How to treat Addiction Successfully - The CapeRecovery Way

How to treat Addiction – What is the best way to treat addiction correctly?

How to treat Addiction Correctly – What is the best way to treat addiction successfully? This is a question that has been asked over and over for a very long period of time by many well versed, educated and widely read individuals. My views are of course all my own but I have had experience of treating addiction and also of observing different ways that others have gone about it, both from a professional point of view, as a nurse and counsellor in the UK and as an alcoholic and an addict in recovery myself. I do believe that the combination of these two variations of unique experience, provide me with a good understanding of how this thing works from the objective perspective of a reasonably educated and open-minded insider. The first thing I feel I must say is that no two people are exactly the same, we all have our similarities of course, ones which are vital to our full understanding of addiction but we need to judge each and every person with absolutely zero preconceptions. This throws out any of these ‘one size fits all’ notions of addiction treatment to start with, so that eliminates a lot of places that I am willing and comfortable working with. Until every single treatment centre begins adopting a client focused and not a mass focused approach to addiction treatment, nothing will ever change, we will all continue to be judged by exactly the same archaic standards, our progress monitored alongside what people have been told or taught is a benchmark for recovery, when in reality there simply is no benchmark. I believe that this fresh approach to client centred treatment has to be adopted for every single person who is admitted to any kind of addiction treatment facility, that’s what we do over here at CapeRecovery and it is certainly what all of our specially chosen rehabs and world class treatment centres do. Making broad assumptions and wild generalisations about any addict coming for treatment is complete nonsense and it can be life threatening. Many of the people judged to be sailing easily through rehab, doing all the 'right things', go on to relapse the second they leave. Often, the individual who is the most difficult and combative in rehab, goes on to achieve a long term and fully authentic recovery, sometimes more authentic because of how difficult a process it turned out to be. I know lots of people who are in recovery who have incredible stories to tell and no one backed them or gave them a chance at the start of the process, I also know some people in recovery who have not changed a bit and although the plaudits say that they have done remarkably well and got many years of clean time behind them, the evidence, their attitude and their total lack of compassion for anybody but themselves, tells me otherwise and it speaks volumes. This is the thing, we just don’t ever know, I had to force myself to forget all that I'd learned about addiction treatment and begin again, we need a blank canvas, a base starting point, one which we will never get unless the one ingredient that I can always work with is present, the willingness and their total desire to change, in fact, we can work with that in anyone. Below are my ideas for the top 5 things that must be in place for my own personal recipe of how to treat addiction to work successfully, and what I believe to be the best way to treat addiction correctly and in a truly effective way.

What is the best way to treat addiction correctly?

Remember, this is of course, only my opinion and based on nothing but having lived with a damaging and crippling addiction to alcohol and other drugs for over 25 years and all my work in the industry for many years. My main point here is that there is absolutely no quick fix for an addiction and there is no one way or one wholly appropriate treatment that suits everyone. What I do believe though, is that if we can make sure that we have these following five boxes ticked, then we are giving every single one of our clients the highest possible chance of a full and a life long recovery from all addictions, process addictions, dual-diagnosis issues and eating disorders. So, just what are the key ingredients required for a highly effective and ultimately the best way to treat addiction successfully?
In order to ensure that all our clients receive and most importantly maintain this sobriety from any addiction (drug or alcohol), behavioural addiction (Gaming, Sex, Gambling, Love, Porn, etc), dual-diagnosis issue (including depression) and eating disorders (including food addiction), we have our exclusive CapeRecovery Experiences that cover every eventuality! We look after each of our clients and provide them with all they need throughout the rehabilitation process from primary, secondary and tertiary rehab to continued care and supported sober living. We have events and meetings with the Cape Town Recovery Community and some fantastic Volunteering Opportunities. It really is the only complete rehab and recovery of it's kind found anywhere!

Here is the CapeRecovery 5 step approach:

1.) Client Centred Care – People often forget the simple fact that everyone is different. I believe, with everyone, some ‘firefighting’ is usually necessary at the start, by this I mean dealing with the most potent or obvious threats first whilst keeping the person safe. These can be things such as immediate health risks,  getting away from a dangerous environment or person or simply getting the person substance free to begin with! Stabilise first and then start with a fresh slate, do this by focusing on all the priorities of the individual and not anyone else’s. Then, plan care around what the persons needs are and which route is best for them. This sounds like basic stuff but it is rarely done correctly.

2.) Desire – We really can do very little about any addiction until a desire and a willingness to do what is suggested is present. We can always go about planting the seed and encourage it by interventions and opening the addicts eyes to the harms and damages they are causing to themselves and to others, but until they decide it’s a good idea, it really is a non-starter.

3.) Correct Placement and Quality Professional Support – I believe this is a vitally key component to a successful recovery. Again, it doesn't always happen properly and far too many people are placed in an inappropriate environment supported by staff who are lacking in knowledge of their specific needs, this is a real waste of both time and of money and it leads to distrust and confusion in the industry as a whole when these inappropriately placed people inevitably fail. In knowingly offering an inappropriate placement you are literally setting the addict up to fail. My tip here is, don’t go where you are told to go if you are not 100% happy, there may well be hidden reasons for the particular place being suggested, usually financial, always seek impartial and professional advice. Unfortunately, CapeRecovery are the only one’s that do adopt this attitude towards all client placement, this is a sad state of affairs but it is true.

4.) Reasonable time in a supported environment – Again this is a hugely key component for a successful continued recovery. I am always being asked why the promised 21 day or the  1 months treatment someone went through ‘didn’t work’ and also why the person re-lapsed almost immediately on discharge. I tell people that’s because it simply doesn’t work, there is no quick fix to this debilitating disease, many years and decades of damage are not simply undone in a month. People need to stop going into treatment without a complete plan of care and lengthy support, we always do full pre-assessments and plan the entire journey of recovery before it even begins. This doesn’t mean it always has to be vastly expensive and even that the person must be forced to stay for months in an expensive rehab. It does mean however that a correct care plan must be made and ideally, quality supported and lengthy sober living is what I believe to be the way forward here. Stay for longer in a fully supported environment, 3, 6, 9 months or even a year at a fraction of the average rehab rates. So, this leads to point 5.

5.) Surrounding oneself with the right people – This, combined with time, is probably the most important factor of them all. Once the crisis stage of addiction treatment is over and the client is fully stable and in the swing of things they need people around them but they must be the right people. For a while, we simply have to be surrounded by positive people who want the best for us, it really is the only way and this may mean cutting some people out of your life, it will certainly mean not revisiting certain places and things that make you feel vulnerable. There is no reasonable or logical reason for testing yourself in early recovery, it makes no sense, maintaining authentic recovery is tough enough as it is!

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That's it, do these things right and the rest comes and over a period of time, hope returns, with hope comes confidence and with confidence, a new life becomes possible. That’s the real and unique CapeRecovery way, we can’t say we always have all the answers on how to treat addiction correctly but at least we have ideas on a way to treat addiction successfully, things that have worked for us and more importantly, for our clients, contact us today or check out
The CapeRecovery Experiences!