What are the Main Benefits of Getting a Job after Alcohol Rehab?

Rehab centers can show you how to defeat your cravings and begin reclaiming your life again. What they cannot do is do the job for you. Speaking of which, you need to look into how you are going to spend your days during your recovery. One of the worst things you can do is sit around all day with nothing to do. When you have too much free time this is when your mind starts to wander towards relapsing.

Getting a job should become a priority for you. In this article, we are going to show you the main benefits of getting a job with the expert advice of www.rehab-clinic.com.

Time to Kill

Time is your worst enemy as a recovering alcoholic. Whenever you have an hour to spare, you are risking a confrontation with your cravings. This is a scientific fact. This is why you always find rehab clinics doing everything they can to fill up the time of their patients. You will rarely have a long stretch of time where you have nothing to do.

When you leave rehab, you are in the early stages of recovery. If you can keep busy, you’re increasing your chances of success because you’re taking yourself away from your cravings and withdrawal symptoms.

Confidence Issues

Many alcoholics struggle with confidence. They see themselves as failures because they have reached a point where they’ve hit rock bottom. It can take years to get that confidence back again. One way to help regain this confidence is to get a job. It puts you in contact with real people in a real world setting. You need to get used to dealing with the outside world again.

Successfully completing a job will do wonders for your confidence. It demonstrates that you are a human being that is useful to society.

A Sense of Pride

Together with a lack of confidence, many alcoholics desperately struggle to find something they are proud of. This is especially the case if they embarrassed and degraded themselves whilst drunk. Getting a job instils a sense of pride. There is nothing like earning your own pay packet and being able to say you did a good job in the process.

Taking Responsibility for Your Recovery

Your counsellor will always reinforce the importance of personal responsibility within the recovery process. You caused yourself to end up in this position and you have the power to dig yourself back out again. Deciding to work is about taking responsibility. You are earning your own money. You are not relying on anyone else to make a living.

Taking responsibility in this way is essential in your overall recovery. Responsible people are more receptive to treatment and far more likely to broaden their horizons away from alcohol.

In conclusion, whilst getting a job can do a lot for your state of mind, it cannot complete the process. There’s no such thing as a magic key. Use employment as a tool to beat your addictions, but remember that it all falls down to you and your actions in the end.

www.rehab-clinic.com are experts when it comes to dealing with alcohol recovery and rehab clinics. They believe that acquiring gainful employment is crucial in anyone’s goal of recovery.

Drug Rehab Clinics: Sometimes Distance Is Good

When an alcoholic or drug addict is considering residential treatment, he is faced with a lot of different choices for drug rehab clinics. Making the right choice involves considering a number of different factors that will affect how well the individual actually responds to rehab. One of those factors is distance. Should the recovering addict seek treatment at a local clinic, or should he put some distance between where he lives and where he recovers?

Believe in it or not, sometimes distance is good. Recovering addicts are normally advised to seek treatment locally so they are still close to family, friends, and other support services. However, there are times when getting away from one's local area is more productive.

Here are two examples of real addicts who chose to use rehab centres located far from home:

Cynthia – Wife and Mother

Cynthia was a twenty-something wife and mother when she was clinically diagnosed as a heroin addict. She had been using opiates since her teens, never considering the damage her behaviour would cause years down the road. Nevertheless, the damage was very real. There came a point when Cynthia was no longer able to safely be in the presence of her children, let alone care for their needs.

When she finally agreed to seek treatment, Cynthia was told by the court that she would no longer be able to see her children until she recovered from her heroin addiction. If you are a mother, you know what this must have done to Cynthia at an emotional level. The desire to be reunited with her children became the driving force in her recovery. To make that drive even stronger, Cynthia chose a rehab centre far away from home. In doing so, she knew she would have absolutely no access to family until her recovery was complete. This was the just incentive she needed to get well.

Gary – Husband and Pensioner

Gary was an American husband and pensioner whose addiction was uncovered when he was in his mid-60s. He began looking at local rehab centers with the help of his family and a few close friends. It was quickly determined that because of Gary's age, his long-time associations within the local community would make it impossible for him to successfully seek treatment without going away. He chose a facility more than 500 miles from home.

For Gary, there were far too many connections in his hometown. He would have faced constant distractions that would have inhibited his recovery. By placing him in an unfamiliar environment, far from home, his family was able to ensure the right surroundings for Gary.

