Why Traveling Far Away for Rehab Can Be Better?

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Today, you have more choice for substance abuse treatment than ever before. In fact, there were 17,561 rehab centers or substance abuse treatment facilities in the United States in 2023. These typically include a mix of “local” outpatient treatment centers, where individuals are expected to go after work or during the day before returning to their homes at night and “inpatient” centers clustered in destination locations, offering a mix of privacy, relaxation, and full focus on treatment.

If you look at local treatment options, you’re likely to have one or two unless you live in a large urban area. That means local treatment will be taking what you can get and going with any treatment available to you. The further you’re willing to travel, the more options you’ll have. Whether that’s cognitive behavioral therapy, centers that offer nutrition therapy and life support, a sober living environment, or a non-AA-based support group model is up to you. If you’re traveling away from home, you can choose from everything that’s out there.

Of course, that can also add to choice stress, so you might want to narrow down what kinds of treatment you want first.

A Stress-Reducing Environment

Traveling away from home allows you to choose an environment that offers relaxation. You won’t be going on vacation. But, being in a warm, sunny environment can do a lot for your mental health. Getting to relax because you’re in a nice place means you’ll have more energy to focus on recovery. That’s especially true if you also struggle with things like seasonal depression or winter blues. Your environment can add a lot to how you feel.

Full Focus on Recovery

Outpatient rehab centers offer the advantage of allowing you to go to treatment without pausing work, family care, or other responsibilities. However, that’s also a downside. By letting go of your day-to-day responsibilities, you allow yourself to fully focus on recovery and make learning the mental and emotional coping mechanisms you need to quit drugs or alcohol your day job for a month. That will have an impact on your recovery and it means you’ll fill your days with therapy and treatment – and then still have time to socialize, talk to others in recovery, and to figure out what you want to do with what you’ve learned at night. It removes some of the hectic time pressure from treatment. It means you can be more relaxed as you go to treatment. Most importantly, it means that you won’t be stressed about meeting work deadlines, picking kids up from work, or helping your parents with a project. You’ll only have to focus on your recovery and what you’re supposed to be learning. Outpatient treatment can mean cramming homework into half an hour before bed and that’s not ideal for having time to learn.

Privacy

Privacy can be extremely important for working professionals, especially if you have clauses against substance abuse in your work contract. However, most of us appreciate having privacy and being able to get treatment without having the entire neighborhood or even town gossiping. Going to a rehab center that’s out of state means you’ll have that privacy. You won’t have to disclose what you’re getting treatment for to anyone. You can even tell people you’re going on vacation.

While there’s merit to being honest and open about your treatment, it’s important to ensure that you’re protecting yourself, your work, and your professional reputation at the same time. And, not everyone needs to know.

Changing Environment

Most of us use drugs and alcohol in specific environments. That’s so much true that environments are triggers for use. E.g., you turn the corner past the street with the liquor store and find yourself autopiloting into the parking lot. Once you’re there it feels wrong not to get out and buy something. For many of us, environment is closely linked to habit. The easiest way to break that habit is to get out of that environment and for long enough that you have to build new habits when you get home. For example, if you normally come home and have a beer to relax – being in a different location means you won’t have that daily habit to drink. Of course, you’ll have to be extra careful when you go back to your environment to ensure that you don’t pick up old habits. However, by then, you’ll have learned better coping mechanisms, and you’ll ideally have strategies in place to help you manage those cravings and habits.

Of course, in some cases, it will be important to have your family join you for rehab, in which case you probably don’t want to travel too far away. Still, taking breaks from family and toxic family relationships are part of changing environment for treatment.

More Support Options

Traveling away from home can mean you get access to additional support options during recovery. For example, you can look for treatment centers with child care. Just 8% of rehab facilities offer childcare services but traveling means you’ll be able to go to a treatment center that makes sense for you. That’s also true with pet care, nutritional support, dual diagnosis treatment, and other support services you might need like medication management. If you’re traveling, you can look for whatever you need and with over 17,000 rehab centers to choose from, you can find it. Here, it’s important to consider what you actually need. For example, if you have secondary diagnoses, if you need diagnosing, if you require pet or childcare, if you need sober living support, if you have special needs living, etc. Consider what you need to recover and to live during treatment and then go from there.

Getting Help

It’s important to keep in mind that traveling for rehab isn’t the end-all of treatment. If you have a choice between no treatment or getting local treatment, local and outpatient treatment is always better. Still, with the many advantages of getting to change environment, choose your treatment options, Here, the best option is often to start by talking to your doctor, getting a referral for your insurance, and working out what kind of treatment you want and need. From there, you can start looking for providers, double check that they are in-network for your insurance, and get ready to travel to get help.

In addition, you’ll want to pay attention to aftercare services. Even remote rehab centers offer ongoing treatment with options to re-enroll, telehealth services, and support with finding sober living and even job placement. Just because your rehab center is out of state doesn’t mean you won’t get those services locally.

If you or a loved one is struggling, it’s important that you look into getting treatment. In most cases, you can easily find a treatment center that’s in network for your provider, move into treatment, and get the help you need to start your recovery journey. Good luck!