The Pros and Cons of Outpatient Rehab For Professionals
When you are ready to seek addiction treatment, the choices can seem overwhelming. For highly successful professionals, reluctance to take time off work can play a significant role in shaping what kind of treatment you consider. Exploring the pros and cons of outpatient rehab vs. residential treatment for professionals is essential to ensure you get the right care for your unique needs. However, you don’t necessarily have to choose between them; outpatient rehab can serve as an invaluable continuation of residential treatment to help you fortify recovery as you transition back to your everyday environment.
Admitting that you are struggling with drug or alcohol addiction can be difficult for anyone. Often, however, highly successful professionals face unique barriers to acknowledging that their substance abuse has reached unhealthy levels. “I thought as long as I was performing at work, I didn’t have a problem,” Sarah remembers. “I had an image of what an addict looked like and it wasn’t me. I was a lawyer, I was at the height of my career. I believed that if something was wrong I wouldn’t be performing at that level.”
Sarah’s experience is common amongst professionals, who are often able to hide their addiction within their prestigious careers. This can make it difficult for not only you to recognize that a substance use disorder has taken hold, but also prevent others from understanding what you are going through. “My career provided a great disguise for my alcohol and cocaine use,” Sarah says. “The shared misconception of how addiction impacts your professional life prevented others from seeing what was really going on and intervening. I wasn’t experiencing those consequences that we typically associate with addiction and that actually did a great disservice.”
Once Sarah did acknowledge her addiction, her career also presented challenges to seeking treatment. “I was terrified of going to residential rehab. Not only because recovery was very intimidating, but because I was very reluctant to temporarily leave my job. My identity was so tied up in my profession that taking time away filled me with anxiety.” Worried about the separation from her job, outpatient rehab seemed like a much more attractive option; it would allow her to remain physically present and involved in her career while still receiving treatment. “I thought that was definitely the way to go. But in prioritizing my career over my recovery, there were many things I didn’t consider.”
Outpatient rehab can indeed seem to be an ideal solution for many high-level professionals. But do they provide care that is comparable to residential treatment programs? Are you as likely to achieve lasting sobriety in an outpatient setting? By exploring the pros and cons of outpatient rehab for professionals, you can better understand your options and make an informed decision regarding the next steps in your recovery journey.
The Pros and Cons of Outpatient Rehab vs. Residential Treatment
In order to determine whether you would most benefit from outpatient rehab or residential treatment, it’s important to clarify the structure, benefits, and drawbacks of each program type.
Residential Treatment Programs
Residential addiction treatment programs are typically what comes to mind when most people think about rehab. These programs range greatly in quality and structure, but the best residential programs offer a safe, secure, and continuously monitored environment in which to devote yourself fully to recovery, typically for a period of 28 days or more. Removed from the stressors of everyday life, you can participate in a broad range of therapies selected specifically to address your unique needs, including individual psychotherapy, group therapies, and holistic and experiential modalities.
The benefit of these programs comes in part due to the breadth and intensity of care; you are able to rapidly identify the root causes of your addiction and work to remove them with the guidance of experienced professionals and compassionate peers who share your journey. This means that you can constantly acquire and integrate new learning, which is made easier by the fact that these programs take you out of the everyday environment in which your addiction took hold. “Because negatively influencing factors are removed from a patient’s daily experience, participants in residential treatment programs can begin to work on building life skills that had been interfered with due to addiction,” explains Steven Gifford, a counselor specializing in addiction treatment. “Because of this intensive level of care, residential treatment programs are ideal for people who have identified that they need drug or alcohol treatment and want to ‘do it right’ the first time.”
High-quality residential treatment programs focus on creating a complete treatment experience that creates the most positive start to recovery, working from a holistic framework. For many, this will include medically supervised detox services to help you go through the withdrawal process safely and comfortably. It also means that any co-occurring mental health disorders will be identified and appropriately addressed through a dual diagnosis treatment approach. However, immediate medical needs are not the only focus in these programs. Rather, they understand the value of supporting you as a whole person, including basics such as a healthy diet and physical fitness.
One of the most important but often overlooked attributes of these programs is the level of camaraderie that can develop between participants. When you share living space and participate in therapies and support groups together, you quickly form a therapeutic community in which you can break through isolation and experience the benefits of shared experience.
While the residential environment provides many benefits, it is also what acts as a barrier to entry for some, particularly busy professionals who worry about the impact of time away from their careers. Living in the treatment environment and participating in an intensive curriculum of therapies does mean that you can’t attend work as usual. Additionally, many worry about the time away from family, particularly if they have children.
