Is gender-specific addiction treatment right for you?
This may not be the first question you think of when considering a treatment facility, but it may just be one of the most important ones.
As we’ve refined our treatment approach over the years, we’ve learned there are many advantages to gender-specific treatment. And our patients, often to their surprise, have enjoyed some particularly great outcomes using this approach.
So, is gender-specific treatment worth exploring when you’re searching for the right recovery centre?
Here are a few things to consider:
1. Trauma is Tough to Talk About
For women, in particular, substance use disorders often stem from childhood abuse that involved a male aggressor. Having a female-only facility provides them with a safe space to explore shared issues around gender bias, abuse, and domestic violence.
As for men, it’s not uncommon for them to feel uncomfortable discussing sensitive and emotional topics in a mixed-gender environment. And others may find the presence of women a distraction from their treatment.
Treating genders separately provides each with a space to open up without worrying about how they appear in front of the opposite sex.
2. Intimate Relationships May Distract from Treatment
When you’re in a treatment facility, far from your family and loved ones, it’s not uncommon for relationships to develop between patients. That creates a whole series of challenges in terms of successful treatment.
Some people end up diverting the energy they should be spending on improving themselves to improving their newly formed relationship.
For others, developing relationships causes them to stop treatment and abandon their programs prematurely. That’s because they see their budding relationships as a threat to the ones waiting for them on the outside.
In either case, in gender-specific treatment environments, patients tend to stay longer, do more of the hard work, and have a higher chance of a successful outcome.
3. Being Self-conscious Can Impede Your Progress
No matter how you identify in terms of gender, there’s a good chance you act differently around the opposite sex. We all know that mixing genders can create a level of tension, and that tension can impede progress.
With gender-specific treatment, many patients report feeling more relaxed and freer to do the hard work, since they’re not focused on their image as much as their progress.
This Approach to Treatment is Designed for YOU
One of the main reasons treatment centres remove patients from their usual surroundings is to enable patients to focus on one thing: themselves. This approach is designed to strip away the many distractions of the outside world so you can build a platform for success.
To be clear, the best treatment facility for you is simply the one that aligns with your individual needs.
You just have to take a moment to consider what those needs really are.
We Can Help You
Whether you want to seek treatment near home, farther afield, or online, you have plenty of options with EHN Canada. We make care accessible with facilities all over Canada.
