I recently met with a father and son regarding the son’s discharge from an inpatient treatment facility. The purpose of the meeting was to settle a dispute between them. Specifically, the issue was: Should the son reach out to his kids who he hasn’t seen in years? Because the father has a relationship the children, he believes that his son should make contact and start a relationship. The son, however, didn’t feel ready: He was in treatment for a little over a month and had been out for a few days and hadn’t really gotten his legs under him. In hearing both sides of their argument, I advised that there’s no way the son should make contact, not for his sake, but for the kids’. Although he did complete his treatment term, he had no job, no transportation, and was still being quite “shady” in his behavior. I felt that he is too inconsistent and unsettled to try and contact his kids. Children need consistency and if he appeared only to disappear, it would just confuse and upset them. The father didn’t really care for my perspective; in his mind, because his son completed his time in inpatient treatment, he was ready to do everything all at once.

But here’s the thing: Short-term inpatient is not a magic bullet. Someone who has had a substance use disorder for a long time (as the son has) doesn’t just get out of rehab and become a model citizen. Most people who need inpatient treatment have damaged their relationships and lives in so many ways that it takes time for them to understand how to live a “normal” life. In some cases, they’ve never had a life in which they have a routine upon which they and others depend. They simply don’t know how to live a routine existence; many even shudder at the thought of such a life. While loved ones often hope that inpatient treatment will change a person so drastically that they will be a completely dependable person, the reality is that thirty (30) to sixty (60) days is just enough to break a physical dependence. That is, a person basically gets clean in that short a time period and doens’t really have enough time to develop life skills that include handling basic relationships.

I think short-term inpatient treatment is a great way to kickstart someone’s life away from substances (or behaviors) of abuse. It allows the brain and body to return to somewhat normal operations, but what it can’t do is turn someone into a person that they don’t know how to be. We all have improvements to make in our lives and really, the best way to those improvements is through small and consistent behaviors through which we can learn to trust ourselves. Once we are able to handle the smallest of changes, then we are ready to tackle bigger and bigger changes, like becoming a father to children we haven’t seen in years. I may be wrong, but in recovery cases in which i’ve participated, repeated consistency towards health has been the key. Takes time, but it’s well worth the effort.