Both Cynthia and Gary successfully completed recovery despite using rehab centres far from home. For them, distance ended up being a very good thing.

Three Reasons 12-Step Programmes Work

When the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous developed their 12-step programme back in the 1930s they probably had no idea how popular their unique approach to alcoholism would become. Within just a few short years alcohol rehab clinics all over the US began implementing the 12-step strategy. By the 1950s, the programme was being used for drug addiction as well.

Today the 12-step approach is a mainstay of alcohol and drug rehab clinics around the world. Moreover, while the approach does not work for everyone, it does work well for large numbers of recovering addicts. Here are the top three reasons this recovery programme works so well for so many people:

1. It Addresses the Spiritual Component

Whether or not we agree that the spiritual side of man includes the necessity of religion, most of us would agree that man is a being with three parts: body, mind, and spirit. The original Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step strategy was built around the idea that recovering alcoholics need to address spiritual side of man just as much as the physical and mental. Proponents of the 12-step programme still believe that today.

Some rehab centres approach the spiritual component in terms of a specific religious influence. Others are more generic in that they allow recovering addicts to address the spiritual in whatever way they know how. The point here is that addressing the spiritual component facilitates treating the whole individual, not just the mind and body.

2. It Demands Personal Responsibility

The biggest failure of progressive drug and alcohol treatment methodologies is that they do not demand personal responsibility from recovering addicts. That is a mistake. The truth is that no addict can ever fully recover until he is willing to take ownership of his own thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Demanding personal responsibility is one of the strengths of the 12-step strategy. No participant is able to blame external circumstances or other people for the condition he finds himself in. The individual must take responsibility for his choices; he must take responsibility for his recovery.

3. It Takes Advantage of the Group Dynamic

A staple of the 12-step recovery programme is the support group. Decades of alcohol and drug treatment have shown that the group dynamic is a very powerful motivator toward recovery. Support group participation provides mutual encouragement, goal setting and, most importantly, accountability. Even rehab programmes not integrating 12-step work in their recovery strategy still use group counselling and support for treatment purposes.

As previously mentioned, 12-step recovery does not work for everyone. And that's fine. There are other drug and alcohol treatment strategies better suited to those individuals. However, among recovering addicts that do benefit, the 12-step recovery programme might be the key to completely and permanently overcoming substance abuse or addiction.

Why Detox Alone Is Usually Insufficient for Addiction

Every year UK taxpayers fund NHS rehab centres at a rate of millions of pounds. Yet these facilities tend to be equipped with revolving doors, so to speak, as addicts continually come and go in a never-ending cycle of detox, relapse and detox again. Something is clearly not working.

An unbiased study of the evidence shows that one of our biggest problems is our view of detox. For too many policy makers, the belief that a 7 to 10-day detox programme is all that is required to overcome addiction is prevalent. However, reality bites. The truth is that detox alone is usually insufficient for complete recovery from addiction.

It is not enough to simply break a physical addiction through detox. It is even worse to condemn addicts to a lifetime of substitute medications under the guise of providing 'ongoing outpatient detox'. In order to conquer their demons once and for all, recovering addicts need to undergo comprehensive treatment at alcohol and drug rehab clinics specialising in addiction recovery.

Mind and Body

The very real problem of addiction is not just a physical one. It is also mental and emotional. When recovery focuses on detox only, all we are doing is dealing with the physical aspects of the problem. Then the recovering addict returns right back to the same life and circumstances that enabled his addiction to begin with. It is no wonder the rates of relapse among detox-only patients are astronomical.

On the other hand, treatments that also address the psychological aspects of addiction tend to be more successful. Take those private rehab centers that combine detox with psychotherapeutic treatments as an example. They start treatment by breaking the physical addiction, and then follow up by addressing the mental and emotional aspects.

Retraining the Mind

Why is psychotherapeutic treatment necessary? Because abusing drugs and alcohol alters the way the brain works. Addicts tend to have trouble thinking rationally about their substance abuse and the root causes of their misery. Without retraining the mind to think rationally, those incorrect thoughts and attitudes will continue. The first sign of any sort of pressure will likely result in relapse.

Combined detox and psychotherapeutic treatments do not work for everyone, especially among recovering addicts who do not genuinely want to recover completely. However, the combined treatments do far better than detox alone. They are a better option because they address addiction from every angle, rather than treating the problem as just a physical one.

