How do residential and outpatient rehab programs compare?
Inpatient and outpatient rehab programs both provide drug addicts the opportunity to recover in a safe and healthy environment. Both offer the resources necessary to aid a patient in achieving sobriety and maintaining a sober life long after treatment is complete.
The two types of programs differ in their settings, their commitment expectations from patients, and sometimes, in their intensity.
Inpatient Rehabilitation
Inpatient rehab is a program designed for addicts who are willing and able to live in a rehab facility for one to three months.
Inpatient rehabilitation is intense, and it is effective.
Some patients go through a detoxification process before beginning their rehabilitation program. Detox cleanses the addict’s body from its reliance on drugs in a safe and surveilled and setting. Sometimes, addicts are weaned off drugs over a period of time, and/or medication is used to combat the symptoms of withdrawal as the reliance on the substance tapers.
Once a patient can safely manage each day without being under the influence of drugs, they enter the 
immersive inpatient rehab experience. Although the detox will be safely completed, the days or months ahead will still meet the patient with challenges. To support recovering addicts through rehabilitation, inpatient programs provide intensive individual and group counseling, therapy, education, and skills to soberly get through each day once treatment is complete.
Time spent in an inpatient rehab program varies depending on the patient’s drug history and severity of abuse.
Benefits of Inpatient Rehab
- Medical and psychiatric monitoring throughout withdrawal
- Longer treatment period
- Group therapy sessions
- Reduced exposure to media, people, and other distractions that can trigger a relapse
- Substance-free setting
- Luxury facility
- High success rates
Outpatient Rehabilitation
Outpatient rehabilitation accommodates the continuing busy schedules of recovering addicts. Patients attend weekly sessions outside of work and school hours, and they have full access to resources, such as counselors, during times of need. Outpatients meet for individual therapy sessions to keep track of their progress, be held accountable, and to have the opportunity to discuss any mental or emotional turbulence that might be hindering their progress.
Benefits of Outpatient Rehab
- Flexibility to continue work, school, or familial obligations
- Real-time assimilation to sober life amidst reality’s temptations and triggers
- Ability to see friends and family
- Typically less expensive due to living at home, not on the ground
Inpatient vs outpatient rehab success rates
The success rates of inpatient and outpatient are not compared in stone, pointing to one experience exceeding far beyond the other. The best idea when comparing programs for your loved one is to ask the United Recovery Project which program has the best statistics for the age, drug history, and user type of your loved one. Use this information coupled with your loved one’s capacity, motivation, and your gut instinct to determine the most appropriate program.
Inpatient programs are ideal for patients with more severe addictions who have the flexibility to extended time from work, school, or family. These programs house patients and monitor their daily needs while providing few distractions and many resources to help recovering addicts find a sustainable balance that can fuel sobriety post-treatment.
Rehab is strictly structured in an inpatient program, but success ultimately comes down to the recovering individual. If an addict is properly motivated to recover, then outpatient treatment can more than suffice for attaining a long-lasting healthy and sober lifestyle.
To learn more about inpatient vs outpatient rehab and get the help you or your loved one needs today, reach out to United Recovery Project. If you or a cherished one are enduring the effects of drug addiction, help is accessible. Call United Recovery Project, a full-service inpatient drug treatment center in South Florida, to converse to one of our caring representatives today at 888-960-5121. We recognize your distress and want to support you.
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Residential and Outpatient Similarity
Which one is Best Suited for You
