In August of 2021, UK drug deaths were reported to be at their highest level since 1993, when records began.
The Office for National Statistics reported that 4,561 deaths by drug poisoning were registered in 2020.
Many reasons for this have been suggested, including drug users ageing and suffering from the effects of long-term use and new trends of taking different drugs at the same time.
In November 2021, the government also reported that there were 275,896 adults in contact with alcohol services in the year between April 2020 and March 2021.
A professionally supported drug and alcohol rehab in North Wales is the most effective way to recover.
This could take many forms, including inpatient and outpatient treatment.
Here, we have further information on treatment types, how to determine the best rehab option for you, as well as the overall rehab process.
During an intervention, the loved ones of the affected person will come together to directly talk to them about their addiction.
This is often done in a formal setting, led by a professional interventionalist.
In this context, participants will read out letters to the person the intervention is for, detailing how their addiction has affected them, why the person needs help and how.
Interventions are designed to encourage people who refuse to go to treatment to get help, by giving them an outside perspective.
Another well-known approach to addiction is the Community Reinforcement and Family Training, or CRAFT, approach.
Here, loved ones will learn how to positively reinforce the good progress of the person, while also learning how to support them overall.
Before you get started on any addiction treatment, we need to establish if you have an addiction in the first place, and if so, what level it is.
By definition, addiction is a disease where you can’t stop yourself from using.
This is different to use and abuse, which respectively mean simply using drugs or alcohol and using them to an extent that’s harmful.
There are several questionnaires and criteria used in these discussions, including the CAGE Questionnaire.
The CAGE Questionnaire asks four simple questions to establish levels of addiction:
As well as being quick and efficient, these are also easy for clinicians to remember.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, or the DSM-5, also details diagnostic criteria for substance abuse.
The first seven points are:
Overall, if you find that you can’t function without drugs or alcohol, that you experience withdrawal symptoms if and when you attempt to stop, or that your professional or personal life is being damaged by your drug and alcohol abuse, you should seek out help.
The cost of drug and alcohol rehab in North Wales can vary greatly based on several factors, including the facility you go to and the kind of treatment you need.
The average daily cost per day of private inpatient rehab is about £495, which would add up to £28,000 for a 28-day stay.
But the cost of some private centres can be as low as £1,000 a week or as high as £10,000 a week, with the highest-priced options being the most luxurious.
It’s very important to research the price of every place you go, to check that it’s affordable for you.
Drug and alcohol rehab in North Wales is covered by many insurance policies.
But it can get a bit complicated, depending on the insurance company you’re with and the package you have with them.
Including addiction in your health insurance plan can sometimes make it more expensive.
If you’re comfortable telling your employer about your addiction, it could also be covered by employee health insurance.
Technically the answer is yes, but it’s notoriously difficult to obtain.
When we talk about drug and alcohol treatment in North Wales via the NHS, we’re really talking about funding for rehab.
To obtain this funding, you need to jump through several rather difficult hoops.
It’s ring-fenced, can often take several months to come through and requires you to prove that you truly need help.
You’ll also need the backing of a statutory organisation, with one often-used major example being the Westminster Drug Project.
This can be emotionally draining for a lot of people, at an already difficult time.
This can change quite a bit based on the severity of your case, where you choose to go for treatment, your previous treatment experience and how well your current treatment is going.
But overall, for alcohol we would recommend an absolute minimum of a 7 day detox.
Across this time, we’ll slowly and safely reduce your intake, so you can avoid withdrawal symptoms.
This is especially important for alcohol, as withdrawal symptoms can even include seizures in the worst cases.
Beyond that, we strongly advise 28 days to focus fully on your mental recovery.
This will create plenty of time for any therapy or counselling you go through to work effectively.
While the NHS has a lot of great services, funding for treatment can be difficult to obtain and won’t be as personalised or tailored to your needs.
On the other hand, private rehab can be expensive and is therefore inaccessible to a lot of people.
But when discussing the treatment itself, private rehab is preferable.
You won’t have to face the same long waiting lists and you’ll have much greater access to one-to-one therapy.
If we’re talking about residential rehab specifically, they’ll also give you a chance to get away from anything that may have been driving your addiction.