Clearly, spending millions of pounds on programmes that focus only on detox is not accomplishing the results we are looking for. Yet we have been cutting funding for private rehab centers for a number of years. It is time we reverse that trend in the UK.

When Alcohol Abuse Becomes Addiction

Alcoholism, alcohol dependence, or addiction; no matter what term is used to describe it, the condition is one that devastates both the individual drinker and his family. The good news is that it can usually be avoided by understanding the signs of alcohol abuse and how it progresses to a state of addiction. When alcohol abuse is recognised, proper intervention can prevent it from progressing to the next stage.

There are three types of alcohol-related problems generally recognised at the clinical level:

1. problem drinking
2. alcohol abuse
3. alcohol dependence (alcoholism, addiction).

The key to preventing dependence is to intervene while the individual is still in one of the first two stages. Unfortunately, today's alcohol rehab clinics are dealing with far too many individuals classified as long-term alcoholics.

Problem Drinking

The NHS recommends men limit their alcohol consumption to 3-4 units of alcohol per day; women should limit themselves to 2-3 units. Units are calculated by dividing the strength of an alcoholic beverage by its total volume, then multiplying that number by 1,000. The formula dictates that a small glass of wine with an alcohol content of 12% is equal to 1.5 units.

The problem drinker exceeds the recommended limits on a regular basis without necessarily getting drunk. He may adhere to the limits during the week, and then consume more on the weekends. Problem drinkers tend to drink in order to help them relax or deal with problems.

Alcohol Abuse

Alcohol abuse is defined as exceeding the recommended limits persistently and without worry. Alcohol abusers tend to be binge drinkers with a tendency to spend several days every month in a drink induced haze. As alcohol abuse continues to develop, it eventually leads to alcohol dependence. Unfortunately, the abuser who has been at it long enough may be just one or two drinks away from alcohol rehab.

Alcohol Addiction

Alcohol abuse becomes addiction when an individual reaches a point of being controlled by alcohol. The addict is a person who constantly thinks about alcohol; he is a person who is worried he will not have enough alcohol to get through the day; he is someone who will go to extraordinary lengths to get a drink.

Rehab-clinic.com is one of the many organisations helping alcoholics overcome their issues by way of residential treatment. They say that it is common for clients to call them looking for help without knowing the extent of their problem. Many simply do not understand they are addicted.

The reality is that alcohol abuse will usually become addiction if left untreated. As a casual drinker, the best thing you can do is learn the signs of problem drinking, abuse and dependence, so that you are not caught off guard. If you recognise yourself as a potential problem drinker, get help now.

Three Things You Need to Know about Addiction Intervention

Family members and friends living with addicts often find themselves at a loss as to what they can do to help. They certainly cannot force a drug or alcohol addict to get treatment, yet they also have to be very careful not to be an enabler of addictive behaviour. It can be a difficult balancing act at times.

One of the strategies recommended by organisations like Rehab-Clinic.com is that of conducting an intervention. An intervention is a scenario in which a group of concerned family members and friends confront the addict about his problem. The idea is to motivate the individual to agree to treatment. An intervention can be conducted completely independently or under the direction of a professional counsellor.

Here are three things you need to know about the intervention if you are considering conducting one yourself:

1. Results Vary

An intervention is no different from the treatments offered in rehab centers in the sense that results will vary from one situation to the next. In other words, no one can force an individual to recover from addiction. That choice rests with the addict himself. Therefore, you may conduct an intervention only to find out that nothing changes. As good a motivational tool as intervention might be, sometimes you come up short. However, do not be discouraged. Wait a little while and try again. Sometimes it takes two or three interventions in order to get the addict's attention.

2. Different Approaches

Professional counsellors approach intervention from one of two angles. One group believes it is best to focus on the addict and the harm he is doing to himself. The idea is that making him aware of self-destruction will motivate change. The other group believes it is best to focus on family members and friends, and the harm the addict is causing them. They believe shifting the focus from the addict to those he is unintentionally harming is a better motivator. Neither approach is necessarily right or wrong; it is best to follow the advice of your counsellor.

3. Immediate Action

When an intervention is successful, family members and friends may have a small window of opportunity to act. That means they must be ready to admit their loved one to treatment right away. If they wait too long, he may change his mind. Getting information about available alcohol and drug rehab clinics ahead of time is a good idea.

