Looking for the right rehab for your alcohol or drug addiction recovery can take awhile. You have to sort through so many websites, program types, 12-step program information and addiction-related terms. Getting to know the language alone can take days or weeks, depending upon how focused you are able to be when conducting your search. Of course, if your life is proceeding around you and you are still in your addiction, decisions related to treatment programs can seem overwhelming.  

However, what if you don’t want a 12-step program method of recovery? Are there options? Or, after decades of using the same methods, is the industry standing still behind these steps?

Why Some People Seek an Alternative to a 12-Step Program

Many patients have an issue with the 12-step program method of looking at addiction as being rooted in dependence. This provides little room for consideration of any underlying issues that may have led to addiction, such as depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD or post-traumatic stress disorder. If you have co-occurring conditions leading to dual diagnosis, as many of today’s rehab programs provide, relying exclusively on the 12-step program approach may seem outdated and even contradictory to those co-occurring disorders.

Other issues many patients have with 12-step program-based treatment is that the 12 steps focus on a “higher power.” For people who don’t look to a higher power in their lives and want to take personal responsibility for their own actions and future, the 12 steps may not be the right fit. Today, many people are seeking ways to learn more about their own empowerment in life and exercising that empowerment toward improvement of themselves and the world around them. For these individuals, the 12-step philosophy may simply not work well.

The reality of overcoming addiction is that patients must be motivated to improve their lives and affect permanent change. How they get to that motivation, keep it and affect change holds less importance than getting there. What works for one patient will not work for all. These reasons are why many treatment programs today are helping patients overcome alcoholism with effective alternatives to the more old-fashioned 12 steps.

You Can Recover from Alcoholism without a 12-Step Program

Alternatives to the 12-steps are very much geared toward individualized treatment planning. Where the 12-steps are more focused on everyone following exactly the same path to recovery, more modern programs focus on individual needs and how to address those needs for that one person’s greatest chance of long-term recovery. Flexibility is key in such alternatives and plans can be modified as patients succeed, fail, experience roadblocks or change within their lives.

A major difference between traditional 12-steps and alternative programs is that the 12-steps assert that the disease of addiction is only a controlled or suppressed disease, at best. Alternative programs address alcoholism and drug addiction as problems that can be solved. Of course, these newer methods still believe that addiction is a long-term issue that must be treated for the long term, but, according to alternative programs, true freedom can be gained from addiction.

The key in gaining your own ultimate recovery is in finding what works best for you. Trying different methods may provide results you didn’t expect. You may find that the structure and commonality of the 12-steps are extremely effective, or you may find that alternative program individualization works best for you as a unique individual. Whatever works to gain sobriety for your lifetime, that is where hope for your future lies.

Steps to Recovery in Levittown, PA Provides Flexible and Individualized Treatment for Alcoholism

Steps to Recovery in Levittown, Pennsylvania provides individualized treatment with or without the 12-steps as a foundation. Flexible treatment plans are developed for each individual with a high staff-to-patient ratio ensuring that patients are fully regarded and empowered throughout their own pathway to recovery.

If you or someone you love is ready for recovery that suits your individual needs, call Steps to Recovery now at 866-488-8684. Getting treatment is the right step to make today, so you can gain your own lasting recovery.