Most of my alcohol rehab was handled in inpatient rehab centers during the beginning of my sobriety. These centers were plentiful in the 80s when I did my rehab. They have since changed due to tightening insurance companies. I was fortunate to have a long-term rehabilitation process. My addiction recovery process started in inpatient detox treatment centers like so many did at that time. It is a relearning process, and it would be very difficult to maintain sobriety without having an intense program to retrain your thinking. At least, it was for me.
Inpatient rehab centers became the way of life for me for a couple of years. My first facility was private that barely counts. My second facility was a 28-day inpatient rehab program, and my third and last alcohol program was a residential long-term rehab center for alcohol and drug abusers.
It may seem that my recovery process was a little extreme, but since I started abuse at such a young age and I also came from an alcoholic home, I may have needed the extra time just to learn how to live sober and to think somewhat like the rest of the world. Who knows? When you start teenage alcohol abuse, you stop maturing emotionally. So I have been told!
For many people, rehab means either a 28-day stay in a center or just joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). For me, it meant going into a long-term program. It is what I had to do or die. I had no other alternative.
My stay at the residential long-term alcohol rehab program lasted ten more months. I had to be completely removed from my environment and family. My rehab house was in an entirely different town. This was not an easy decision to make, and leaving my children was the hardest and worst thing I could think of doing. But if I had not gone to these lengths, I would have died and possibly had hurt someone seriously along the way.
While I was away, my family had plenty of time to get into a program and receive counseling. By now, they too were willing to do whatever it took to start healing and get healthy.
Alcohol detox was not too difficult in a hospital setting, especially since I was already drugged up from the private treatment center. In the hospital, I was given a drug a couple of times a day to prevent the DTs. I’m not going to claim to know what was given to me because I do not know. All I do know is that I did not have too bad of a time. For the first three days, I slept most of the time anyway. My detoxification was done in a detox room. I was left alone and monitored by the staff frequently.
My rehab process is ongoing. It is different today than it was while spending time in a residential treatment house. Alcohol abuse treatments vary among individuals. Not every man or woman needs to go into a residential alcohol rehab program.