Residential Drug Rehab Facilities
Laura was a straight A student heading into high school, at the top of her class. Although she struggled as many adolescent girls do with social pressures, she was generally a happy, healthy teenager, with little history of behavioral or emotional problems. When her grades began dropping in her ninth grade year, her parents, Nancy and David, had no idea what was causing the trouble. Although Laura had a new set of friends and interests than she had in middle school, she still wasn’t breaking curfew and wasn’t exhibiting any outward signs of peril — they never dreamed she was slowly creeping toward entering the ranks of young people seeking treatment in residential drug treatment facilities.
What her parents didn’t know was that curiosity had gotten the best of Laura. Although she was managing to keep up her attendance and outward appearances of normality, Laura was actually sliding down the path to drug addiction. A few Percocet from her parents’ medicine cabinet leftover from her father’s shoulder surgery touched off a very slow slide into addiction.
What began as a few pills pocketed out of curiosity progressed ever so slowly into a full-blown addiction. By the time she scraped together enough credits to earn a high school diploma, with grades passable enough to get her into a mid-grade college, Laura was not only dabbling with OxyContin and ecstasy, she was also developing a powerful curiosity about illicit street drugs. Moving out on her own to pursue a college degree afforded the perfect opportunity to sample more wares. By the beginning of her sophomore year, Laura was snorting heroin every few weeks, and by New Year’s, she had had her first direct injection of the drug, although she averted her eyes daintily as her boyfriend pushed the syringe’s plunger.
By the time summer vacation arrived, it was apparent even to her parents that something was wrong with Laura. Her cheeks were sallow, her eyes sunken. Although she was still passing her classes and holding down a night job in a restaurant, she never seemed to have any money. On a desperate trip home on her way to a funeral for a friend who had overdosed on heroin, Laura broke down and sobbingly admitted everything from her parents, laying out the tale from her first pocketed Percocet to her current state of addiction, which involved shooting up at least three times a day, sometimes in the bathroom at work. Although she made it to her classes on time, she sometimes had to stop off in an alley on the way to class to throw up — a side effect of the heroin’s affect on her system.
Less than a week later, Laura was admitted to a center not unlike most residential drug rehab facilities found in the United States. There, she spent weeks isolated from her life that had become so centered around getting her next hit of heroin while trying to maintain her grades and keep up the appearance that nothing was wrong. Willing and ready to tackle the problem, she worked with psychologists and counselors to talk through her addiction. She realized that she had initially turned to drugs as an attempt to escape the pressure placed on her, an only child, to perform to her parents’ high standards. She also learned that her addiction was hastened and deepened due to an eating disorder that had long gone undetected and untreated.
In group therapy, Laura realized that although she had felt quite alone as an upper-middle-class functioning heroin addict, there are folks from every race, gender and walk of life who fall victim to addiction. Not every person with a chemical dependency ends up homeless, wandering the streets in tattered clothes, she learned. But, she observed by watching her rehab peers, even those who don’t experience that version of rock bottom can lose themselves in their addiction as she had.
Alongside individual and group therapy, Laura found strength and serenity in working through a 12-step program. She filled time that once would have been spent seeking drugs and money getting back in touch with her body through yoga, and learned that drawing, a pursuit she had never felt proficient in, provided a needed escape from the world’s worries.
Do you have a story like Laura’s? Whether your story mirrors hers or is far from it, residential drug rehab facilities can tailor treatment options to meet your needs. Options are available that range from lavish to spare, from expensive to affordable. Some offer high security, while others allow participants occasional trips outside of the facility. From outdoor adventures to dance, music and writing, rehab facilities certainly aren’t all work and no play.
If there’s one thing to be learned from Laura’s story, it’s this — if you’re brave enough to ask for help and willing to work, recovery is absolutely an option, no matter the nature of your addiction.