Information about conducting an intervention is available from a number of online resources including counselling organisations, drug and alcohol charities, medical websites, and government portals. Individuals living with drug addicts or alcoholics should take advantage of the free information. It may turn out that conducting an intervention is the most helpful thing they can do for their loved one.

For More Information Visit http://www.rehab-clinic.com/

What Are Private Rehab Centres?

A person suffering from drug or alcohol dependence has a number of different options for seeking help. One of those options, the private rehab centre, is known to achieve very good results among recovering addicts committed to complete recovery. There are now about five dozen private rehab centres in the UK.

To be clear, a private rehab centre is distinctly different from an NHS clinic or support group organisation. All three have their place in the big picture of drug and alcohol recovery, but only private rehab centers are capable of providing the level of care and treatment they offer.

What They Offer

The private rehab centre offers a comprehensive rehabilitation programme that deals with the individual client as a whole person. In other words, we have discovered over the years that drug addiction is more than just a physical issue. It also involves the heart and mind. Complete recovery that minimises the risk of relapse requires addressing all three parts of the person: body, mind, and spirit.

A typical rehab programme begins with a 7 to 10 day detox, followed by 4 to 12 weeks of psychotherapeutic treatments. Today's clinic understands that there is no 'one-size-fits-all' approach that works for every addict. Therefore, psychotherapeutic treatments are customised for each individual client. The treatments are designed to help the recovering addict understand what addiction is, how his or her own personality plays into addictive behaviour, and how he or she can avoid relapse in the future.

A 12-week rehab programme is usually followed up with 3 to 12 months of aftercare services. These services pick up where rehab leaves off, offering support and therapy that recovering addicts need to prevent relapse.

Residential Rehab Model

It is standard operating procedure for private rehab centres to offer their services based on the residential rehab model. Residential rehab takes its name from the fact that clients reside at the clinic for the duration of their treatments. Some clinics offer private rooms, others offer semi private rooms, and some offer dormitory accommodations.

The point of the residential model is to separate the recovering addict from his or her daily life in order to minimise distractions. For the entire time of his or her residency, the individual is free to focus solely on recovery. Residential rehab is also a great way to break the co-dependency cycle that is prevalent in so many families suffering with addiction.

In order to take full advantage of the principle of separation, private clinics tend to be located in rural or suburban areas away from the busyness of the cities. Having said that, even the centres located in major metropolitan areas are located in neighbourhoods that tend to be quieter. The fewer distractions present, the more successful most programmes are.

Charity Rehab Clinic

Although most of the comprehensive rehab programmes in the UK are offered by private clinics, there are some charities offering them as well. Some of the charities are religious in nature; others are completely secular. The biggest advantage of a rehab charity is that it offers the same quality care provided by a private clinic, at no cost to the recovering addict. The downside is that charities can be limited in terms of bed space and programme availability.

As drug and alcohol related problems continue to plague the UK, the need for private rehab centres is obvious. They are our best hope for helping chronic addicts fully recover so they can live lives free of drugs and alcohol.

Identifying the Signs and Symptoms of Addiction

Addiction is something we know destroys individuals and tears families apart. Moreover, like so many other conditions, early identification is the key to successful treatment. The earlier the addict can be treated, the greater the chances of achieving total recovery. The opposite is also true. Waiting too long to begin treatment only makes a full recovery that much more difficult.

The purpose of this post is to help you identify a potential addiction problem, whether you are the person suffering or a family member concerned about a loved one. To that end, we will approach the addiction question from both angles. We hope that by offering you the signs and symptoms of addiction we will be able to help you start down the road to recovery.

For Addicts: Symptoms of Addiction

Perhaps you suspect you might have a real problem with drugs or alcohol. Perhaps you are ready to consider looking into rehab centers if it can be proved to you that you have a problem. If that is the case, consider the following symptoms of addiction:

• you drink or take drugs first thing in the morning
• you plan your entire day around drugs or alcohol
• you find yourself worrying about having enough of your chosen substance
• you're willing to go to great lengths to obtain your substances
• you find drugs and alcohol interfering with routine tasksv
• you are defensive when others talk about your drug or alcohol use
• drug or alcohol use is causing you to push family members away
• you find that you need to increase the amount you use in order to feel the same amount of pleasure.

