Behavioral Change Through Treatment
Recovering from an addiction to drugs is a lifelong process during which a person often experiences multiple relapses before achieving sustained, long-term sobriety. Though this process can be a difficult one, a wide range of therapies have proved to be effective in helping recovering individuals to achieve initial abstinence and maintain a prolonged sobriety.
Cognitive Therapy
One of the most frequently utilized therapeutic approaches involves cognitive behavioral relapse prevention. To help with their recovery efforts, cognitive therapy patients learn new ways of behaving and thinking – for example, they learn how to avoid potentially triggering situations, and they practice ways of saying “no” when offered or enticed to take drugs.
Cognitive patients are also taught to view occasional relapses not as failures, but rather as minor setbacks on the path to a better life.
Contingency Management
Another popular and effective technique for treating drug abuse patients is contingency management, a reward-and-punishment approach that encourages sobriety and penalizes the use of illicit substances. If appropriately implemented, a contingency management approach will make living a drug-free, socially healthy lifestyle more attractive than continuing to abuse substances.
Under a contingency management plan, bringing an individual’s drug use under control needs to be followed by education and employment rehabilitation efforts. By ensuring that a healthy lifestyle offers the highest rewards, contingency management makes drug use a far less attractive options.
Other Approaches
For more information about additional approaches for treating substance abuse, click the following links: