An estimated 43 percent of all people who go to drug rehabilitation successfully complete their treatment programs, while another 16 percent are transferred to other rehabilitation centers for additional treatment. Rehabilitation success rates for those completing drug and alcohol detoxification are 68 percent combined. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), between 40 and 60 percent of patients with addiction treatment relapse. Like any chronic medical illness, addiction requires ongoing care and symptoms may return after treatment.
Relapse doesn't always mean treatment has failed. Sometimes a person makes a lot of progress, but he needs more time to fully heal. Sometimes they relapse, but they are able to regain sobriety on their own because of the skills they learned in rehabilitation. NIDA notes that “recovery from drug addiction is a long-term process and often requires multiple episodes of treatment.
Most people also need ongoing care after completing a drug rehabilitation program. Aftercare often includes substance use counseling or support groups to keep the individual in contact with others who understand their difficulty. Drug and alcohol counseling is conducted on an individual basis and focuses more on you and your personal life experiences. The chronic nature of the disease means that relapse into drug abuse is not only possible but also likely, with recurrence rates of symptoms similar to those of other well-characterized chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma (see figure, Comparison of relapse rates between drugs) Addiction and other chronic diseases) that also have physiological and behavioral components.
Spontaneous remission for drug or alcohol addiction refers to the phenomenon in which a person with a substance use disorder (SUD) stops using drugs or alcohol without any formal treatment or forced rehabilitation. Going to drug and alcohol counseling for an extended period of time can give you a responsibility to help you stay sober. During hospital treatment at Recovery Centers of America, patients who are dependent on drugs or alcohol usually begin with a physician-supervised detoxification process to rid the body of drugs and alcohol in a safe and comfortable manner. To avoid the pain and struggle involved in drug detoxification and ensure that your treatment for drug dependence is effective, remember how difficult the detoxification period was.