Any one of these symptoms could indicate you are on the road to addiction. If you notice more than one, you might already be addicted. The fact that you are willing to consider the symptoms of addiction means you have taken the first step toward recovery. Why not take the next step by contacting one of the many drug and alcohol rehab clinics in the UK?

For Families: Signs of Addiction

Families may have a more difficult time recognising addiction due to the fact that addicts become so adept at hiding their problems. However, families do not have to remain clueless. There are certain signs they can look for if they suspect a problem exists. A person addicted to drugs or alcohol will often:

• exhibit unexplained mood swings
• suddenly lose or gain weight inexplicably
• withdraw from family members and friends
• exhibit moderate to severe financial problems
• begin to form new circles of 'undesirable' friends
• disappear from normal life for several days at a time
• be very combative when confronted about drugs or alcohol
• be willing to steal from family members in order to support their habit.

While you may not be able to unequivocally prove a loved one is dealing with an addiction problem, a combination of a few of the signs is a good indication trouble exists. In such a case, the best thing family members can do is contact an addiction recovery referral service, a private clinic, or a doctor.

Alcohol and drug rehab clinics are available to provide treatment to those suffering with addiction issues. Whether you are the person suffering or a family member or friend, please take heed to the symptoms and signs we have listed here. If there is any indication of a problem, get help before it's too late.

What Are the Strengths of Residential Rehab?

Recovering addicts can choose from a number of treatment options, including professional counselling, group support, NHS programmes, and residential rehab. Each option has its own place in the arena of rehab care, but residential rehab tends to be the most successful option in most cases. That is why drug and alcohol recovery services tend to focus on residential treatment.

If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, we want you to understand what the strengths of residential rehab are so that you can make a wise decision. Ultimately, you have to do what is best for you and your family. If that means drug rehab at a private clinic, you need to know what you are getting into.

Here are the top five strengths of residential rehab:

1. Concentrated Care

The main reason residential rehab centers tend to do better than NHS services is rooted in the concentrated care these provide. In other words, the private clinic is not burdened by having to treat every single illness or injury that comes through the door. Unlike the NHS, they can concentrate all of their time, energy, and resources on addiction recovery. This also enables them to give every client the attention he or she deserves.

2. Bespoke Treatments

Where the NHS and some support groups offer a single approach to addiction recovery, private clinics are not burdened by those limits. They are free to devise bespoke treatment plans for every single client based on individual circumstances, needs, and history. Private clinics are limited only by the number of different treatment options they have available at any given time.

3. Distraction Free Environment

The whole purpose behind residential rehab is to separate the recovering addict from his or her daily routine and circumstances. This allows him or her to focus solely on recovery without the distractions they are used to. This is one of the main reasons private residential clinics are typically located in suburban or rural settings surrounded by plenty of open space. Clinic operators are trying to remove as many distractions as possible.

4. Benefits of Separation

In addition to the distractions of daily life, recovering addicts can be hindered by family members and friends prone to enabling addictive behaviour. Separating recovering addicts from their enablers quickly puts an end to this problem. As recovery progresses, family members and friends can be reintroduced into a counselling environment that helps the whole group heal together.

5. Group Support

Lastly, residential rehab takes advantage of group dynamics to provide mutual support and accountability. It is a principle that has already proved successful by the popular 12-step programme first created by Alcoholics Anonymous. What AA does through weekly meetings, residential rehab accomplishes on a daily basis.

Residential drug and alcohol rehab clinics provide a valuable service that cannot be matched by the NHS, support groups, or charities. Private treatment at a residential clinic is worth every penny when recovering addicts come out the other end completely free of addictive behaviour.

Drug addicts and their families in need of help can look into residential treatment by contacting a counselling and referral service. These services specialise in helping individuals find a private clinic most suited to their budget and circumstances. With just one phone call, the road to recovery can begin.

Paying for Private Rehab

Private rehab centers all over the UK are working hard every day to assist addicts and their families in getting their lives back on track. Unfortunately, the treatment these offer cannot be provided free without compromising the quality of care. Thus, the cost of private care leaves many individuals without the treatment they need.

On a more positive note, there are rehab centres that are affordable to average, middle-class families throughout Britain. There are also luxury clinics as well, but one does not need to be a millionaire in order to get good, quality treatment at a private clinic. One only needs to be willing to get help and to search out every possible method of payment.

