Inpatient or Outpatient? How to Find and Evaluate Adolescent Treatment

by Michael Dennis, Ph.D.

1. Relapse is common. Most kids go to treatment 2-4 times before they are able to sustain recovery.
2. Learn to recognize the signs of relapse (spending time with using friends, breaking rules, staying out, inattention, anger, poor hygiene, declining grades) and get kids back into treatment and on the road to recovery right away.
3. Helping your adolescent to participate in continuing care and other recovery support services during the first 90 days after treatment (and ideally the first year) is a key factor in helping them to sustain recovery.
4. While treatment is focused on getting an addicted person to stop, self-help groups, recovery schools and other recovery support services are typically designed to help continue recovery. It is important to try to put adolescents in post-treatment, or aftercare, services that have other adolescents - not just adults.
5. Most adolescents are seen in an outpatient setting a couple of hours a week. Residential treatment is usually reserved for adolescents who are not making it in outpatient treatment and/or who have an environment (peers, home) that is making it very difficult for them to stop.