Outpatient

One of the most significant benefits of an outpatient rehab treatment plan is that outpatient substance abuse treatment has a much more flexible schedule and doesn’t require you to live at the facility.Because outpatient rehab programs offer flexible schedules, you can live at home, continue to maintain a job, or fulfill personal responsibilities while getting the ongoing support you need.

Participation in an outpatient addiction treatment program means you get ongoing support. As you complete an inpatient or partial hospitalization program and step down to the next level, outpatient rehab programs continue to provide a network of professionals and a community of supportive, like-minded individuals.You can turn to your therapists when you struggle to apply the life skills you might have learned. You can talk to other people in group sessions when triggers become overwhelming and recognize that you aren’t alone in your struggle. In fact, studies indicate that participation in 12-step group programs can increase and strengthen the benefits you get from your outpatient substance abuse treatment.

Participation in outpatient substance abuse treatment can include things like brain optimization, integrative medicine, nutrition classes, and other therapies that help you restructure your reward system.Addictive substances actually overstimulate the nucleus accumbens, or the part of your brain associated with rewards. This is the same part of your brain that might have previously left you feeling good when you:<ul> <li aria-level="1">Socialize with friends</li> <li aria-level="1">Spend time with family</li> <li aria-level="1">Learn a new skill</li> <li aria-level="1">Invest in a hobby</li> <li aria-level="1">Exercise</li></ul>Within just one month of drug use, drugs and alcohol produce activity levels beyond your normal range, and eventually, the nucleus accumbens is numbed to the activity. It starts to inhibit the regions of the brain that cause overstimulation.

Your body has mechanisms that help maintain a constant temperature no matter how hot or cold the weather is around you. It does this to maintain homeostasis. This type of homeostasis happens in the brain too. If your nucleus accumbens is repeatedly overstimulated, it just turns down the area from which it receives that stimulation by producing a molecule called CREB. CREB is a genetic transcription factor, so it can turn on the cell’s genetic machinery and cause it to make specific chemicals.&nbsp;When CREB gets produced, it starts making a chemical called dynorphin. Dynorphin is like a natural painkiller that the brain makes, which inhibits stimulation of the nucleus accumbens.&nbsp;Dynorphin will keep turning down the stimulation, and over time, you will feel less pleasure from your substances, and your high won’t be as rewarding. Eventually, you need more and more to feel normal. As your nucleus accumbens becomes less sensitive to drugs, it also becomes less sensitive to all types of stimulation, like reading a book or playing a sport. These activities, too, are no longer pleasurable. At some point, substance abuse is the only way you can feel good.&nbsp;If you reach that point, the best outpatient drug and alcohol rehab center can give you reliable treatment to restore your brain function so that you aren’t overstimulated and you can still derive pleasure from things like socialization and learning new skills.

Finally, for a lot of people, outpatient drug and alcohol treatment is the only service almost entirely covered by healthcare. This makes it one of the most affordable forms of rehab.