So how do you pay for private rehab? Here are the top five ways it is done:

1. Private Health Insurance

Our typical perception of a drug addict or alcoholic is someone with very little income, perhaps no home, and certainly no way to adequately support him or herself. And while that picture is accurate for some addicts, it is not accurate for all of them. There is no shortage of individuals who would be classified as middle class workers holding down regular jobs while still struggling with drug and alcohol problems. For them, the first place to turn is private health insurance.

Most private health insurance plans in the UK cover rehab, either in part or in full. Individuals need to check their own policies for details. As for the rehab centres, these accept most forms of private health insurance without question.

2. Savings Accounts

A reasonable price for a 12-week residential rehab stay at a budget-minded clinic would be several thousand pounds. Some addicts and their family members can get that amount together by withdrawing from savings accounts. Doing so may not be the best way to spend your savings, but it beats the alternative of allowing an addictive situation to continue.

3. Credit Card Accounts

An active credit card account is another option for paying for private rehab. Major cards like MasterCard and Visa are typically accepted by private clinics without a problem. The major drawback to this form of payment is the high interest consumers pay on the debt they accrue. Again, it is better than the alternative of allowing addiction to continue.

4. Family Donations

Family members of addicts are often distressed by the knowledge that there is little they can do to help, despite an overwhelming desire to do so. Although a struggling addict may have to go to great lengths to convince family members his or her desire to get well is genuine, family members can be persuaded to pool their limited resources together in order to fund rehab. The danger here is accepting donations from family members only to turn around and fail in recovery. They may never help again.

5. Charity Grants

The last method of paying for private rehab is through charitable grants. There are charities that offer rehab programmes using their own facilities and volunteer workers, but there are others that offer grants to pay for rehab at a private clinic. Some of these charities are religiously based; others are funded from a combination of corporate and government money.

There are enough ways to pay for private rehab treatment to at least investigate the possibilities. If you or someone you love is currently struggling with an alcohol or drug problem, consider getting in touch with a rehab referral service as soon as possible. They will be able to help you determine the best course of action for your circumstances.

Government Offers £10 Million in New Funding for Drug Centres

This past January (2014) the government announced a brand-new, £10 million funding package to help drug centres and individual recovery programmes serving clients in England. The funding is expected to go primarily to NHS-based programmes and volunteer organisations who depend on government money to operate.

According to the official government announcement, there is only one catch: service providers must be committed to long-term recovery based on improved patient outcomes. That means an organisation whose main strategy is to put recovering addicts on maintenance medications without any further rehabilitation will likely not convince officials to give them a grant. This money is specifically dedicated to strategies that will help reduce the number of addicts in England.

One look at the current state of government drug rehab centers makes it easy to see why the stipulation has been attached. Take heroin treatment for example. Far too many drug centres are more than willing to put clients on long-term methadone rather than actually putting them through drug rehab clinics. Why would they do this? Because methadone is easy to come by and easy to prescribe. However, long-term methadone therapy is not recovery. It is simply a substitute addiction.

Better Outcomes

The government has devised the new funding as a way to encourage better outcomes among service providers. The financial incentive will hopefully spur them to come up with effective strategies that result in real recovery. However, what if it does not?

There is a real risk that throwing more money at the rehab problem will not solve anything. First of all, there is no guarantee additional funding will follow in the coming years. Any programmes developed in conjunction with the funding will have to be discontinued once the money dries up or continue with an alternate source of funding. This is a big problem, especially where NHS programmes are concerned.

The other danger comes by way of the red tape government programmes are known for. It is very possible that grants could be made with promises of better patient outcomes, yet those outcomes never come to fruition. Such a situation would definitely be money wasted. Let us hope it does not come to that. Let us hope the government plan actually produces real, tangible results.

Private Treatment

Regardless of the outcome of the government funding project, we always have private drug centres we can rely on for effective treatments. Private clinics have been serving drug and alcohol addicts for decades. They generally have higher success rates as well.

Unfortunately, none of the private centres are in line to receive any of the new money. On the one hand that's good; government money often comes with strings attached. However, it is also bad to some extent. Many a good clinic is struggling to survive financially because the cost of care is keeping a portion of their beds empty. A little bit of extra government funding could mean the difference in keeping some of these drug centres open.

What do you think? Will more money really help improve outcomes?

Finding Rehab Clinics in London

In 2009, The Independent printed a story profiling the collapse of alcohol and drug rehab in the UK. At the time, everyone was quite alarmed that 15% of the nation's private clinics had closed their doors due to lack of funding. The good news is that the tide has turned. While there are fewer private clinics now than there were five years ago, there are plenty of rehab clinics with bed space available.

