There are two types of heroin drug rehab programs in the US – traditional and alternative addiction treatment. Which is Better?

Heroin statistics

Heroin is considered one of the 6 primary drug threats in the US according to the DEA’s report released at the end of 2009.  Additionally, the National Health Institute and other medical professionals consider heroin as a major public health threat as well.  Today, heroin is a worldwide problem and continues to threaten individuals from all walks of life regardless of race, religion, or socio-economic status.

The following statistics should shed some light on the depth of this addiction and why a need for heroin drug rehab programs developed:

• there are currently over 200,000 heroin addicts in the US and there are over 1.2 million occasional users of the drug
• in the past several years, more deaths have resulted from heroin overdoses than from traffic accidents
• it is estimated that nearly 700,000 people need heroin drug rehab but are not enrolling in any programs
• between 1992 and 2002, the number of people who were injecting the drug decreased but the number of individuals who smoked it increased by 12%
• law enforcement seizures of heroin are highest in the states of California and Florida

Suffice it to say, heroin abuse and addiction remains a serious problem in the US and there are now more heroin drug rehab programs in existence than ever before.

About the different heroin drug rehab programs

There are two types of heroin drug rehab programs in the US – traditional and alternative addiction treatment and recovery centers.  The traditional facility tends to rely on out-of-date, conventional therapies that witness a higher failure rate whereas the alternative addiction treatment and recovery centers are experiencing greater recovery success rates.  There are a number of reasons why this is the case.

In addition to employing ineffectual conventional therapies, the other reasons for the high failure rate of the traditional facilities are:

• their appearance is clinical or hospital like in nature which tends to be discomforting and intimidating to the client
• they don’t teach their clients to be accountable for their actions
• they don’t address the deeper personal needs of the client’s human structure such as the emotional and spiritual levels
• they don’t offer certain recovery tools that enables the client to recover successfully such as classes or educational materials