Doctors, lawyers, and other professionals often work long hours in demanding environments. Although they are usually paid a significant amount of money each year, this is because there is a lot expected of them. A single mistake could be enough to ruin a professional career, leave a person vulnerable to legal liability, or both. Therefore, it should be no surprise that highly trained and educated people will develop substance use disorders, drug addiction, and alcohol abuse despite their intelligence and level of professional achievement–which could be useless if this continues and is left untreated.
In order to overcome these situations, these professionals should undergo detoxification (detox) and addiction treatment with the right evidence-based treatment programs tailored for them by the treatment center. Enrolling in an accredited healthcare provider like a recovery center will not only help them improve their well-being and relapse prevention but also diagnose (dual diagnosis) any other health conditions that might have been triggered due to alcohol addiction, drug abuse, or drug use.
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You May Have Lost Yourself in the Culture
In addition to the stress that can come with your job, you might also be vulnerable to being someone you are not to impress those around you. For instance, you might not have had an alcohol use disorder before starting your job at the investment bank that required you to take clients out on a regular basis. Alternatively, you may not have been dependent on marijuana, pills, or other substances before starting work with a company that has a culture of working and playing hard.
The silver lining in such a scenario is that it might actually be easier to put down the bottle or put down the pills. This is because you don’t actually need them to live a decent quality of life, and you may actually be looking forward to stepping out of the fast lane and simply getting back to being yourself again.
What Professionals Typically Need from Rehab
As a banker, lawyer, or other type of professional, you likely have different needs and desires when attending rehab programs. For example, you probably have plenty of money to pay for a lengthy stay in a luxury facility without having to buy insurance. You may also have a strong network of friends, family members, and others who are willing to support you during your time of need.
Therefore, it’s probably a given that you’re only going to a rehab center that has the best therapists or clinicians and a variety of alcohol rehab programs or drug rehab treatment plans and recovery programs to help you get clean. However, it’s not a given that a treatment facility will take steps to protect your confidentiality. While all facilities are required to protect your patient files, they aren’t required to keep the paparazzi from hanging around the front gate.
Ultimately, you can’t be sure that someone won’t take a photo of you checking in or somehow get word that you are inside. Therefore, you’ll want to make sure that there is adequate security to ensure that your privacy is the highest priority. Although you shouldn’t feel shame over getting the help that you need, if word were to get out, it could hamper your career prospects or create drama where there doesn’t need to be any.
Check Your Ego
It’s not uncommon for doctors, lawyers, or others who work in a specialized field to think that they have the answer to any problem that comes their way. However, it’s critical to understand that you have little to no control over your addiction. Even if you are able to find your way back to sobriety, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to do it alone.
The same is true if you built a business or took other actions that led to wealth and respect among your peers. In fact, you may be more vulnerable to addiction or its effects if you believe that you are too important or talented to succumb to addiction or to the mental and physical health problems it can cause.
Helping Yourself Might Help Others
You may feel like everyone is going to judge you for going to rehab. The truth is that most people who truly care about you are going to applaud your decision and stick with you throughout your experience. In addition, there are likely going to be friends, colleagues, or admirers from afar who decide to get help themselves because they see you doing so.
You can also be a good example for your kids of what it looks like to acknowledge a problem and take care of it instead of ignoring it. They will learn an important lesson that no one is too good to get help and that there is no shame in doing so. Even if your kids don’t learn this lesson today, it may help them in the future if they struggle with substance abuse stemming from anxiety or other causes.
You Can Work During Rehab
During the first few days of rehab, you’ll likely be kept in a room or in a building that restricts access to phones or computers. However, after your body gets the drugs or alcohol out of its system, you can begin to reintegrate yourself into society and get back to your normal routine.
Therefore, if you are concerned that getting help means that you’ll lose your company, you might not have much to worry about. This is especially true if your company is structured in a manner that gives you majority voting rights or other special protections.
If you work for a major company, it’s unlikely that you will be fired or forced to stay away for long. In fact, your employer would probably prefer that you get back to work as soon as you can do so in a safe and responsible manner. Ultimately, you won’t have to worry about losing the sense of control that you might feel while managing your employees.
Although this may help to provide a beacon of familiarity during a chaotic period, don’t go back to work simply because you’re restless. There are a number of other ways to pass the time, including reading, painting, or reconnecting with your family.
Rehab Could Be a Networking Opportunity
It’s likely that there are a number of individuals in your field and others who are going through struggles with substance abuse. This means that instead of being shamed for your addiction, you might be able to use recovery as a method of meeting other people who can relate to your struggle.
In fact, you may be able to build a personal support network while also building a professional one as well. Ultimately, you can come out of rehab feeling confident about yourself and what you are doing to improve.
The people who you meet during outpatient rehab may also help to make you a better boss and person. This is because you’ll typically spend time with working class individuals and others who you might not necessarily see on the golf course or in the boardroom.
Of course, many of these people may be your employees or people who you manage on a regular basis. Getting a sense of how they live and how they see the world can be refreshing and provide important context into how you live and work.
Work Through Trauma or Undiagnosed Health Issues
It’s not uncommon for people to dedicate themselves to their work after a traumatic event such as a divorce or the death of a loved one. It’s also not uncommon for people to dedicate themselves to their career as a way of filling time that might otherwise be spent thinking about an assault or other forms of abuse.
Spending time in rehab can help you identify why you might have been so dedicated to your career and the pitfalls of that commitment. You may also learn that you have ADHD, autism, or other mental health issues that cause you to hyperfocus or take risks that others typically avoid.
By understanding why you are who you are, it can become easier to calibrate your emotions. For instance, you may demand that your hotel room is spotless because you’re afraid of germs. You may be afraid of germs because you got sick as a kid, and no one believed that you were ill until you had to go to the hospital.
Through time in therapy, you’ll see that what happened to you wasn’t your fault and isn’t likely to happen again. Although germs may still trigger you to a degree, you won’t react to them by berating hotel staff or otherwise getting unnecessarily agitated in public.
If you are struggling with drug or alcohol dependency, it’s critical that you seek help as soon as possible. Although you may feel as if seeking help is shameful or weak, the truth is that working with a team of professionals is the only way to regain any sort of normalcy in your life. The team at Long Island Interventions is here to help and would love to start working with you today.
Published on: 2023-12-27
Updated on: 2024-03-26