When it comes to treatment paths, one of the biggest distinctions is between inpatient and outpatient treatment.
What’s the difference between the two? The clue is in their names.
While “in” patient treatment happens at a residential centre, “out” patient treatment happens from home.
Both have their benefits and drawbacks – it’s simply a case of deciding what would work best for you.
Inpatient treatment generally works better for more severe cases, as it essentially puts you in an environment of constant support and care.
It also gives people the chance to get away from anything that could’ve been driving their addiction at home and allows them to spend more time with people who have similar experiences.
Finally, many people with more severe levels of addiction might struggle with an at-home detox.
In certain cases where people experience the worst physical withdrawal symptoms, it could even be deadly.
On the other hand, outpatient treatment might work better for people with a less severe addiction who would be more comfortable staying at home.
If you suffer from any physical addiction and have developed a dependence, you’ll need a full medical detox at the start of your treatment.
This is because your body’s reliance on alcohol or drugs will result in withdrawal symptoms if your intake suddenly drops unchecked.
As every substance affects your body in different ways, every addiction also has its own set of withdrawal symptoms.
A few withdrawal symptoms associated with alcohol specifically are:
To help curb these and reduce the risk of withdrawal seizures, we’d recommend a pharmacological intervention, more specifically a Librium based detox, over a 10 day period.
After this, we’d recommend you do a further 3 weeks in rehab, focusing on your mental health with the assistance of therapy and counselling.
Then, in the final stage, we’ll help you to develop a relapse prevention plan, identifying and teaching you to cope with any potential triggers, looking over any lifestyle changes you might need to make and creating a plan for if you do relapse.
As cocaine is not physically addictive, a majority of the withdrawal symptoms associated with it are psychological.
It is however still highly addictive – partially because of the way it causes a high followed by a crash, encouraging immediate repeat uses.
It’s also incredibly easy to build up a tolerance to it, meaning you’ll feel that you need to take more and more to get the same effect very quickly.
Some withdrawal symptoms associated with cocaine are:
If you would like to learn more about cocaine rehab specifically, we have further information here.
Heroin is highly physically addictive, producing withdrawal symptoms that include:
As a result of this, a full medical detox will be required at the start of your treatment.
Over a pre-established period of time, we’ll slowly reduce your intake, so you can safely get clean and move on to the rest of your treatment.
Withdrawal symptoms for heroin usually start 6 to 12 hours after your last dose, will peak 1 to 3 days after and will usually subside after about a week.
Your withdrawal symptoms will also be reduced with medication – there are a few options for this, which we can discuss with you in the planning stages of your treatment.
We have further information on heroin rehab here.
As cannabis is more socially accepted than other drugs, many people dismiss addiction to it, especially as it’s another non-physical one where a detox at the start of treatment isn’t required.
But if you find that you can’t function without it, or that you’re damaging your professional or personal life for the sake of your use, you should seek out help.
Some of the withdrawal symptoms associated with cannabis are:
Moving further forward, long term effects of cannabis addiction can also include:
Further information about cannabis rehab in particular is available here.
Addiction is nearly always a symptom of underlying mental health issues, including:
While they’ll also help with your physical recovery, rehabs aim to treat these underlying psychological causes of addiction with various kinds of therapy and counselling.
Some of these may suit your situation better than others – once again, it all depends on your specific circumstances.
Some of the best-known therapies on offer at a drug and alcohol rehab in North Wales include:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – Cognitive behavioural therapy specifically targets the toxic thinking and behaviour patterns that can often drag you into toxic cycles.
Here they’re called cognitive distortions and are dealt with via a combination of problem-solving and real-world scenarios.
You’ll learn how to break down issues into small, manageable chunks, while also going through various potential situations, among other strategies.
Dialectical Behavioural Therapy – DBT uses a similar model to CBT.
Instead of teaching you to manage and break down issues, DBT teaches you to manage your emotions.
Brief Interventions – Brief interventions are essentially check-ins with the professionals guiding your recovery
Motivational Interviewing – Motivational interviewing uses a series of non-judgmental questions to get you to re-examine past behaviour and see where you could change moving forward.
