What Does It Really Take to Eradicate Drug Cravings?
The figures on relapsing back to drugs after completing rehab are all too high.
In fact, it has become so common as to seem normal or expected.
It shouldn’t be this way
It is easy to see how a short relapse can lead the way back to full on addiction and all the work to become sober goes down the drain.
We believe that for someone to go back to life without relapsing to drugs or alcohol requires a full and thorough eradication of drug cravings. No matter how well intentioned a person is, if the cravings can come back into full force it is too easy to take the path back to drugs.
Drug cravings can come in two forms mental/emotional cravings and physical cravings. Both of these can be strong enough to drive a person back to drugs. For a rehab to work effectively it must eliminate both physical and mental cravings.
The physical cravings are always the most severe first symptoms you are going to see and so accordingly they must be addressed first in rehab. Each rehab centre will have its own procedure for addressing these physical cravings during withdrawal. The next aspect once the immediate physical cravings are gone is to look at the mental/emotional cravings. Many rehab programmes do not look at this side or if they do it is not a very thorough address.
Here at Narconon we look at all aspects of life associated with cravings and address the problem in these four steps:
Drug-Free Withdrawal
Withdrawal can be such a difficult and painful process that many addicts don’t face trying to reach sobriety again after many failed attempts. Here at Narconon, our withdrawal specialists use a variety of techniques and experience to help get the addict through this difficult first step. We do this without using any replacement drugs, wanting our students to be truly drug free at the end of the programme.
New Life Detoxification
The second step for helping to handle the physical cravings is a detoxification. It appears that residual drug traces can be left in the body even after the drug consumption has stopped and that with these chemicals and poisons left in the body physical cravings can keep recurring. Our New Life Detoxification aims to leave a person without the physical cravings and ready to face handling the mental cravings.
Objectives
Objectives are simple procedures that help get a person’s mind back to the present. Objective refers to objects, exterior environment things as opposed to subjective (within the mind) procedures. Drugs and past negative experiences can keep one’s attention fixated on the past. With your attention on the present the desire to turn back to past bad habits is severely diminished and the person can work on building their future.
Courses for Life Skills
Lastly we use education as a way of battling those mental cravings, becoming more knowledgeable in different areas of life, freeing oneself from the burden of guilt, learning how to deal with stress or negative people. All of these things add up to empower an individual to be able to go back into life armed with tools for improvement. Meaning that those mental cravings can just fade away to be replaced by a positive attitude to life.
Fully addressing all aspects of cravings is the only way to avoid falling back into the trap of addiction. Many rehab centres only address the physical aspect. Or they work on relieving the burden of guilt but then do not give any skills on how to address problems in a different manner. This part handling is what can fall short of giving an addict his life back in full sobriety and joy.
Fully eliminating the cravings allows a person to go back into life empowered and ready to face whatever life throws at them.
