^ I once started a thread asking people for their utopian ideas about effective rehab. It did not get a lot of responses.
Start with real nutirtion. Food is the single most mood-altering substance in our lives.
Replace autocracy of 12-step with an integration of useful content from the "steps" with other practical attempts to address the roots of addiction (SMART/RATIONAL Recovery, Refuge Recovery, etc).
Integrate all tried and true practices for reconnecting with one's authentic self. CBT, mindfulness, breath training, yoga/body awareness, traditional talk therapy. Offer a "salad bar" of resources and let people naturally gravitate to what works best for them.
Let people define their own recovery process and encourage an open mind for others whose process may not reflect their own. There is no one reason for addiction just like their is no one reason for anxiety or depression. Our experiences and our natures and our mental frameworks are unique--so recovery protocol will be unique as well.
Bring in animals in need. ( as in The Wounded Warrior projects or inmates in prisons helping re-socialize abused dogs). Animals are wonderful healers and to the ones that have been abandoned or abused by our species, well, we owe them.
Get outside into nature every day for a large part of the day. Encourage a relationship with a larger reality than the limiting one that has created pain (usually human--from families to society in general). Nature can be relaxing, challenging, invigorating, calming, sedating. Learning how to get some of your most basic emotional needs met by nature is a very powerful inner resource.
Encourage true spirituality. We are all spiritual, physical, intellectual and psychological beings and a healthy life depends on nurturing every one of those aspects of self. What is spiritual in us carries the flame of awareness that we are part of something much, much larger than we can even comprehend. What sort of explanation people choose to put on that awareness is their own prerogative. I personally have a very hard time with the world's religions but I have known wonderful people who use those very frameworks to create lives of compassion and interconnectedness. So, who am I to judge? For me, nurturing my own spirituality is nurturing my ability to live with mystery comfortably. I have no idea what happened before I got here or what happens once the body goes. I'd rather spend my short time here seeing and loving the planet and the other creatures that live here than devote my energy to answering those unanswerable questions.
I'd be happy to hear others ideas on this.
I think a lot of the problems arise around funding. Besides insurance, I don't know of many organizations besides religious one's that frequently and consistently give money to the cause. Once insurance gets involved, then you are forced behind all the regulations and things can get complicated quickly.
Most people who need treatment can't afford it, and good treatment often doesn't come cheap.
If I could design my own ideal treatment it would probably look a lot like you mentioned. The rehab I was sent to was suppossedly used a "wholistic" approach. Nutrition was emphasized and diet was moderately restricted. But short of hiring expensive dietitians, how can you ensure that the client is getting what is needed? Diet and nutrition can be very complex, and although we as individuals can do pretty well for ourselves, it becomes different when you are charging someone for a service. And honestly, when put in comparison to other issues, it is one of lesser importance. Something like around 40% of people with eating disorders also have a substance use disorder, and 30% of people with a substance use disorder also have eating disorders. So it is more important that the client is eating relatively well on a regular consistent basis, rather than the client is getting some super polished up, chisled abs, all organic diet because any food is better than no food.
Also, coming from a therapeutic standpoint, it may complicate things if trying to deal with multiple disorders at once. Substance use disorder counselors are often not trained to treat deeper underlying issues, only the substance use disorder itself. I was sent to a dual-diagnosis facility which had a PhD on staff to deal with mental disorders. She was also the owner(and a complete cunt no less..), so I'd imagine trying to staff one would be very costly, so most "rehabs" only treat the substance use disorder.
The owner talked about a lot of those things, but being that she was outed as a control freak and a liar by everyone, including staff, most things didn't get done right. She would cancel group and have me working on her personal house. To the point where I started having to say that if she wants me to do any more electrical work I will have to start charging her. Madness that is really unbelievable and hard to describe.
So that is just to say that ideals are sometimes more difficult to achieve than anticipated. Not to say that it can't be done, but it would take a good team of well coordinated staff with similar ideals to really achieve right. There isn't exactly people lining up to work in the recovery field either. So just some real world struggles that I see, but I have hope that things can change as well. If the money was spent to rehabilitate rather than punish drug offenders, it could be done.
When we were looking for treatment for my son we paid a private oversight company an exorbitant amount of money to monitor the programs we sent our son to. We were terrified of the abuses that could occur in these programs and we had done our research enough to know that it really came down to who was running the ship at the time. And add to that there is a huge turnover in that field.
