Monday, June 22, 2015

Addiction Treatment Facilities



When someone says the pregnant word “addiction,” there’s a number of associations that may come to mind.  One of them will most definitely be addiction treatment facilities, a way for people to simply get better.  One however, needs to recognize that it is not simply a person who lacks self-control, or someone who unconsciously began it recreationally, and then eventually slipped into heavier and heavier use, finally resulting in full-blown addiction.  When one thinks of drug rehab programs or drug and alcohol rehab, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to see thin, emaciated figures, with hollowed out cheekbones paired with a blank stare, only to be riveted to attention at the possibility of another fix or another drink.  There are residential drug treatments out there and treatment addiction or addiction treatment that are designed from a completely different perspective.  You can imagine that drug and alcohol addiction treatment rehab centers aren't happy; whether the drug and alcohol addiction rehab treatment Los Angeles or anywhere else, they are losing money and they are not happy about it.  Thrown out are the old notions that the person is responsible for their own actions and destiny when it comes to drugs, but it’s an obvious realization that addiction to any substance is a disease and that we need to be more sympathetic to the plight of those that are hooked on whatever substance it is that is the proverbial carrot on the stick that pulls them forward.  It is armed with this truth that the American Society of Addiction Medicine reclassified addiction as a disorder of the brain, a biological issue, thereby giving addicts a reprieve.  Instead of being branded as people that have thrown away their lives willfully, it is now more accurately categorized as people who simply have a disease.  Like cancer.  The mere mention of cancer is enough to put a person in a more sympathetic mood, because the victim is absolved of responsibility, but not so with addiction and addicts.  Rehab center for addicts conjures up images of someone that is smelly, dirty, akin to the homeless.  It is sad to think that addicts have, for so long, been vilified by the media and by society for simply having wasted their life volitionally, when the truth is they have arguably suffered twice as much as someone who is diagnosed with a society-accepted disease: once from the disease, and once again from society branding them as responsible for their own fate, and worse yet, being refused treatment because the disease wasn’t seen as a disease to begin with.  Things have changed and there is hope, and this change in classification is the first step in getting the necessary help to those that desperately need it most.  What is important is the prescription addiction treatment center.