Drug & Alcohol Rehab in Canterbury
If you’re looking for drug and alcohol rehab in Canterbury, you’ve come to the right place!
There is a huge range of options, which we’ll go over in a bit. If you’re looking for more information on addiction as a whole, we also have a guide to the signs and symptoms, as well as more information on the process of rehab overall.
The signs and symptoms of addiction (as well as the stages)
Let’s start by going over the four basic stages of substance abuse.
- Regular use – This is characterised by continual use in a particular pattern
- Risky or problem use – This is where problems in the users’ life may start to emerge as a result of their use – as we’ll see later, ignoring these issues is a massive sign of addiction
- Dependence – This is the stage where your body starts to become dependent on the substance you’re using, resulting in withdrawal symptoms when you do try to stop. Increased tolerance to drugs or alcohol can also be a sign that dependence is starting to develop
- Addiction – At this stage, the use has become a disorder and an uncontrollable compulsion. Studies have shown that it changes the way your brain works, working on a physical and psychological level and becoming incredibly tough to conquer. Professional help is very likely to be the answer if you’ve reached this stage
Although addiction is a vast, complex disorder, many of the key individual signs are also fairly easy to spot.
The first, that underlines all addictions, is an inability to stop using a certain substance or participating in certain behaviours (like shopping or gambling). Those who attempt to stop may also experience withdrawal symptoms, which can range depending on what you’re addicted to.
Some of the most common ones are tremors, diarrhoea, vomiting, sweating and muscle cramps. As we said before, this occurs as a result of dependence.
But with certain substances and at the most severe levels of addiction, these symptoms can even go into seizures and hallucinations. This is why you mustn’t attempt to detox alone, without professional support. When you go through rehab, usually over a period of around 3 weeks, the worst withdrawal symptoms will be averted as your intake is slowly reduced and replaced with prescription medication.
There are also several physical symptoms that can be a sign of addiction. Four ones to look out for are sudden drastic weight loss or gain, lack of concern for personal hygiene, insomnia and all the withdrawal symptoms we mentioned above.
Why is drug and alcohol rehab the best form of treatment?
We’ve already established by now that addiction is very hard to deal with alone. The truth is that there isn’t really a cure for it. Instead, the aim of rehab is to help you manage your addiction. And the only real way you can learn these skills is through professional treatment.
One major example of this is the way that drug and alcohol rehab treats the mental health issues that so often lead to addiction in the first place. Depending on your specific needs, you could be offered various kinds of therapy and counselling during your rehab journey.
One of the most common kinds is talking therapy, where you sit down with a therapist and unpack any and all issues you want to talk about. On the more creative side of things, there’s also art therapy. And then there’s group therapy, which has a similar effect to support groups (another very popular treatment).
In both, you’re given the opportunity to heal with people who truly understand your situation. It can also be incredibly freeing to share your story and hearing other people’s stories can go a long way towards making you feel less alone.
To talk more on the “learning life skills” part of recovery, workshops are also a very common part of the process, especially during residential rehab. These cover various addiction-related subjects and can be very beneficial to those seeking out a healthier lifestyle after their treatment is over.
How OK Rehab can help
At OK Rehab, we’re here to give you any support and advice you need and to put you in touch with local organisations offering treatment. If you’d like us to, we can also do a full assessment and create a treatment plan for you.
If you’re researching this on behalf of someone else, we also offer an intervention programme and will be able to offer advice.
All you need to do to get in touch with OK Rehab, for yourself or for anyone else, is call 0800 326 5559.
