In this article I want to talk to you about what are the aspects to review when looking for a drug detoxification center.
If you are reading this article, you are probably a relative of a person with drug problems and you will be quite desperate.
You’ll want to know if a detox center, an addiction rehabilitation clinic, a therapeutic community, or a psychological clinic to treat addictions is the same thing.
You’ll wonder the price of detox centers, if they’re effective, how they work, and a lot of other doubts.
From the experience that gives me 10 years working with drug addicts in Athena Foundation, I will try to help you clarify all these doubts about the treatments in detoxification centers.
Although different names are generally used, a drug rehabilitation centre, a detoxification centre, a therapeutic community or a rehabilitation clinic are the same thing.
It is a place where a person with drug problems is hospitalized to learn how to overcome addiction.
We will see later the difference between detoxification, unhabituation and rehabilitation.
Public or private detox?
The first choice when choosing a rehabilitation centre is to be clear about whether we are looking for a private or a public centre.
Public centres are free and you must be referred to them by a specialist.
Inform your general practitioner that you want an appointment in the addictive behaviour unit (in each Autonomous Community they have a different name) or make an appointment directly (this is one of the few specialities you can access without a referral from the general practitioner).
Bear in mind that the public system’s action units offer various types of treatment and not all of them involve admission to a detoxification centre.
It will be the doctor who assesses which type of treatment is the most appropriate.
If the doctor considers admission to a detoxification clinic, this treatment will be free and sometimes you will have to wait several months to have a place.
With regard to the quality of the centres contracted with the public health system, we find everything. From high quality detoxification centres to centres of very dubious quality.
Before entering a center referred by the public health, try to find out who manages it, what type of treatment it offers and what level of professionalism it has.
Free or paid detox center?
In Spain, we can catalogue detox clinics in three types, two of which are free:
- Publicly subsidised centres, which we have just talked about
- Private paid detoxification centres, which we will discuss later.
- Free or fairly cheap religious rehabilitation centres.
Be careful with these types of centers. Most of them replace treatment with faith, and are more like a sect than a place to rehabilitate from drugs.
There are centers, such as those for men’s projects, which, although they belong to the Catholic Church, do not fall into the latter category.
They tend to be centres of an acceptable quality, agreed with the public system and with professionals who manage treatment.
Paid private rehabilitation centres
In this category we find a great variety of types of centre and prices.
In general, a quality private detoxification centre will cost between 2,000 and 6,000 euros per month.
It may seem expensive, but if they can help your child/husband/mother to get off the drug maybe it’s a good investment.
Compare and hire the best possible centre.
As a tip, closeness is not a good criterion for choosing the centre. Find out more and try to find the one that best suits the patient we want to treat.
An example of this type of centre would be the Cancalau clinic, a centre specialising in addictions.
Duration of treatment
Getting rehabilitated from drug use is a long and hard-won treatment.
Whoever tells you that it’s going to be short and easy is probably lying to you.
From a summarized model, we can say that a drug detoxification treatment has 3 phases:
- Detoxification
- Deshabituation
- Maintenance of abstinence
Detoxification phase
It lasts between 7 days and a month.
It consists of getting rid of the drug from the body.
It is the phase that addicts are most afraid of (they are not able to live without the substance) and which is actually the simplest of the three.
Medical supervision is necessary and is usually carried out in a regime of internment, deprivation of liberty and isolation in detoxification centres.
Phase of unhabituation
It lasts between 6 months and two years.
In this phase the person with drug problems has to learn to live without using.
Normally the unhabituation begins in a rehabilitation centre and little by little freedom is given.
It begins with departures from the centre accompanied by educators, family visits are received and ends with departures for hours or days to the family home and ends outside the detoxification centre.