Alcohol Rehab: My Alcohol Rehabilitation

Most of my alcohol rehab was handled in inpatient alcohol rehab centers during the beginning of my sobriety. Alcohol rehabilitation centers were plentiful in the 80s when I did my alcohol rehabilitation. Alcoholic rehab centers have since changed due to tightening insurance companies. I was fortunate to have long term alcohol rehab.

My long term alcohol rehab started in inpatient alcohol treatment centers like so many did in that time. Alcohol rehab is a relearning process and it would be very difficult to maintain sobriety without having an intense program to retrain your thinking. At least it was for me. 

Inpatient alcohol rehabilitation centers became the way of life for me for a couple of years. My first rehab center was a private facility that barely counts. My 2nd rehab facility was a 28 day inpatient alcohol rehab program. And my 3rd and last alcohol rehab program was a residential long term alcohol rehab center for women alcohol and drug abusers.

It may seem that my alcohol rehab was a little extreme but since I started my alcohol abuse at such a young age and I also came from an alcoholic home, I may have needed the extra time just to learn how to live sober and to think somewhat like the rest of the world. Who knows? When you start teenage alcohol abuse you stop maturing emotionally. So I have been told!

For many people alcohol rehabilitation means either a 28 day stay in an alcohol rehab center or just joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). For me however it meant also going into a long term alcohol rehab program for women. It is what I had to do or die. I had no other alternative.

My stay at the residential long term alcohol rehab program lasted 10 more months. I had to be completely removed from my environment and family. My rehab house was in an entirely different town.This was not an easy decision to make and leaving my children was the hardest and worst thing I could think of doing. But if I had not gone to these lengths I would have died and possibly had hurt someone seriously along the way.

Plus while I was away my husband and children had plenty of time to get into a program and receive counseling. By now they too were willing to do whatever it took to start healing and get healthy.

Alcohol abuse treatments vary among individuals. Not every man or woman needs to go into a residential alcohol rehab program. This is just my story.