1.	Do they recognize they have a drug or alcohol problem?
2. Have they changed sleeping, eating, or social habits significantly?
3. Do they exhibit signs of irrational and/or erratic behavior?
4. Have they lied, or stolen, to support their addiction?
5. Do they experience withdrawal symptoms if they go without drugs?
6. Have they lost a job, or relationships, due to their behavior?
7. Do they use drugs in your home?
8. Do you feel unsafe around the addict?
9. Have they attempted to quit using before and relapsed?
10. Are they facing legal issues due to their drug use or behavior?
This assessment will help you determine what is the best course of action for your addiction treatment. The common questions below will help you learn more about the questions in the assessment and what the different options mean.
Making the decision to get treatment for an addiction is a big step on the road to recovery. Although the decision is an important part of your recovery, you also need to determine the best rehab facility for your personal situation, when to get help and whether the best facilities are near or far from your home. Getting ready to face your addiction head on requires the right type of program and the appropriate location.
Your finances should always play a part in the process of finding the right treatment facility. If you have a strict budget or limited funds, then you will have fewer options available due to the cost of different rehab programs.
Before you consider whether you have the finances to pay for rehab, you should determine if your insurance will offer some assistance. Some health insurance companies will pay for rehab up to 30 days, but the percentage will vary between companies. If you do not have insurance or if the insurance company does not pay for rehab programs, then you need to set a maximum daily expense budget to find a program that is appropriate for your financial situation.
After determining how much you can spend, you are able to narrow your choices based on the cost. Rehab does not necessarily mean you need to spend a small fortune to recover. Some facilities offer low-cost treatments, a sliding scale based on your financial situation or free services that can help you take the first steps of your recovery.
Is a mental health condition contributing to your addiction?
When you have mental health concerns, your addiction is only part of the problem. Psychological concerns can arise in two possible situations: the condition developed from substance abuse or the condition is causing the drug seeking behavior.
Regardless of whether mental health conditions developed before substance abuse or after, the problem contributes to the addiction. Drugs are often used as an attempt to self-medicate and ease the symptoms of mental health problems.
If you are struggling with mental health conditions and addiction, then you need to seek the help of a facility with treatments for both conditions. Your mental health is a major contributing factor to substance abuse, particularly if you have a diagnosed problem. The best facilities for mental health concerns offer cognitive treatments, counseling and medical treatments that can help you manage the substance abuse and the psychological factors that are complicating the success of past treatments.
Although every addiction to drugs or alcohol requires action to overcome, certain cases require immediate help to prevent you from serious consequences to your health. If you are not sure whether the addiction has become a severe problem, then you should consider your current actions.
A severe addiction typically means that you do not have any other focus in life. If the substance is more important than eating, sleeping, basic hygiene and other necessities, then you have reached a stage where your addiction is severe. It is also considered severe if you have overdosed on the substance or you are taking risks with your life or the lives of others.
Addiction is often a progressive disease, which means that it gets worse over time. If you have only recently started taking the substance, then your addiction might not be at the stage of severe and you can take a little extra time to look for the right treatment facility.
Regardless of whether your addiction is severe or you have only noticed the dependency has developed, you should always seek treatment as soon as possible. A severe addiction means that you need immediate help or you are likely to seriously injure yourself or another person. Even a recent dependency on a substance will need to act quickly for the best treatment results.
Is emotional trauma contributing to your addiction?
Emotional trauma can come from a wide variety of sources, such as abuse during childhood, car accidents or being attacked. When you do not treat the emotional trauma, it is possible to turn to substance abuse as an attempt to heal the pain.
The problem with treating an addiction that stems from emotional pain is that it will often bring out the memories of that traumatic event and make it harder to overcome the addiction. When you have emotional factors involved in your addiction, the best treatment facility is one that offers one-on-one counseling with a psychologist or a specialist in trauma.
Does your home environment trigger your addiction?
The compulsion to take drugs or drink alcohol is sometimes related to triggers in the environment. For example, you might drink alcohol to try relaxing after a stressful day at work or a fight in the family. When your attempt to reduce stress results in developing an addiction, you will trigger a craving for the substance each time you face a stressful situation.
Triggers in and around your home environment can make it harder to treat your addiction because you are seeing similar settings in the facility. If you have several trigger factors related to your home environment, then you might want to look for a rehab facility that is located far from home and completely removes you for familiar settings. For example, if gloomy weather triggers depression and drug abuse, then you should look for a facility in a warm and sunny location.
When you are not facing triggers in your environment, the best facility might be something nearby. That familiarity can help in situations where your family support system is more important than the environment around you.
Do you have poor physical health?
Your physical health can play a role in substance abuse, particularly when it relates to pain. In some cases, your addiction might actually stem from an accident or injury that resulted in taking medications to reduce the pain. The physical factors can play a significant role in finding the right facility when you have decided to seek help to overcome your addiction.
If you are struggling with poor health or significant pain, then you need to seek a treatment facility that is equipped to manage your healthcare needs. The facility should have a medical doctor and nurses among the staff members and should offer holistic healing to help reduce some of the pain. In some cases, this type of facility might require you to travel.
Does your family support your goals?
When you make the goal to overcome drugs or alcohol, family support should always be a consideration. Before you look for a program, you should inform your family of your problems and determine if you have their support.
If you do not have family nearby, then you might not have a support network at home. That can mean looking for a treatment facility that is near your loved ones or focusing on other forms of support. If your family is not willing to support your goals or you have broken down the relationships too far due to addiction, then you should look for a facility that focuses on supportive treatments.
Family support can play a significant role in your ability to overcome addiction, but only if your family members are ready to forgive the actions you take while abusing drugs or alcohol. If you have a situation where your family is too hurt or confused to help, then you should look into rehab programs that provide group counseling, 12 step programs and other forms of support to get through the first steps of your recovery.
Are you a social individual?
Although your financial and family situations play a significant role in finding the right treatment options and getting started into your recovery, you will also want to consider your personality.
A social individual will usually have an extroverted personality type. If you are naturally a social individual, then you will want to find a facility that offers group counseling and activities to help you gain the support of others who understand your addiction and can discuss the challenges together.
If you are not naturally inclined to social activities, then you might have an introverted personality. Your treatment needs will vary slightly because you might not feel comfortable talking in a group, which can limit your ability to gain valuable insights from the group activities. You might do better in one-on-one counseling and holistic treatments because you have more personal time and self-reflection without the concerns associated with group programs.
Are family members contributing to your addiction?
Family members can contribute to an addiction in various ways. Although the support of loved ones is an important factor in long-term recovery, it might not always be appropriate to include your family members in the initial treatments.
A possible contributing factor is enabling you to abuse drugs or alcohol. If your family members are not willing to cut you off financially or are helping you obtain substances, then you should consider a treatment facility that is not near your home. By cutting your family out during the hardest steps of your recovery, you will not face the possibility of them giving up too early and enabling you to quit.
Although enabling is not always a big factor, you should always look for a facility that is far from home if your family is abusive or is a key cause of your addiction. An abusive household situation can make treatments less effective if your family comes to visit. You need to remove yourself from their reach in this type of situation so that you can focus on your recovery and get help for the future.
Do you have goals for your long-term recovery?
Although the decision to seek help shows that you have set some short-term goals, remaining drug and alcohol free means that you need long-term goals as well. If you have not yet set any long-term goals, then you will want to seek the help of a facility that has transitional and aftercare programs.
Transitional programs help you move from the facility back into your normal life in smaller steps. You will take gradual steps into the freedom you enjoyed before treatment so that you do not become overwhelmed and revert to taking drugs or drinking alcohol again.
The aftercare programs are designed to provide you with continued support, counseling and assistance for a set time after the rehab is complete. Depending on the program, you might have aftercare available for several months to one year.
By looking for facilities that offer long-term options, you will have more time to set goals for your recovery and make realistic plans to avoid a relapse.
When you have decided to give up drugs and alcohol, you need to find an appropriate facility for your treatment and current situation. By focusing on your family situation, the financial aspects of treatment and your goals, you will have a better chance of recovering and reducing the risk of a relapse after your treatment is complete.
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