Alcoholism is a disease that needs immediate and effective treatment because the longer a person is addicted, the more chronic the disease will become and the use of inappropriate treatment increases the chances of relapse. Given this, there is a need for rehabilitation centers to employ proven and effective methods at rehabilitation. However, given that the ultimate objective of these treatment centers is long-term sobriety, there is a need to examine and assess the effectiveness of their programs in the long term. The information from these assessments can be very helpful to the personnel of rehabilitation centers because they would be able to address and gaps that they may find in their programs.

Studies done

To test the long term effectiveness of the programs being used by various treatment centers such as psychotherapy, a study was done on to determine the changes in stresses that former alcoholics encounter when they go back to their lives in the immediate three years after they received the treatment. In determining the stress levels that the subjects experience, the people who did the study were able to determine whether the treatment was effective in reducing the stress levels of the subjects. In the study, the two modes of treatment that were compared were that of attending AA meetings and undergoing relaxation training. Certain groups of people who received these two types of therapy were selected and studied and certain instruments were used to measure the stress levels they experienced as they went back to their families and their work.

Results

The results of the study showed that although both treatments were effective in reducing the stress levels of the people who received them, it was found that attending AA meetings was the superior mode of treatment. This is because the study showed that the people who went to these meetings exhibited lower stress levels and they were better at managing the different stresses they faced.

The objective of rehabilitation programs is long-term sobriety for former alcoholics. However, the long-term effectiveness of these programs can only be determined a few years after they have been administered. Given this, the few studies that have been able to determine the long-term effectiveness of programs, such as attending AA meetings, serve as the very important first steps for further studies that will be able to assess the effectiveness of other programs.