For practitioners, the five principles of motivational interviewing are:
Holistic Therapies – Holistic therapies use a variety of activities to heal your whole self.
Examples include music therapy, equine therapy, art therapy and outdoor therapy.
Many of these allow you to express your emotions in creative ways, which can be very freeing for a lot of people.
Group Therapy – In group therapy, you essentially share a therapist with a group.
This can be really great if you feel you need strong emotional support from a number of people with similar experiences.
In a way, it has similar benefits to support groups, but instead of sharing your story, you’ll fully recover alongside the people in your group.
Individual Therapy – At the same time, addiction treatment can often be something highly personal.
Talking one to one with a therapist in a private, confidential space could be the best way for you to finally work through everything.
Family Therapy – It probably goes without saying, but addiction doesn’t just hurt the person suffering from it.
If you feel like you need help as a family, therapy for all of you could be a good choice.
Co-Dependency Treatment – Co-dependency is a toxic relationship structure, where one person’s needs are put over another’s to an unhealthy extent.
This often occurs in addiction cases and can be dealt with via treatment.
Twelve-Step Facilitation Therapy (TSF) – As its name would suggest, this uses the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to guide your recovery.
These key stages are:
Different organisations may offer different treatments – this is something you should definitely check while researching your options.
As we’ve already established, rehabs don’t just work to heal you from your addiction physically.
They also focus on the mental health issues that are nearly always an underlying cause.
This could include:
The types of therapy and counselling you encounter during rehab will largely depend on your mental health background
As a result, it’s very important to be open about any psychiatric conditions or complications you might have.
Drug and alcohol rehab in North Wales generally happens in three stages: detoxification, rehabilitation and aftercare.
In the first stage, the goal is to slowly and safely reduce your intake, so you can carry on with the rest of your treatment, without experiencing withdrawal symptoms.
The second stage aims to help your mental recovery, through various kinds of therapy and counselling.
By the time we get to aftercare, the aim is to prevent you from relapsing – and one of the biggest ways this is done is via a relapse prevention plan.
This plan is usually developed during the rehab stage and it has several important aspects:
Trigger Identification – We’ll look at all your potential triggers and will teach you to identify them before they take hold and lead to relapse.
Lifestyle Changes – We’ll also lay out any lifestyle changes you might need to make.
This could be within your personal relationships, your professional life or where you live.
It all depends on what was triggering your addiction in the first place.
A Relapse Plan – We’ll also create a plan for if you do relapse, including people who should be contacted and what specifically should happen.
This should help mitigate at least some of the damage if the worst does happen.
Speaking of aftercare, several other services will also be available to you, including:
Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous andAl-Anon Family Group meetings– These support groups will give you a safe, confidential space to talk about your addiction with people who truly understand.
Al-Anon Family group meetings also serve the same function, specifically for the families of those affected by addiction.
SMART Recovery – Self-sufficiency is the main focus of Self-Management and Recovery Training or SMART recovery.
More specifically, you’ll learn how to manage your own recovery and control your own urges and cravings.
Outpatient Treatment via a local Drug & Alcohol team in North Wales – If residential drug and alcohol rehab in North Wales doesn’t seem like a viable choice for you, you could always opt for outpatient treatment.
You’d get similar treatments at the same level of support, whilst staying in a comfortable, at-home environment.
It’s also more convenient for a lot of people and might suit you better if you have a less severe addiction, that doesn’t require the same level of treatment.
Home Detox – An at-home detox also has similar benefits.
We should note that this is different to an unsupported detox, where you simply try to go cold turkey without any professional help.
As addiction is so powerful, this is unlikely to work.
With some addictions, it could even be dangerous due to withdrawal symptoms.
In an at-home detox, you’ll be given medications to curb the worst withdrawal symptoms and you’ll have a full team from your chosen recovery organisation supporting you.
If you’re ready to battle your drug or alcohol addiction with the help of the experts, it’s time to get in touch.
At Rehab 4 Addiction, we help you to access rehab in North Wales.
Call us on 0800 140 4690 or contact us through this website.
We’re ready and waiting to help you combat your addiction once and for all.
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