Drug use and drug abuse have been among the greatest problems in the world for the last three decades. Even if the issue was addressed through huge and powerful anti drug campaigns in the past few years, governments of various countries still find difficulty to stop the growing population of drug users. In Hollywood, a number of actors and models have been caught using drugs, their faces bannering the front page of newspapers, tabloids and magazines, the stories mostly focusing on how they enrolled in drug treatment centers, and failed. Sadly, the continuous production of such stories in a way tinges a hue of glamor in drug treatment centers, making them a source of limelight rather than healing and recovery.

There is more in drug treatment centers than social exclusion. Drug treatment centers aim to bring people who have been terribly addicted to substances back to the state when they were living normally. Basically, drug treatment centers design their treatment programs with three fundamental steps: detoxification, rehabilitation, and counseling.

In detoxification, patients are given procedures to take the substance completely away from the body. They are also closely monitored in regards with the negative responses of their body when drug use stops. In rehabilitation, patients are taught different ways on how to control their craving for the drug. This is the longest period among the three steps to recovery in as much as this is where failures, temptations, negative and sometimes violent responses take place. Counseling is simultaneously being done while in the process of rehabilitation. Counseling takes place in two ways, one-on-one and group sessions. In this step, patients seem like to undergo a “talk therapy” wherein their personal lives are discussed in relation to their addiction to the substance. They are also taught to reassess themselves and become aware of their plans, desires, and motivations.