If you or someone you care about struggles with addiction, it’s important to explore the benefits of treatment planning for addiction sooner than later. Addiction of any type can have a severe impact on your relationships, career, and mental health. Planning a path toward addiction recovery early can help you identify negative behaviors, form healthy habits, and position you for success.
In this article, you will discover the benefits of treatment planning for addiction.
Treatment Planning for Addiction
If you want to overcome addiction, you must create a plan of action. This plan includes long-term and short-term goals, along with specific steps you will take to reach those goals.
It would help if you also created back-up plans for when things don’t go as planned and connecting with resources who can help you reach your goals.
In addiction recovery, this is called treatment planning.
Here’s what you need to know about treatment planning for addiction.
It’s a Process
Treatment plans are not something done to you. They are not events, meetings, books, or a folder full of papers. They are a process.
The treatment planning process helps guide you towards your goals while your therapist and psychiatrist monitor your progress. If changes are needed along the way, you can make them together.
Treatment plans help you see how much you have accomplished, keeping you motivated to stay on track. Following this process helps you learn patience and delayed gratification, something most addicts have little experience.
However, you can still enjoy the small wins throughout the process and working through the different parts of the treatment plan.
Parts of a Treatment Plan for Addiction
There are many parts of a treatment plan, including the approaches to be used. In treating addiction, methods can range from detox treatments, intensive outpatient, individual and group therapy, and anti-craving medication.
The approaches are typically presented by your therapist and psychiatrist to recommend how you can best overcome your addiction. The approaches start more intense because, in the beginning, you can benefit from more help. The healthier you become in your recovery, the less treatment you will need.
Identifying issues to be addressed, goals, objectives, and how you will measure success are also essential parts of treatment planning.
Goals and Objectives
In treatment planning for addiction, goals are the outcomes. They are the result of what you want to happen when you get sober. Goals must be specific and attainable. They are based on what you envision for yourself in the future and include the steps to help you reach your goals.
Goals must be realistic. You don’t want to set yourself up to fail. You want to avoid being too vague when setting goals with your therapist. Be specific and list details inside your goal statement; for example, rather than the state you want to exercise more, state you wish to exercise more by running five miles two days a week and going to the gym two days a week, and eating a low-fat diet.
When creating a goal, record how you will know when you have reached your goal and list resources to help you along the way. Finally, make your goals adaptable. Life happens, and rather than give up on your dreams; you can be flexible in how you reach them.
Objectives are the steps you take to help you reach your goals. Attached to objectives are timelines that give you an end date or target time to complete the plan.
Goals and objectives complement one another and make reaching success much more manageable.
It’s About You
Your treatment plan will include information about you, including your strengths, addiction history, psychological history, and past treatments. Your demographics, family medical and addiction history, environment, support system, and any needs must be met to help you succeed in treatment.
For example, if you have a disability that may hinder treatment, you and your therapist can create a plan to prevent that from happening.
Any personal information you feel can help or hurt your addiction recovery should be discussed.
Treatment planning is individualized. Addiction doctors and therapists realize that addiction treatment is not a one size fits all program. There are many benefits to an individualized treatment plan.
Benefits of Individualized Treatment Planning
Every person struggling with addiction is also working with different physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, and relationship issues. Treatment planning for addiction can include goals and objectives, addressing and resolving them.
Individualized treatment planning can include referrals for testing, vocational assistance, relationship counseling, social support, and other resources to support your recovery.
If you have needs to be met, treatment planning can help you set a straight path on how to meet them.
Addiction therapists understand how difficult it is to stay sober if there are other areas of your life in peril. Many people new to recovery may be homeless, lack transportation, and may have upcoming legal obstacles.
Where to Start
There are a few steps to complete before treatment planning can begin. Your first appointment will consist of an extensive evaluation, or intake assessment, in which you will meet with a psychotherapist or psychiatrist.
In this hour-long meeting, you will talk about how addiction affects your life and why you are seeking help. You will be given a diagnosis based on your evaluation results. Your diagnosis provides a basis for treatment, helping your treatment specialist figure out which treatments will benefit you and which ones to avoid.
The initial meeting is a time for you to ask questions and express your thoughts and feelings about recovery honestly and express any concerns you may be having. It’s okay to have doubts or to be scared. It’s okay to be honest. Asking questions shows you care about making significant, positive changes in your life.
It is the therapist’s job to teach you, reassure you the process works, and encourage you. You deserve the opportunity to get sober and live a life in recovery. You deserve the benefits of treatment planning to help you maintain sobriety during and after treatment.
Treatment planning for addiction starts the moment you choose to get sober and ask for help from an addiction specialist. It can begin for you today. Reach out virtually or by phone to let someone know you’re ready to start your treatment plan for recovery.