Addiction professionals know how to tailor strategies, approaches, and modalities to give alcoholics their best chances of success after rehab. Whether the center is in a rural or urban area, outpatient treatment should look similar inside, with dedicated staff and recovering clients committed to building new lives. However, the environment outside a rehab facility does create certain advantages and disadvantages you must weigh to choose the best place for your needs.
First, consider the programs you can afford and where your support system is, as no treatment works if you drop out for cost or have no one to turn to when it’s over. Next, you can compare special amenities the facilities and their environments offer. Above all, your determination to stop drinking is what will get you through rehab in a city or small town.
High-Quality Treatment is Possible in Rural and Urban Areas
Unlike inpatient treatment, you can’t be a full-time resident of an outpatient center. Your addiction counselor will help you arrange a care plan of meetings, support groups, and withdrawal symptom check-ins while you stay home. This freedom and flexibility work best for people who have not slipped to more destructive points of addiction, or they start recovering as inpatients first.
Outpatient treatment may also be the only option for alcoholics who can’t leave jobs or businesses for rehab. Some innovative programs offer weekend stays with programming and telemedicine options throughout the week. If you live in a city, a rural center may be a welcome break from fast-paced pressures and familiar places to drink. If you reside in a rural area, you may want the change of scenery a weekend city center offers.
- All alcoholism treatment centers must have accredited counselors, courteous staff and healthcare support.
- Both urban and rural rehab facilities should have nearby general stores, community worship centers and standard services residents might need over courses of treatment. Outpatient treatment is a privilege many recovering addicts work hard to get to, so it needn’t feel like a punishment.
- Urban areas have spectacular parks, green spaces and natural wonders to relieve stress or vary counseling sessions in. Such excursions help outpatient residents find inspiration far away from urban areas’ stressful crowds and fast paces.
- A slow pace, lower air pollution and wide-open spaces are benefits rural centers promise. Expect their grounds and visitor centers to be picturesque and expansive.
Urban Areas Have More Treatment Centers and Patients
Naturally, population density in urban areas yields more alcoholics seeking treatment. Some especially fine, world-class treatment centers sprang up in large cities to address this greater need. You can expect professionals to work hard to cultivate a serene, spacious atmosphere inside to counteract the stressful, crowded hazards urbanites face outdoors.
Unfortunately, the high numbers of people seeking help could mean long waiting lists to enter your urban outpatient program of choice. Intake staff often suggest support groups and short-term assistance during exceptional delays. Your addiction counselor must help you practice strategies to cope with widespread availability and easy accessibility of alcohol in urban areas.
Rural Areas Can Make Treatment a Community Affair
Everybody sort of knows everybody in rural areas with tight-knit communities. You might find yourself in an awkward situation in a small town’s addiction treatment facility. You could possibly run into people who know you, or your friends and family, if you choose a local outpatient facility. You would have nothing to be ashamed of and may be surprised when a familiar becomes a sobriety ally.
Everyone in rehab is focused on managing withdrawal symptoms, changing their mentalities and plotting out positive futures. Confidentiality, privacy, and nondisclosure are values treatment professionals must uphold by law. Hopefully, every rural treatment center you have to choose from will offer outdoor programming for residents to experience every day.
The alcohol treatment center of your dreams should look like a supportive, calm place with skillful health and mental care no matter where it happens to be located. If you are ready to get on the road to addiction recovery in or near Columbus, Ohio, our friendly counselors are standing by at (440) 253-9915 to take your call.
