Why most Cocaine Rehab Programs fail

There are a multitude of reasons why anyone would try cocaine. However, when one experiences the emotional 'euphoria' provided by cocaine, as with most illicit drugs, the reason anyone would continue to use cocaine is typically the same for all as the drug provides an escape from the pressures and failures of life. This is the path most everyone follows into emotional drug addiction.

Once addiction sets in, there are as many different approaches to cocaine rehabilitation as there were reasons to try the drug in the first place. This varied approach to cocaine rehab results in equally varied results, especially when contrasted against the wide variety of individual addict personalities. Some psychological based rehab programs focus on counseling the individual mentally. Other more medically based programs focus on the physical aspects of addiction. These approaches made individually produce highly varied results with an equally high occurrence of relapse back into addiction.

The oddity is that the obvious approach of addressing both the physical and emotional aspects of drug addiction in a rehab program is clearly the most successful with an unusually low rate of relapse. Clearly, addressing either the physical or emotional aspect alone only sets up the recovering addict for failure and relapse as statistics have demonstrated over the past 30 years. This is where the 12-Step program fails. This is where simple incarceration ultimately fails.

The physical aspects of addiction are still not well known by the medical community. It is thought that the body quickly acclimates itself to the presence of drug residuals. When the level of these drug residuals drops below a certain level the body responds in much the same way as when it needs food or water, the body becomes hungry or craves a drink. What makes this system difficult to predict or fully understand is that clearly drug residuals can remain in the body for long periods of time and are the source of future "drug flashbacks" that can occur even years after the cessation of drug use. A simple method to flush the body, and in particular the fatty tissues known to store such substances, is essential to any effective rehab program. Any method is preferable over a rehab that fails to address this aspect of addiction.

The emotional aspects of addiction are also not well known by the psychiatric community. It is thought that the individual simply lacks the will power to discontinue drug use or has some simple 'reason' for reaching to drugs. The statistics seem to bear out that addicts become and remain addicted simply because they desire to escape some aspect of their life which they can not confront or solve. This may be as simple as failing to graduate from high school. Drug use helped the addict 'escape' failing grades and full blown addiction helped the addict 'escape' school altogether. This same model applies to failed marriages, lost careers, death of a loved one, lost adolescent 'loves' and the like. The simple truth here is that the now fully addicted individual has failed in one life skill or another. And if not given the missing life skill will very likely relapse back into drug addiction following rehab. Basic life skills' training goes a very long way to effectively rehabilitate addicts from drug use simply because the reason the addict reached for drugs in the first place is largely eliminated.

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