The Alcohol Abuse Treatment Center

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Your local alcohol abuse treatment center can help identify and treat your drinking problem.

Finding the Most Effective Alcohol Abuse Treatment Center

If you abuse alcohol, it is important to find an alcohol abuse treatment center or facility where a health care provider can determine if you are addicted to alcohol or if you exhibit a pattern of alcohol abuse.  If it is determined that you are not alcohol dependent but rather manifesting a pattern of alcohol abuse, your health care provider can help you with the following:

• Establish a specific drinking goal.
  
  
• Identify the circumstances that trigger your unhealthy drinking episodes.
  
  
• Learn different "response sets" so that you can better cope with your drinking triggers while at the same time maintaining your drinking goal.

Keep in mind that while some individuals, after identifying their unhealthy drinking patterns, choose to totally abstain from drinking, others, however, choose to limit the frequency and/or the amount that they drink.  Whatever goal you establish, it is important that you stay on task and avoid situations such as binge drinking (consuming 5 or more drinks at one sitting) even if these drinking occasions are only a few times per year. 

The Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has a website that contains a "Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator" that can help you find an alcohol abuse treatment center close to where you live.

All you have to do is click on the location where you live and you will be taken to a page that asks you to enter the city, state, and searching radius information, and this facilities search tool will produce a number of substance abuse facilities within the searching radius and the city and state you entered.  The following information will be provided for each facility:

• Primary Focus of Treatment (for instance mental health or substance abuse services).
• Services Provided (for example, substance abuse treatment).
• Type of Care (in-patient or outpatient.
• Special Programs/Groups (for instance, pregnant/postpartum women, persons with co-occurring mental and substance abuse disorders, DUI/DWI offenders, etc.).
• Forms of Payment Accepted (for example, self payment, Medicaid, or Medicare).
• Payment Assistance (Please check with facility for details).
• Special Language Services (for instance, ASL or other assistance for the hearing impaired).

The SAMHSA website can be found at the following web address:  http://dasis3.samhsa.gov/

The Alcohol Abuse Treatment Center:  Conclusion

If you abuse alcohol, it is important for you to find out if you are alcohol dependent or not addicted but abusing alcohol by binge drinking, for example.  Your health care provider at your local alcohol abuse treatment center will be able to help you determine the extent of your problem drinking, as well as help you come up with a more healthy drinking plan.

Keep in mind, however, that this "plan" may involve total abstinence or perhaps ways in which you can significantly reduce the frequency and the amount of alcohol that triggers your problem drinking.

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