Why is Therapy Essential
in Treating Substance Abuse?

Outside help through Therapy can help increase your success in overcoming substance abuse due by helping you to face the many challenges that come with your new sober lifestyle which can decrease the possibility for relapse.

Prolonged use of addictive substances can impact the brain, altering its structure and function. It is important to note that changes in the brain and its manifestations in behavior may persist even after withdrawal and treatment. This explains why relapse continues as a possibility despite the traumatic complications that substance abuse caused the person in the past.

Addiction is treatable, but the chance of relapse can be fairly high, which is why treatment requires long-term commitment and follow-up. Detoxification and use of medicines may be necessary in the first phase, but these do little to prevent relapse or long-term addiction. This is what therapy or counseling addresses making it an important integral part of treating substance abuse.

Is Counseling Customized and Integrated to the Individual?

Matching or customizing the interventions to the person’s specific concerns is crucial in the individual’s early recovery and to allow for return to usual functioning in the family, place of work and society.

The degree of effects on the brain varies from individual to individual. The problems that led a person to turn to addictive substances in the first place are also different. A potentially effective treatment program must consider these multiple needs – associated such as emotional, social, family, medical, and other problems.

Preventing Relapse: Staying in Therapy

Substance abuse treatment can be extensive and complicated, particularly when addiction is severe. For opioid addiction, the relapse rate is high at 85 percent, even a year after withdrawal. To prevent relapse and to stay on the road to recovery for life, it is important to continue therapy or counseling for as long as necessary. You CAN be part of that 15% that does not relapse.

The challenges and needs of a person recovering from substance abuse continually change, which is why it must be continually evaluated and adjusted. In the course of treatment and recovery, and even after, the individual may require changing combinations of counseling. Aside from counseling or psychotherapy, the individual may also need support so that family therapy and parenting instruction become necessary. Most of the time, a continuing care approach after recovery or rehabilitation provides the best lifelong results.

Where Do I Turn for Help?

Talk to a therapist who understands what you’re going through. Remember that relapse does not mean that you have failed you, the treatment and those helping you failed. The possibility of relapse is very high. The longer and the more intense your substance abuse was, the harder it is to get better and to prevent relapse. Remember too that it can be prevented by not giving up and by talking to your therapist, particularly when your emotions are running high or you are confronted by the same problems that drove you to substance abuse in the beginning.

Carolina Counseling Services – Fuquay-Varina, NC offers licensed, independently contracted counselors/therapists to assist you down the road to a life free from substances. We are waiting for your call.

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