Searching up rehab centers and trying to figure out whether you should receive addiction treatment can be a daunting task. It’s a big decision and there are many things to consider. Some may see the negative stigma surrounding rehab, while others may look at the cost. You may even consider getting sober on your own. However, there are a few things to consider before trying to get sober on your own.
While it’s completely normal to be hesitant and weigh out your options, nothing can be a replacement for professional help and care. Going to a trusted rehab center is a person’s best chance of reaching long-term sobriety. Additionally, there are certain procedures that may not be safe if done alone. This is why we recommend that all drug addicts attend professional addiction treatment.
Once you’ve taken the first step towards becoming sober and improving your life, it’s time to enroll in a trusted rehab facility that will guide you towards your goals in a safe and effective manner. Coastal Detox is ready to help you on your first steps to recovery, as we specialize in detox and other treatment methods.
Why It’s Better to Get Professional Help
Getting sober on your own is not as easy or as safe as it sounds. There are several reasons why trying to get sober on your own may not be the best idea. Two of the main factors to consider are your safety during the detox process and creating a comprehensive plan for long-term recovery. Many people underestimate both of these processes, which happen to be two of the most important aspects of treatment.
When it comes to safety, there are certain complications that can arise if you aren’t being supervised. At Coastal Detox, we provide a series of assessments to ensure detox goes safely and smoothly for you.
Detox is just too unpredictable to do alone, especially when dealing with more intense cases of addiction. Long-term planning is also something you can’t effectively do alone.
The Possible Dangers of Detoxing Alone
Many of the most commonly used substances like benzodiazepines, alcohol, and others have potentially deadly withdrawal symptoms. Consulting professionals with detox management experience rather than taking the risk of performing detox on your own is the best way to handle these withdrawal symptoms.
Medical supervision allows for the safe management of dangerous withdrawal symptoms while also providing some comfort to the patients. When people develop an addiction, they become physically and psychologically dependent on substances. As a result, they need medical supervision and sometimes even medications to get through the detox process. Medical detox is typically required for the following types of drugs:
- Alcohol
- Heroin
- Benzodiazepines
- Methamphetamine
- Ecstasy (and other club drugs)
- Inhalants
- Prescription pills
When people are dependent on drugs, they experience withdrawal symptoms whenever they minimize or discontinue their use of their drugs of choice. Since the bodies of drug addicts are accustomed to having drugs in their systems, the withdrawal symptoms that they will experience during detox can become very brutal.
Similar to the human body, the human minds of drug addicts are also accustomed to having drugs in their systems. In fact, when people chronically consume drugs, it can affect their minds in a way that alters their behavior and causes them to experience cravings. In worst-case scenarios, chronic drug use can cause the human body and mind to experience severe, negative symptoms, and even death.
Symptoms of Detoxing Alone
When people detox alone, they aren’t equipped to deal with the severe withdrawal symptoms that might occur. This is because you can never know how strongly your body will react to removing a drug from its system that it has become dependent on. Oftentimes, the body of addicts reacts strongly to drug detox. As a result, the withdrawal symptoms that you can experience during detox can be strong enough to cause death. Common substance withdrawal symptoms include:
- Hallucinations
- Seizures or shakiness
- Anxiety
- Delirium tremens
- Suicidal thoughts (or general depression)
The severity of your withdrawal symptoms during detox often depends on the substances that you chose to abuse and how much of those substances that you abused. If the substance that you’re addicted to is strong and/or you abused large amounts of substances for long periods of time, you must receive assistance from medical professionals during detox.
Here at Coastal Detox, we specialize in medical detox. Thus, our staff will make sure that your detox process runs smoothly.
The medical staff here at Coastal Detox will also make sure that you’re as comfortable as possible throughout the whole detox process. Don’t take the risk of potentially fatal consequences by detoxing without medical supervision.
Long-Term Benefits of Getting Professional Help
You likely don’t have the tools or resources that you’ll need to maintain sobriety after getting sober on your own. It’s one thing to become free of drugs, but staying free of drugs for a long period of time after addiction treatment is a different and even more difficult task. To help you maintain long-term sobriety, you should seek out professional help from qualified therapists and clinicians. Getting clinicians and qualified therapists to help you maintain long-term sobriety allows some of the following benefits:
- Continuous counseling and support (during and after treatment)
- Safe drug and alcohol detox
- Effective options for therapy and support meetings
- Relapse prevention planning
- Long-term wellness programs
Lower Chances of Relapse
Relapsing can set people back several steps in their recovery journey. One reason that people often relapse is the desire to use substances that people get when they’re struggling to cope with life’s stresses. By attending professional detox, addiction treatment, and aftercare services though, many recovering addicts can learn specific skills and techniques that they can use to help them cope.