A good number of those clinics are in the Greater London area. We would not expect any different given that London is the UK capital and the most dynamic city in Western Europe. It stands to reason that there should be a number of rehab clinics scattered throughout the metropolitan area.

Finding a rehab centers clinic may be a challenge if you are not familiar with the system. Individuals looking for help can find themselves searching for weeks or months, failing to get the answers they need. This is one area where drug rehab really could stand to improve. Having said that, you do not need to be left hanging in your time of need. There are options.

Contact a Referral Service

A very good option for finding rehab centres clinics in London is to contact a referral service. There are now dozens of them offering plenty of information online along with 24-hour call centres. Referral services take all of the hassle out of finding a rehab clinic by doing all the homework for you. Within just a few minutes of speaking with you, they can advise you on your best options.

Contact your GP

For things like alcohol abuse, the GP is usually the first contact. That does not mean the GP is the one who provides treatment, but he or she can provide a correct diagnosis and then help you determine the best course of action. If a rehab clinic offers the best chances of long-term sobriety, the GP should be willing to recommend it.

Do be careful of GPs who would prefer to treat alcohol or drug problems through long-term substitute medications. All of the medications approved for drug and alcohol rehab are designed to be short-term solutions only. It is better to seek private rehab than to spend the next several years taking substitute medications.

Find a Support Group

A lot of recovering drug and alcohol addicts have found respite by becoming part of a local support group. Support groups provide mutual accountability and encouragement along with counselling and 12-step work. It is a model originally developed by Alcoholics Anonymous back in the 1930s, and a model that has proved successful for more than 80 years. A support group can help you find a rehab clinic in London if that is what you need to get well.

Rehab clinics are ready and waiting in London to serve those in need. These can provide emergency admittance, medically supervised detox, rehabilitative therapy, and family support. Please take advantage of a clinic if you find yourself in need.

How Alcohol Rehab Centres Can Change Lives

A person who wants help in his or her struggle with alcohol abuse or dependence has three primary options. They can seek out a local support group, they can request a prescription medication from their GP, or they can take advantage of the services provided by alcohol rehab centres. Those with the most chronic problems are limited to the last option if they expect long-term recovery. Having said that, let us talk about how alcohol rehab centres can help change lives.

For starters, we need to define three different kinds of rehab centres:

1. Public - The public rehab centre is one offered by the NHS or a government-approved voluntary organisation. These do not exist in large numbers due to severely limited funding. Yet there are a couple of them out there, particularly in the Greater London area.

2. Charities - Alcohol rehab centers run by charities are also available in limited numbers. These charities can be religious or secular; they can be locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally based. The services these provide are directly tied to their rehab philosophy and their funding sources.

3. Private - Private alcohol rehab centres tend to be what we think of when we consider residential rehab. Private clinics are funded by charging clients for services rendered. These offer residential programmes that can last anywhere from four to 12 weeks, with up to 12 months of aftercare to follow.

Medically Supervised Detox

Any alcohol rehab centre with a good success rate offers medically supervised detox for those with dependency issues. Medically supervised detox involves prescription drugs and care from experienced professionals. It is an essential part of permanently overcoming an alcohol addiction.

There are times when outpatient or home detox is a better option for clients. Outpatient detox involves the client visiting a rehab facility on a daily basis where he or she can be medically examined and given medication to control alcohol cravings. As for home detox, it is usually a last resort option for those who need medical supervision but cannot travel to a rehab centre.

Rehabilitation Therapy

Once detox is complete, the recovering alcoholic moves into the therapeutic stage of rehab. This is what sets the alcohol rehab centre apart from standalone detox programmes. This is where a life is truly changed by addressing the underlying issues responsible for addictive behaviour.

Rehabilitation therapy seeks to get at the heart of those mental and emotional issues that drive addiction. They utilise a number of different therapies, including something known as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This therapy retrains the thinking so that the individual can come to terms with his or her issues and deal with them effectively. CBT is a highly successful therapy for alcohol recovery.

Alcohol rehab centres are changing lives by treating recovering alcoholics at every level. It is important that we support their efforts here in the UK. Without the services they provide, recovering alcoholics and their families will be left with limited options for effective treatment. That is simply unacceptable.