When inpatient drug and alcohol rehab is too restrictive from a commitment perspective, the outpatient option becomes the go-to alternative. Truthfully, the outpatient alternative has become a lot more effective in recent years. That is due in large part to the fact the addiction treatment community is putting more focus on outpatient options.
This has become necessary because the drug problems in America are overwhelming residential treatment centers. If for any reason residential or inpatient treatment won’t work for you, you can opt for outpatient treatment. It’s going to be a viable treatment alternative, assuming your addiction is not severe. If that were to be the case, outpatient treatment might not give you the protection you need. As for outpatient treatment options, you will find that most treatment facilities offer three choices. What differentiates one option from the others is the time clients have to dedicate to therapy.
With all three options, you would be allowed to live and sleep at home. Your treatment obligations would involve showing up for scheduled appointments. All three options focus on individual therapy with some time devoted to group and therapy if time allows. Before we go any further, we want to present the three basic outpatient treatment options that are common within the addiction treatment community. They include (with time investment):
- General Outpatient or OP: aftercare option suitable for moderate addiction issues (one or two appointments a week for up to two hours an appointment)
- Intensive Outpatient Program or IOP: for moderate to severe addiction issues where the client can behave responsibly (report three to five days each week for up to six hours of scheduled therapy sessions)
- Partial Hospitalization Program or PHP: For severe addictions where the client needs some monitoring (five to seven days of treatment each week for up to eight hours of scheduled appointments a week)
It is important to keep in mind that outpatient clients have more freedom. With that comes a need to follow certain rules. In the next section, we will focus on the rules, including the need for drug testing.
Does Outpatient Rehab Drug Test?
Outpatient programs are effective when clients follow the rules. The rules only exist in order to make sure outpatient clients remain accountable for their actions when away from the rehab facility. The most basic rules include:
- Showing up on time for all scheduled appointments
- Doing all of the work that is prescribed by a therapist
- Absolutely no alcohol or drug use unless an informed medical doctor pescribes a medication
- Drug testing will be administered
- Clients must continue to show progress towards recovery
From this list, we want to shine a light on drug testing. Drug addiction is a powerful disease. Even the best clients have difficulty staying clean. That accounts for the fact that relapse rates run around 40% for first-time clients. With this in mind, it’s clear clients need a higher level of accountability when it comes to abstinence. Most outpatient rehabs will drug test every time an outpatient client reports for treatment. Some facilities might use a random drug testing option.
As an outpatient client, your absolute cooperation with drug testing would be indicative of your willingness to work hard and be accountable. As long as you follow the rules, there is every reason to believe you will succeed when going through outpatient treatment. If you were to struggle with the rules, that would leave the rehab facility with a couple of options. The first thing they might try is to request that you convert to a residential treatment program with more accountability. If you were to decline that option, they would likely issue you a warning that you need to focus more on following the rules. If you still struggled, that could lead to a second option.
They could ask you to leave the program and seek help elsewhere. That is not an option they want to use. Your responsibilities start with you committing to treatment. You can express your willingness to do that by calling us at 833-680-0165. From that point on, we would be more than happy to work with you on creating an addiction treatment program that is going to best address your needs. No matter what treatment options we decide are best, our staff members will be fully committed to helping you get through the treatment process on the way to recovery.