Should You Travel to Ohio for Alcohol Treatment?

When it comes to the effective treatment of addiction, philosophies regarding what works best and how to go about it tend to be all over the map. The reason for that, however, is that while there are certainly some emerging treatments that seem to have the greatest effectiveness across the board, the bottom line is that every addiction is slightly different as are the needs of every alcoholic and addict. For instance, some alcoholics may have very supportive families, while others come from entire families that struggle with addiction. Those families may actually sabotage an alcoholic’s attempts to get treatment. While it may be helpful in some cases for a recovering alcoholic to involve their family in their recovery, in other cases it may actually prove to be detrimental.

This is one of many reasons why there is no one-size-fits-all regimen when it comes to the treatment of alcoholism and addiction. On the other hand, however, addiction research has also shown that for at least a short period of time, it is almost always helpful and beneficial to completely remove someone starting the recovery process from their familiar atmosphere. This is generally accomplished by a stay at an inpatient treatment facility. Beyond that, it is also often advised that an addict or alcoholic seek treatment far away from home. For this reason, it is in fact advisable to travel to Ohio for alcohol treatment, particularly if you do not live in Ohio.

Why is traveling to Ohio for alcohol treatment important?

What many people do not understand about addiction is that drinking becomes as much an ingrained habit as anything else and it is this habit that can be hardest to break. For instance, many alcoholics start their day with a drink or have specific times or ways they incorporate alcohol into their day. There are also certain people that they most likely get together with for a drink after work or a certain bar that they are used to going to. If an alcoholic seeks treatment in the same place or near the place where they wove all of these habits and patterns in the first place, the pull of these places and the habits they represent may prove to be too strong.

The farther removed an alcoholic is from the familiar the greater the chance they have of being able to break the habits that undergird their addiction. Of course, eventually they will need to return home but one of the goals of inpatient treatment is to help develop new, healthier habits and patterns as well as to develop a plan of attack for avoiding the old ones. Breaking habits and patterns, however, is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to recovery. Alcoholics drink for a reason and the next step is to begin the process of excavating the underlying cause of the alcoholism. At its deepest root, all addiction is a type of pain management.

The reason alcoholics can’t just “stop drinking” is because they are in pain and alcohol is simply the means by which they manage it. You can’t simply “quit” the thing you are using to manage pain until you find and address the underlying cause of the pain. While this pain may sometimes be physical, it is more often an emotional or psychological pain caused by a very specific injury. For instance, many women who were abused in some way will often become alcoholics or addicts if they don’t get some type of psychotherapeutic treatment to deal with the psychological injury. The body generally heals much faster than the psyche and just like the body, the psyche doesn’t just heal on its own without treatment. Similarly, many military veterans are also at risk of becoming addicts or alcoholics if they don’t receive treatment for PTSD.

In many cases, individuals may use alcohol as a means of self-medicating for certain mental health conditions such as depression or bipolar disorder that they may not even know they have until they seek addiction treatment. While again, there are many different theories regarding the most effective means of treating alcoholism and addiction, there is also a process that is generally accepted as being the most effective. Overall, the generally accepted process looks something like this:

  • Detox at a specialized medical facility
  • Inpatient treatment
  • Short or long term stay at a halfway house
  • Outpatient treatment
  • Ongoing therapy or work with a support group

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