Which Drug Addiction Treatment is the Best?

The answer is simple: there is no such thing as the best drug addiction treatment. Depending on the kind of the addiction, your age and social situation different treatments may be chosen for your benefit.

Here are a few most common drug addiction treatments (from www.nida.nih.gov website):

(1) Relapse Prevention - this treatment helps you control your behavior, learn to identify dangerous situations and avoid them. It concentrates on augmenting your learning processes and developing your own defense skills.

(2) Matrix model - strict and personal, with therapist acting as your friend and as your coach at the same time. This drug addiction treatment seems to be intensive and deep. It works as much on your consciousness as on forcing into you a kind of drill which prevents you from using drugs.

(3) Supportive-Expressive Psychotherapy - it works mostly through interpersonal links, creating your sphere of comfort and teaches you to trust in other people support. Good and comfortable, used mostly for cocaine and heroin addicts.

(4) Individualized drug counseling is a drug addiction treatment that concentrates not only on a drug addiction, but works also on other related subject - employment status, family problems etc. It's a short-term therapy, but when it helps, it helps in a big way.

(5) Motivational Enhancement Therapy - this one concentrates on the addicts will - its aim is to incite the will to fight the addiction. It changes people, but in a good way. It makes them stronger and more focused.

(6) Behavioral Therapy for Adolescents - the treatment is based on assumption that by showing desired behavior and rewarding any steps addicts take toward achieving it, this drug addiction treatment will change patients behavior to drug-free one.

(7) Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) for Adolescents takes a different approach and tries to help addicts by their families. It offers interesting and fruitful approach as many addictions have their roots in dysfunctional families, but it doesn't need only the addict's cooperation, but also the help from the family, which may be sometimes difficult.

Jeff Lakie is the founder of Rehab Resources a website providing information on drug and alcohol rehabilitaiton treatments.