Addiction treatment is entirely personalized and specific to your case, so simply doing searches on the internet won’t be enough. Besides, even if, by some chance, you do successfully get sober on your own, you likely will have a tough time staying there without the proper techniques and tools.
Quitting drugs without rehab and detox not only poses a number of risks, but it doesn’t allow you the gain the tools that you need to stay sober. This is because, during addiction treatment, you’re accessed and given a variety of treatment options. Each assessment and treatment option is with you and your case of addiction in mind. These assessments also help determine the best next course of action. There are many factors to a drug addiction assessment and treatment option. Some of these factors include:
- The substance that the person is addicted to
- The severity of the addiction
- Family environment, social circles, and other factors
- Medical history and the presences of co-occurring disorders
The Different Types of Rehab
There are a variety of different treatment options and methods. One may work better for you than others. So, it’s important to address your lifestyle and preferences while searching for treatment options. Quitting drugs without rehab or detox can be extremely dangerous. But with the proper treatment and resources, you can overcome substance abuse.
There are primarily two types of rehab, inpatient and outpatient treatment. Each has its benefits and limitations. Regardless of which one you prefer more, it’s important to take the first step towards rehab today.
Inpatient Treatment
Inpatient treatment is the most comprehensive form of addiction treatment that a person can receive. Inpatient treatment typically has a person staying in a trusted and comfortable facility for an extended period of time. During inpatient treatment, you’re supervised 24 hours, every single day. This is excellent for those struggling with more severe addiction cases like co-occurring disorders.
Having medical professionals by your side at any given moment can be highly beneficial. Inpatient treatment is typically the next step after detox.
Inpatient treatment is recommended for those who think they may relapse down the line and for those who have tried to become clean in the past but failed. Thus, while in inpatient treatment, it’s important to be honest about your overall health situation so that you can receive all of the help that you need.
Outpatient Treatment
Outpatient treatment uses the same fundamental principles as inpatient treatment but takes on a different approach. For one, instead of requiring patients to live at the rehab facilities that they’re receiving addiction treatment at like inpatient treatment does, outpatient treatment only requires a person to attend weekly meetings. This is a great option for those who have prior obligations and responsibilities.
Kids, work, school, and other tasks may still need your attention while attending treatment. Luckily, outpatient treatment allows for time flexibility. However, outpatient treatment is not for everyone.
For more severe cases of addiction, it’s important to get comprehensive treatment with medical supervision. For more moderate cases of addiction, outpatient treatment can be a solid option.
At the end of the day, it’s important, to be honest about the state of your addiction. That way you can figure out what form of addiction treatment works best for you. With the added flexibility of outpatient treatment, there is no excuse for not seeking professional help for your addiction.
Support During Recovery
There is much more to addiction treatment than meets the eye. Even if you believe that detoxing alone is possible, there is still another aspect of recovery that you have to keep in mind.
Those struggling with drug addiction can benefit greatly from social support and like-minded people. Not only can attending professional addiction treatment help you create lasting bonds with other recovering addicts, but it can also encourage you to get sober and remain clean for years to come.
Establishing a supportive environment with those in the same situation as you can be crucial to recovery. Especially if life at home is not as positive or as receiving as you’d hoped. With this in mind, there are several other different aspects of social support that rehab treatment can provide – these include:
- Physical – Physical help which ranges from simple errands to financial support
- Emotional – A person or group of people you can open up to when things get rough
- Education – Relapse prevention, techniques, and tips for avoiding relapsing/stressors
- Feedback – Positive feedback in the form of accompaniments and celebrating your journey
Avoid Quitting Drugs Without Rehab and Detox; Get Professional Help Today
While you may think that getting sober on your own is achievable, there are certain complications to doing so that you may not be thinking about. Thus, you should consider weighing out your options to receive better treatment. Think about what treatment option will best help you maintain sobriety in the long-run.
At Coastal, we make sure that you have all the tools that you need to achieve recovery. For help, contact us today to learn more about our treatment options and detox process.
