Again, we must be careful not to pit biology against behavior.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s recently published Principles of Effective Drug Addiction Treatment provides a detailed discussion of how we must treat all aspects of the individual, not just the biological component or the behavioral component.

As with other brain diseases such as schizophrenia and depression, the data show that the best drug addiction treatment programs approaches attend to the entire individual, combining the use of medications, behavioral therapies, and attention to necessary social services, rehabilitation and luxury residential addiction treatment facilities in Malibu, CA. * These might include such services as family therapy to enable the patient to return to successful family life, mental health services, education and vocational training, and housing services.

That does not mean, of course, that all individuals need all components of drug treatment and all rehabilitation services. Another principle of effective addiction treatment is that the array of services included in an individual’s treatment plan must be matched to his or her particular set of needs. Moreover, since those needs will surely change over the course of recovery, the array of services provided will need to be continually reassessed and adjusted.

The good news is that many exclusive drug treatment facilities pay lip service to the importance of depression treatment. The bad news is that they don’t all live up to their promises. The addiction treatment facility that’s right for you is the one that uses dual diagnosis techniques to assess your substance dependency in conjunction with your mental health, and designs an effective depression treatment program to meet your unique individual needs. You already know how devastating clinical depression is. Now, for your own sake, it’s time to start learning just how meaningful recovery can be.

However, we now know more about where and how cocaine acts in the brain, including how the drug produces its pleasurable effects and why it is so addictive. Through the use of sophisticated technology, scientists can actually see the dynamic changes that occur in the brain as an individual takes the drug. They can observe the different brain changes that occur as a person experiences the “rush,” the “high,” and, finally, the craving of cocaine. They can also identify parts of the brain that become active when a cocaine addict sees or hears environmental stimuli that trigger the craving for cocaine. Because these types of studies pinpoint specific brain regions, they are critical to identifying targets for developing medications to treat cocaine addiction.

One of NIDA’s most important goals is to translate what scientists learn from research, in order to help the public better understand drug abuse and addiction, and to develop more effective strategies for their prevention, treatment, drug detox and drug rehabilitation. We hope that this compilation of scientific information on cocaine will help to inform readers about the harmful effects of cocaine abuse, and that it will assist in prevention and treatment efforts.

Residential drug rehab centers are different than other treatment methods in many ways. Individuals are able to leave their destructive environment and enter into a clean and sober atmosphere. Their reminders of drugs such as the cabinet where they kept their alcohol or the drawer where they kept their stash are no longer a temptation reminding them of their drug addiction. Additionally, individuals are able to associate with others who share their same goal of addiction recovery 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This availability of individuals and staff at any hour is invaluable when a person is going through residential drug treatment.

Make no mistake, the addiction treatment process isn’t easy. It will test your nerve, and try your will. But it’s worth it. Successful addiction treatment will help you rediscover the world as you know it, and yourself as you used to be. It will help you remember why you ever believed life to be worth living in the first place. In the end, it’s hard to imagine how anything could ever be more important than that.