If you’re ready to get off pain pills, heroin, or whatever opiate you’ve been using, you need information about methadone drug rehabilitation centers in San Antonio, Texas. Most people think that rehab means getting put into some kind of lockdown place like the ones you see in movies like Clean and Sober or 28 Days. The real truth about drug treatment is much different than the fictional version.
Beginning With the Least Restrictive Level of Care
Most people don’t understand one important fact, and it doesn’t matter if you’re looking at drug rehabilitation centers in San Antonio, Texas, or in New York City, or in Portland, Oregon: If you are discovered by your family or your employer to be using drugs of any kind, you cannot simply be sent away to a program where you have to stay behind locked doors. Even the courts recognize that certain rules govern drug treatment centers, requiring you to be evaluated for the amount of drugs and type of drugs that you’re using.
The federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, as well as the mental health boards in most states, require that you begin your treatment at the least restrictive level of care. That means if you can succeed in getting off drugs in an outpatient treatment program, that’s where you’ll go.
Drug Treatment in the Prison System
In fact, drug rehabilitation centers in San Antonio, Texas, and elsewhere, do not lock you up unless you are sentenced to attend a program within one of the state’s prisons. All programs outside of a prison require you to willingly enter treatment. For some people, the truth may be that their only alternative is prison, and if that’s the case then treatment will seem like the better alternative. But there are those who would rather be locked up than go into drug treatment.
An important fact about drug rehabilitation centers in Texas prisons or throughout the United States is that you first enter the prison to await an opening in the drug treatment program. Suppose you have been sentenced to attend a 90-day drug treatment program that’s operated by the prison system. You remain incarcerated until your name comes up on the treatment list. Only once you begin treatment does your actual sentence begin. So for those who decide they would rather go to jail and count down their days while they wait for treatment, that’s not how it happens. You might spend nine months in jail waiting for your turn, and only then does your 90-day sentence begin.
Methadone Drug Rehabilitation Centers, San Antonio, Texas
The rules change if you’re using heroin. Just about any residential treatment center will admit you if you’re using heroin, even if you haven’t had prior attempts at treatment. Heroin is such a dangerous drug, and it’s one of the most addictive substances on the face of the Earth.
So you can bypass outpatient treatment and go directly into residential treatment if you’re using heroin. However, most residential treatment programs offer only abstinence-based therapy. That means you will have to kick your addiction cold turkey—there are no medications to ease your cravings or the horrible withdrawal you will experience. Most likely you’ll have to go through a cold, lonely detox at a regular hospital where you live, and then you will be admitted to the residential program. But at least 60 percent of heroin addicts who go into residential drug treatment will relapse, according to a study on the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) website. Some estimate that number as closer to 80 percent.
Methadone: A Better Option
You are more likely to get off heroin and stay off it if you attend one of the methadone drug rehabilitation centers in San Antonio, Texas. The State of Texas categorizes them as Narcotic Treatment Clinics (NTCs), and these worthwhile programs are also required to offer you services beyond methadone treatment. You can enter one of these programs without any kind of detox, as long as you aren’t using alcohol or benzodiazepines.
First, however, let’s discuss why methadone offers a better chance at recovery. Methadone is an opiate, but it’s a long-acting medication. The dose you take under medical supervision will remain in your system for an entire day. That’s a big contrast to the heroin or pain pills you may be using, which leave you with the urge to use again within hours of each dose. With heroin, you spend each day nodding out from your high, coming down from it, and planning the next high. With methadone, you take a dose at the treatment program in the morning and then go out into the world to start a productive day.
The methadone drug rehabilitation centers in San Antonio, Texas, allow you to leave the clinic and be a good and loving parent. If you have a job, you will be able to perform it well—and if you don’t have one, you will be better prepared to find one. You will find that you are able to take care of your daily activities such as good hygiene habits and managing your money. You will have the energy and the desire to clean your house and put your life back in order.
You can then access the other services that the State mandates from methadone drug rehabilitation centers in San Antonio, Texas, or other cities. You will be assigned to a counselor at the methadone program who will refer you to the following services if you need them:
- Social and Human Services: Do you need counseling? Do you need a Medicaid card or food stamps? Going through the bureaucratic red tape to get those things seems overwhelming to the person struggling with heroin addiction. Your counselor will help you find your way through the mazes.
- Mental Health Services: Almost 50 percent of heroin addicts suffer from depression or some other emotional disorder. Some drug rehabilitation centers in San Antonio, Texas, are staffed with counselors who provide only drug addiction services, while other places have counselors that can help you deal with depression as well. If you need services outside the program, they’ll see that you get them.
- Educational and Vocational Services: If you don’t have a job, do you have the skills necessary to get one? Your counselor can steer you toward the kind of education or vocational training that will open up new doors for you.
- Family Counseling: Many heroin addicts require family counseling in order to make things right with their loved ones. Once you have become stabilized on your methadone, the counselor will, with your permission, bring your family into the picture.
- Infectious Disease Education: The drug rehabilitation centers in San Antonio, Texas, must ensure that you receive information on illnesses such as HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Your physical health will begin to improve as a result of your treatment.
The State believes that methadone drug rehabilitation centers in Texas—San Antonio or elsewhere—will teach you how to change your life. You will stay on the right side of the law, eliminate your contact with the dangerous criminals who sell drugs, improve your health, and find that doors open to you for a better financial future.
All you need to do to get started is make the first phone call. Your parents or spouse cannot call for you. You must decide that you are tired of the old life and reach out for a new one. Call one of your local methadone drug rehabilitation centers, in San Antonio, Texas, or wherever you live. The choice is yours.
