When you’re a woman struggling with drugs or alcohol, there may be barriers to you getting treatment.
One barrier to drug rehab for women is family responsibilities. You may feel like you can’t leave your role as a mother or caretaker. What’s important to realize is that getting help for an addiction to drugs or alcohol is the most important thing you can do for your family and yourself.
Meeting Your Treatment Needs
You shouldn’t let family responsibilities be a barrier to getting drug treatment.
Instead, you might look for a drug rehab for women that centers around meeting your needs. Outpatient rehab programs can be a way to continue maintaining your responsibilities at home or work and work toward recovery.
Outpatient rehab has a lot of benefits for women, as does gender-specific treatment. When you participate in an outpatient program, you can also maintain your job, families are often incorporated as part of treatment, and they’re more affordable than residential treatment.
Whether you’re dealing with alcohol abuse or drug addiction, outpatient substance abuse treatment programs can be a valuable part of your recovery process to work toward a sober life.
You can also get help for co-occurring mental health disorders and mental health issues to promote sustainable long-term recovery.
What Is Outpatient Rehab?
Outpatient rehab can be the best recovery for women in some circumstances. These programs and addiction treatment centers allow you to attend programs during the day. Then, when your treatment ends for the day, you return home in the evening; you will participate in structured treatment sessions. You might also attend support groups throughout the week.
By contrast, during inpatient rehab, also known as residential treatment, you live at the facility for a period.
There are many differences in outpatient programs, including the format and intensity. In general, the shared features of outpatient rehab include a focus on counseling and education and a support network.
Types of Outpatient Programs
There are three general types of outpatient programs, which include:
Day Programs
An outpatient day rehab program is somewhat like residential rehab because there’s a high level of a structured care, and it’s a safe space. The only difference between a day program and residential rehab is that you return home in the evenings versus sleeping at the treatment facility.
During day treatment for addiction issues, you will usually attend meetings and treatment sessions anywhere from five to seven days a week. Your sessions will last for multiple hours. Types of sessions you participate in could include individual therapy, group counseling, and other types of treatment like music or art therapy.
You would then return home after your sessions, or maybe to a sober living home.
This type of outpatient program doesn’t provide as much flexibility. There’s a significant time commitment, limiting whether you can continue working or keep up with your other responsibilities.
Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP)
During an intensive outpatient program, you have a formal treatment plan. A treatment plan in an IOP will usually include set milestones to track progress. As you meet pre-defined milestones, the time commitment each week goes down.
An IOP is a good drug rehab for women who need fairly intensive treatment for substance abuse issues and have other responsibilities to keep up with their daily lives.
There are different types of treatment you could participate in during an IOP for alcohol or drug abuse. For example, you might do individual and group counseling, relapse prevention, and you could also participate in a recovery support group like a 12-step program.
Continuing Care
A continuing-care plan most often includes participation in a 12-step support group like Alcoholics Anonymous. Continuing care groups may also be specified for one gender or have separations based on age.
You can participate in an outpatient program at a rehab center, mental health clinic, or you might simply meet with a behavioral health counselor regularly.
There are also outpatient programs that offer weekend or evening sessions. These programs are ideal if you balance your treatment with personal, family, or professional obligations.
Some of the many specific elements of outpatient treatment you may experience include:
- Family therapy
- Group counseling
- Individual therapy
- Education sessions
- Recreational or occupational therapy
- Talk therapy
- Family therapy
- Medication-assisted treatment
The therapeutic techniques utilized in outpatient rehab may include:
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy, focusing on changing harmful ways of thinking and behaviors. CBT also helps you learn coping skills, avoid triggers and deal with high-risk situations that could otherwise lead to relapse.
- Contingency management, providing small rewards as a way of reinforcing desirable behaviors.
- Motivational enhancement therapy helps increase your confidence and motivation to make positive changes in your life.
- Twelve-step facilitation therapy, which uses principles from Alcoholics Anonymous and mutual-help support groups. You might continue with 12-step meetings after your treatment program ends.
- Family behavior therapy can address issues in the home environment that occur along with substance use.
What are the Benefits of Outpatient Treatment?
Some of the benefits of outpatient drug rehab for women or alcohol addiction treatment programs include:
- There’s flexibility. When you participate in an outpatient treatment program, you can come and go as you need but still receive holistic treatments and, if necessary, dual diagnosis treatment. If you have children at home, for example, you may not have the option to spend time in a residential facility. You can work out a plan with your treatment provider that will work with the other responsibilities in your life you need to balance. You’ll have the flexibility to maintain other important things in your life.
- When you go to outpatient treatment, you can stay connected with your family and loved ones rather than leaving them. Many people find this family support element helps them a lot as they go through treatment.
- With inpatient rehab, the environment is very structured and secure. That can be great in some ways, but it doesn’t always reflect the world waiting for you. When you do outpatient treatment, you’re putting your new skills and coping mechanisms to use right away.
- You get more privacy and one-on-one treatment in outpatient rehab a lot of times. Outpatient rehab is more individually focused, while in residential rehab, it’s about the group as a whole in addition to you as an individual.
- Outpatient rehab tends to be more affordable than an inpatient program, so this helps break down yet more barriers to receiving treatment. Many insurance programs will also cover some or all of your inpatient treatment.
- If you have a mild or short-term addiction to drugs or an alcohol use disorder, you may not need inpatient rehab. Outpatient treatment programs can adequately meet your needs.
You might begin your treatment journey in an outpatient program. For some people, it’s more appropriate to start with inpatient rehab and then, when you’re ready, move into the lower level of care offered by outpatient rehab.
Whether you participate in an outpatient program as a woman with a substance use disorder or another type of treatment, what’s most important is that you get the help you deserve. Call 866-600-7709 and reach out to the Anchored Tides Recovery team to learn more about the best recovery for women and specific options that work in terms of drug rehab.
