A more significant percentage of people who use alcohol and other drugs are often reluctant to seek treatment. Most of them seldom see the negative consequences of their alcohol use and may constantly be in denial of their levels of use. However, the good news is that whenever one presents him or herself to an alcohol addiction treatment center or alcohol rehab, there is an opportunity to identify and treat the problem. Centers for alcohol rehab Ontario, Canada, have a good reputation for successfully treating their patients. They suggest you come for a free consultation even if you are unsure about your situation. But in certain circumstances, a person may have a problem that is not only related to alcohol but other drug use as well. Making a link in such cases is always critical—this is where addiction assessment comes in.
Effective alcohol addiction treatment usually starts with an addiction assessment. The role of an addiction assessment is to establish whether the patient is really addicted, the level of addiction and whether there are co-occurring conditions.
What It Entails
Various types of professionals are trained to carry alcohol addiction assessments. These include nurses, doctors, counselors, therapists, psychologists, and social workers. In most cases, multiple professionals will evaluate you, especially if the assessment is being carried at an addiction treatment facility. Assessments usually include physical exams, questionnaires, and self-assessments, and are aimed at ensuring that you receive the right diagnosis of your condition so that you can be given the best treatment possible.
The clinician or doctor will give you an opportunity to fill out a standardized questionnaire asking you about your current alcohol use, health history, symptoms, behavior patterns, and overall effects that the addiction has had on your life. Later, the health professional will conduct a face-to-face interview, which entails open-ended questions that are meant to capture more details about your situation.
Benefits
When done properly, such an assessment can assist in the design and planning of a sound treatment plan. As aforementioned, the assessment helps establish the severity of alcohol dependence as well as the potential risks to self (such as unplanned withdrawal, neglect, suicidality, and risk to others). The assessment also helps health professionals to adjust their addiction treatment plans based on gender, and age. Keep in mind that there are different forms of treatment, like an asian glow cure approach.
Besides checking for physical symptoms of alcohol addiction, a clinician may also diagnose co-occurring health issues that should be treated along with the addiction. Co-occurring health conditions have a significant impact on how the addiction treatment will be done, so it makes a lot of sense for a patient to be examined as early as possible in the treatment process.
Lastly, alcohol addiction assessment also gives the health professional and the patient an opportunity to agree on the overall goal of the treatment. And agreeing on the most appropriate goal of treatment with the patient is one of the best ways of making any alcohol addiction treatment process successful.
Bottom-line
Addiction assessment is a critical step in any alcohol addiction treatment program. Although it may be revisited throughout the treatment, when done properly in the initial stages of treatment, it can establish basic problems and underlying environmental factors that a patient is working with. The information from the assessment can be used to design the appropriate treatment method and therapy that will ultimately assist the patient.