Pick a Good Drug Rehab Program

How can you pick a good drug rehab center in New York?

Thankfully, there are a few ways to determine if a rehab under consideration does offer quality programming, and one criterion you can use for evaluation is the level of aftercare programming as offered by the facility.

Drug or alcohol treatment at a residential rehab facility in New York should never end with the culmination of a residential stay, and drug rehab treatment should occur over two separate and distinct but equally important phases. The first stage occurs while you are a resident of the facility, and is the more intensive phase; the second or "aftercare" phase of treatment occurs only after you have left the facility, yet return regularly for continuing aftercare therapy and education ( Why you need aftercare).

The importance of aftercare

This aftercare makes an incredible difference, and one of the best indicators of long term success and sobriety is a committed and enthusiastic maintenance of aftercare therapy. Aftercare may include continuing group peer support sessions, will likely involve some form of continuing 12 steps style meetings, and should also include occasional sessions with a therapist or psychologist.

Aftercare therapy assists recovering addicts reentering the community to maintain the lessons and teachings of rehab even in the face of a different daily reality. Aftercare helps those people struggling with sobriety to consolidate relapse prevention plans even when faced with mounting temptation and availability; and when aftercare includes individual sessions with a therapist, a relapse prevention plan can be modified on the recommendations of a professional to meet the demands of temptation as they occur in the initial months of abstinence.

Aftercare is very important, has a big influence over success rates and should be a priority; but of course it also costs a drug rehab money to run aftercare programs. Drug and alcohol rehabs in New York that exist only to collect your admissions check will have little interest in maintaining a long term commitment to your sobriety, while quality facilities do endeavor to treat each patient successfully. One way to differentiate between the two is in the level of aftercare programming available and offered.