Addiction help for men consists of both inpatient and outpatient treatment options at a men’s addiction treatment center, with programs utilizing a variety of therapeutic techniques to ensure that you learn how to manage your symptoms. During addiction, your brain chemistry changes. These changes take time to correct, making addiction help for men a central part of successful recovery.
How Addiction Works
While myths about addiction are widespread, the truth is that substance abuse disorders aren’t caused by a lack of willpower or corrupted morality. Addiction is a complex mental health disease that causes physical changes to your brain and body. Drugs and alcohol force your brain to release more neurotransmitters than it should every time you use it. This rush creates the immediate positive effects of intoxication, which in turn causes your brain to associate the substance with pleasure.
Your pleasure and reward center then changes, rewarding your drug use by controlling the release of neurotransmitters. Eventually, your brain can become incapable of releasing neurotransmitters without your substance of choice. While intoxication creates pleasurable moods, once it ends, you’re left with a sudden shortage of neurotransmitters.
Since your brain also associates people, places, and things that remind you of your substance of choice with pleasure, exposure to triggers can lead to intense cravings. Cravings can make it difficult to resist using, especially if you have a severe or lengthy addiction.
Addiction Help for Men
Struggling with a substance abuse disorder makes it nearly impossible to manage your day to day life. As your substance of choice becomes the main priority in your life, you can neglect responsibilities and obligations. Withdrawal symptoms and cravings are hard to overcome without addiction help for men because your brain and body have to relearn how to function without the use of drugs or alcohol properly.
Addiction help for men can offer:
- Evidence-based therapies, like cognitive and dialectical behavioral therapy
- Residential and outpatient programs
- Medically supervised detox services
- Family and marital counseling
- Dual diagnosis treatment
Men’s rehab centers create a safe and recovery-focused environment to address the root causes of your substance abuse issues. Group therapy provides a way to understand that you’re not alone during the recovery process, which can decrease feelings of isolation and loneliness. Another benefit of men’s addiction treatment programs is that they provide additional support if you have a co-occurring disorder.
Addiction help for men includes other community-based supports, like AA, NA, and SMART Recovery.
By surrounding yourself with your peers in a gender-specific program, you feel more comfortable to open up about your experiences, background, and goals. Others in the program will have similar stories and experiences, making it easier to relate to each other. Through a men’s treatment program, you can build a support system of peers who share your goals and aspirations.
Finding Help Today
Dealing with a substance abuse disorder can damage your relationships, health, and happiness. While you can feel trapped, defeated, and hopeless, recovery is always possible. To find out more about addiction help for men, begin your search for treatment today.