You may find that you need to look into several different centers before you find one that is ‘just right’. While it may take extra time to do this, it is important that the person being treated feels comfortable and is happy with the type of treatment they will be receiving. One of the best ways to decide on the center is to actually visit them, ask questions of the staff and doctors, and get a feel for the place.

Some of the common  things you may want to look into include things such as the price for treatment and whether it is free or if there is financial aid available.  It is also important to know what type of treatment they typically offer, how long the treatment lasts and what their success rate is.  There are many different styles of treatment, ranging from the familiar 12-step program that was first initiated by Alcoholic’s Anonymous, to more holistic approaches, with a myriad of different types in between.  Find out about medication, what is given, how much medical supervision is given particular during any detoxification stages.

Other things may or may not be an issue.  How does the center handle relative visitation? Is there group therapy sessions or only private counselling?  Is there a follow up out-patient program of some kind offered afterwards.

It is above all most important that the person receiving treatment is happy with their new situation, that they feel comfortable around the staff and doctors, and that they feel they will be able to make progress by participating in the program.  These are all things that will contribute to the final success of you giving up alcohol and have a successful rehabilitation treatment.

In a word, no.  An intervention is almost a mistake in itself, but in a few cases they might be useful.  But they are misleading to many people because they sort of emphasize the idea that there is a clear path to recovery, that there is a “cure” out there, that an alcoholic or an addict might be “fixed” somehow.  Just ship them off to a treatment center and they should come back OK.  Of course, this is not how recovery works at all.

The decision to get clean and sober has almost no bearing on long term sobriety.  The moment of surrender does not have any bearing on whether a person stays sober for one month, one year, or ten years.  There is not magic way to start someone’s recovery so that they stay clean and sober forever, or even so that they increase their chances of doing so.

Recovery is such a complex journey that our first days in sobriety are almost irrelevant.  If we go to treatment, and stay sober for five years, do our first few days in rehab really have a bearing on whether or not we drink after 5 years?  Hard to say, but most alcoholics can look back and say “no, my early days in recovery are no longer affecting my ability to stay sober today, five years later.  I have learned so much since then and evolved so much on a spiritual basis that it no longer matters what I experienced on my first days of sobriety.”  Thus, the alcoholic must concentrate more on living a long term life of sobriety rather than on short term outcomes in early recovery.