added anonymity that it gives to people in those professions who may have a problem with alcohol and/or drugs and need a space away from their colleagues in order to get sober.
A rehab/treatment center, whilst mainly focused on people who need to get sober or clean, will often also offer a program to people who have been in recovery for a while.
This is aimed at people who have been sober for a period of time but feel they need an intensive period of work in the environment of a rehab/treatment center to focus on issues that for whatever reason they have not yet dealt with.
A rehab/treatment center may also focus on a number of emotional/mental health issues that they feel they can help with, such as helping people deal with depression, anxiety management, anger management or codependency issues.
In addition to the professions already mentioned, a rehab will also offer a safe environment for people in professions who need to be trusted and where the admission of a problem with alcohol or drugs would effectively end their career.
This applies primarily to people such as healthcare professionals, public safety officers, aviation professionals, law enforcement officers as well as any government or local area politicians or well known public figures.
A rehab/treatment center will offer a program of recovery that is essentially based on the spiritual approach to recovery found in programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous.
Many rehabs will talk about term spirituality in different words and may approach it in different ways.
Some will use the word quite guardedly so as not to alienate people who are atheists or agnostics or simply have a problem with the word God. Other rehabs/treatment centers will be much more specific that this is their approach.
Some rehabs will specifically focus on what they perceive as a Christian or other type of religious model, and effectively advertise themselves as a Christian alcohol and drug rehab or a Jewish alcohol and drug rehab or treatment center.
In all these cases, a rehab/treatment center should say that they will offer each individual a personally prescribed program plan based on their specific circumstances.
They will use the circumstances of the person, be they their religious affiliation or their profession or their gender as a lead in, if you like a selling point for their treatment center.
That may to some extent put people off, but bear in mind that a rehab/treatment center is essentially a business and they are attracting customers.