Drug & Alcohol Rehab for Veterans and Military

Military service can place challenges on people that those who’ve never served may struggle to understand. Those who joined the military when they were young may find the transition from military life to the civilian world difficult, even if they weren’t deployed to a combat zone.

Combat veterans face additional challenges. They may have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from things they saw while on duty or survivor’s guilt if they lost friends or squad mates in combat. Some veterans may be experiencing military sexual trauma or dealing with other issues such as traumatic brain injuries or chronic pain from wounds suffered during training or service.

For these veterans, leaving the military can feel like losing a support network and being left without the life skills required to cope in a less structured environment. Drug and alcohol use can offer a temporary escape from the challenges of normal life.

It can be difficult for health care professionals, even those at veterans affairs hospitals, who don’t have experience with military life to understand the underlying issues. Without that understanding of the stressors and triggers that veteran patients are dealing with, it can be hard to find the best long-term treatment, even in a residential drug rehab setting.

At Recovery Life Group, we understand the complexities of substance use disorders. Many veterans are living with multiple co-occurring disorders, and these may need individual treatment, beyond what the VA office can provide.

Our approach to rehabilitation starts with attempting to understand what drove the underlying addiction. At our outpatient centers in Upper Marlboro, MD, we offer medically managed detoxification to help veterans get past the initial stages and lessen withdrawal symptoms, but our drug rehab program doesn’t stop there.

Once the physical aspect of withdrawal has been addressed, our recovery program can target the mental health issues the veteran may be facing. Our team has experience supporting people with a variety of mental health disorders, including PTSD, depression and anxiety. Our treatment team will perform a psychosocial assessment and work with the veteran to help them understand the challenges they’re facing and how to best address them.

Where information is available from a VA primary care provider, we can use this to guide and inform our treatment program. Not all the veterans we deal with have had contact with a physician via the VA, and each individual’s recovery process is different.

That’s why our veterans meet with nursing personnel and therapists as part of the intake process so we can assess their needs and arrange any medical supervision they might require, as well as lay out their ongoing treatment options. Someone struggling with anxiety disorder might require different treatments than someone who’s become addicted to prescription medicines, for example. Our personalized approach to drug and alcohol rehab ensures every person is treated appropriately.