Family, Home, Community and Programs Help Recovery

As I said in my last entry, there is both science and the many years of experience in the treatment field that dictates "what works and doesn't work" in the recovery process.

One of the things we've learned is that in order to have a successful recovery, people in treatment need a lot of help in getting integrated into a safe and sober environment when they leave the treatment program.

Not surprisingly, 30 days of treatment after 20 years of being drunk or drugged just doesn't do it. For the most part, when someone comes into treatment they have burned their bridges with family members and their friends that were part of their onetime stable social groups.

These bridges need to be re-built or other safe and sober friends found or the now sober treatment "graduate" will fall back to his old cohort and most certainly relapse. What are some good roads back?

At Janus, we have a family program that invites family members (or close friends) in to work with the resident and a counselor on the separation that has occurred and see if that can be fixed.

We also introduce, but do not force, the idea of free re-entry support resources, like Alocholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

We find more and more that safe housing is an issue with an increasingly large homeless population coming into treatment. You can get the best treatment in the world at Janus, but if going home means going back to the levee, you limit your chances of recovery.

Treatment is just the beginning, because 30 days of treatment without continued support will most likely (statistically shown) end in a few days or a few weeks. More on "support after treatment" coming up.