Outpatient Rehab Programs
Outpatient rehab programs come in a variety of formats, ranging from full-day hospital-based care to part-time private treatment. Amongst the best types of outpatient rehab are Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOPs) which seek to provide holistic treatment experiences similar to those of residential care but in a condensed format; ideally, these programs will include individual therapy, therapy groups, and holistic and experiential therapies like those found in high-quality residential addiction treatment.
Full-day outpatient programs allow you to remain living at home during treatment, but do not provide much time to tend to your career due to the full-day scheduling. As such, many programs, particularly IOPs, are structured around a part-time schedule, offering half-day programming several days a week for a period of approximately 12 weeks. This means that you can attend the program without drastic disruption to your work schedule or family obligations. This is often perceived as one of the major benefits of outpatient rehab programs and can help you avoid having to explain a prolonged absence to those around you.
However, the lack of a monitored and sheltered environment inherent to outpatient care can have major drawbacks depending on your stage of recovery. As Griffin points out, “Patients return to their own environments after outpatient drug or alcohol treatment, and must voluntarily abstain from drug or alcohol use, which requires a greater amount of diligence.” This can be very difficult, even when you have the support of the clinicians and peers in the IOP and helps to explain why some studies indicate that those who attend outpatient programs are significantly more likely to experience early relapse than those who seek care in a residential treatment environment.
Additionally, IOPs do not offer medically supervised detox. Because unsupervised withdrawal from some types of drugs—including alcohol, benzodiazepines, opioids, and stimulants—can be dangerous or extremely uncomfortable, it may be advisable to seek out a medically supervised detox prior to commencing participation in an IOP. While high-quality IOPs do recognize the importance of treating co-occurring mental health disorders and can provide support in helping you manage these conditions, they are unable to offer the intensity of care provided by residential treatment programs. As such, they may not be ideal if you are experiencing acute symptoms or if you are new to mental health treatment.
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866-922-1350Outpatient Rehab As a Continuation of Residential Addiction Treatment
Your professional success did not happen by accident; it is a reflection of time and energy poured into your career often over the course of years. It is natural to worry about the impact of time away. You might well wonder, Will I lose ground? Will I compromise your professional reputation? Can my business continue to thrive without me? But recovering from addiction is about finding a program that best addresses your emotional and behavioral needs, not just one that fits into your professional schedule.
While outpatient rehab may seem attractive due to its lower level of disruption to your work, it’s important to recognize that these programs are not right for everyone at every stage of recovery and that weighing the pros and cons of outpatient rehab is critical to ensuring you get the right type of care for your needs. Researchers have found that outpatient programs alone do not produce the best outcomes for people with severe substance use disorders, complex treatment needs such as the presence of a co-occurring mental health disorder, or a history of relapse following treatment. However, the fact that outpatient rehab may not be the best initial treatment environment for you doesn’t mean it has no place in your recovery process.
For many professionals, the best strategy for healing may be to seek out a residential addiction treatment program that specializes in treatment for executives. These programs can be modified to accommodate a necessary level of professional involvement while still allowing you to receive care in a residential environment and experience the benefits of that type of care. They will also recognize the unique circumstances and challenges faced by professionals struggling with addiction, allowing you to effectively address these issues in treatment while connecting with peers who understand what you are going through. This can be a powerful experience, as professionals often feel particularly isolated within their addictions.
But for many, treatment must not and should not end with residential care. Rather than ceasing treatment altogether after your time in a residential addiction treatment program, it may be prudent to step down into an outpatient rehab program, such as an IOP. By transitioning into an IOP, you can return to your everyday environment with the structure and supports in place to preserve and build on the gains made in residential treatment. Your participation gives you the ability to continue to work on your sobriety in a warm, inviting community focused on recovery and a place to process the challenges that may come with leaving residential care. This means that you will have increased opportunities to fortify your recovery and prevent relapse during this vulnerable time.
High-quality residential treatment programs are committed to providing a full spectrum of services that includes thoughtful continuing care planning to ensure successful transitions back home. As such, some treatment programs offer IOPs as part of their own continuing care programming, allowing for a seamless move out of residential care. For professionals, taking advantage of such programming options means that you will have increased support in rejoining your professional activities without compromising your newfound sobriety. After all, your career is important, but your health is invaluable. By prioritizing your recovery, you can not only ensure that your career stays on track, but that you look beyond your professional life to create a richer, more fulfilling future for yourself as a whole person.
Alta Mira offers comprehensive treatment for people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction as well as co-occurring mental health disorders and process addictions. Contact us to learn more about our renowned Bay Area programs and how we can help you or your loved one start the journey toward lasting recovery.
