Don’t Use the Absence of a Cure for Meth Addiction as a Reason that Meth Addiction Treatment Isn’t Worth Attending

There are a lot of reasons to go into meth addiction treatment, like decreasing or ceasing drug use and reclaim a functioning role in your family and community. But, there are a lot of meth addicts who choose, instead, to focus on the reasons not to go. You may be one of them. Perhaps, you argue that you canít afford meth addiction treatment. Maybe you donít have time to attend rehab. Or, you might be focusing on the cure for meth addiction or, rather, the lack of a cure. If you are dragging your feet and resisting treatment because you feel it is pointless if it doesnít cure you, itís time to readjust your thinking and look at the big picture.

Meth Addiction Is a Chronic Disease

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease, which means that it is a long-term illness (in this case, it will persist for the remainder of your life) and that it cannot be ìfixedî with medication. You are familiar with the concept of chronic illness. Just think of other examples, like Crohn’s disease, hypertension, asthma, and even cancer. These illnesses are all treatable, but have no easy cure. Similarly, there is no cure for meth addiction.

If You Had a Different Chronic Disease, You Wouldn’t Refuse Treatment

Building on the examples given above, consider how you would react to being given an asthma diagnosis. You would learn that you have a potentially life threatening disease that can be managed with medication and lifestyle changes, but one which cannot be cured. Would you, at that point, refuse the inhaler? Would you continue living your life in such a way that you invited asthma attacks to stop your breathing? No. You wouldn’t. You would accept the treatment, regardless of whether or not a cure was possible.

Stop Making Excuses

If you asset treatment is useless without a cure, you are being willfully ignorant and you are hampering your recovery progress by throwing up a roadblock. If you do not enter meth addiction treatment, the disease will worsen and you may lose your life to it. Instead of insisting on a cure for meth addiction, focus on the options available to you and reclaim control of your life.

If Meth Addiction Treatment Doesn’t Provide a Cure for Meth Addiction, What Does It Provide?

Just because you are a meth addict, doesnít make you an expert in meth addiction and you certainly arenít a treatment specialist. Therefore, your understanding of what occurs in meth addiction treatment will be drawn from your peers, from popular culture, and from your research. It will take you some time to fully get a handle on how treatment is conducted and the approaches commonly used.

The first thing you should understand about meth addiction treatment is that it will not give you a cure for meth addiction. Experts agree that addiction cannot be cured, Instead, rehab programs work with you in a variety of ways designed to help you return to productive functioning in your job, family, and community.

Peer Support

Whether you are in inpatient care or outpatient care, your meth addiction treatment program will be designed to present you with numerous opportunities to connect with your fellow patients. Both group therapy and support group meetings are obvious examples, but you will also engage in education sessions with your peers and patients in inpatient meth addiction treatment will also have meals and recreation with each other.

When you are in rehab, your peers may be the first people you can be completely honest with regarding your addiction because they may be the first people who can truly understand what you are talking about because they have lived it as well. Further, they will give you feedback, challenge you, motivate and inspire you, and hold you accountable.

Modifying Underlying Causes of Meth Abuse

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, behavioral therapy is the most popular form of treatment used in drug addiction treatment, and cognitive behavioral therapy is the most popular method used. While engaging in this intervention, you will learn to identify the thoughts and attitudes that contribute to your negative behaviors and you will learn to change them.

Coping Skills

Relapse is a very common aspect of drug addiction recovery, and though there is no cure for meth addiction that can prevent it from happening, rehab will prepare you to lessen the chances of relapse and prepare you to deal with it quickly and effectively if it does,

Will Meth Addiction Treatment Soon Have a Cure for Meth Addiction?

Currently, there is no cure for drug or alcohol addiction, which means there is obviously no cure for meth addiction. That does not, however, decrease the hope that there will someday be one. Addiction is a difficult disease to cope with. People who grapple with it watch their lives break apart, leaving them emotionally, psychologically, financially, physically, socially, and occupationally wrecked.

Nothing is more appealing than the idea that there could someday be a simple prescription that could make it all ok. But, honestly, it is highly unlikely that this will ever be the case, given the nature of addiction. Instead, meth addiction treatment programs assist their clients in managing addiction and its symptoms and regaining the control they handed over to their meth abuse.

A Chronic Disease Cannot Be Cured

Addiction is defined as ìa chronic, relapsing brain disease that is characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences.î Chronic diseases are those which cannot be cured with medication. Medication may be used to treat specific aspects of the disease, but it will not heal the disorder. For example, the chronic disease asthma relies on the use of an inhaler to open the small airways in the lungs. These are prescribed for fast, short-term relief. They will not cure a personís asthma. It is the same with meth addiction treatment. If medication is used, it is only to address specific concerns.

Instead, Chronic Diseases Are Managed

Rather than attempt to deliver a cure for meth addiction, rehabs utilize a number of interventions to help patients:

• Learn about the processes of addiction and recovery
• Explore the underlying thoughts and attitudes that contribute to meth use and to change them
• Develop coping strategies that donít involve substance use
• Foster self confidence
• Take responsibility for their meth use and its consequences
• Treat any accompanying mental disorders
• Master skills and strategies to contend with cravings and relapse urges

And, Treatment Is Effective

Some may see treatment as a poor substitute for a cure. But, the alternative is continued meth addiction, so that canít possibly be the right way of looking at things. Research demonstrates people who enter treatment and remain in it for the full duration of their program lessen or cease drug use. In addition, they return to being a productive member of society. Thatís ideal.