This week is National Rehabilitation Awareness Week. The observance was created in 1976 by a small company called Allied Service in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Since then, it has grown into a national campaign to honor rehabilitation professionals and bring awareness to the need for rehab services.
The dictionary definition of “rehabilitate” is “to restore or bring to a condition of health or useful and constructive activity.” This is why drug and alcohol treatment centers are often referred to as “rehab.” Treating addiction is the beginning of a healing process. It’s restoring physical, emotional, and mental health.
The Alcoholic Rehabilitation Act of 1968 was the first federal law saying Alcohol Use Disorder should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal one. The use of the word “rehabilitation” puts Substance Use Disorders in line with any other disease or health problem that requires recovery.
There are countless rehabilitation services—from physical therapy to occupational therapy to mental health and addiction treatment. While these are separate services, there is often a connection between them. For instance, many addiction treatment services incorporate other forms of rehabilitation like yoga, nutritional programs, and mental health care.
A big part of Rehabilitation Awareness Week is celebrating the professionals who spend their days helping others. A majority of TruHealing Centers’ employees at our 14 facilities across the country are in addiction recovery themselves.
Those staff have dedicated their careers to helping people recover through the same services that helped them. As the definition states, rehabilitation gives people the ability to engage in “useful and constructive activity”—like helping others get sober.
Rehabilitation Awareness Week 2020 is a great time to show support to the rehab professionals helping so many heal during the pandemic. Start by reading some of our employees’ stories of recovery and how they got into the addiction treatment field. You can check some of those out here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Find even more by looking for our “In the Spotlight” series on our blog!
Rehabilitation in all its forms allows people to heal physically, mentally, and emotionally. In many cases—as you’ll read in a lot of our staff’s stories—it gives people their lives back.
If you are struggling with a substance use or mental health disorder, there is hope. TruHealing Centers offers high-quality, individualized addiction and mental health treatment. Our staff will share the coping and life skills they’ve learned personally and professionally. We want to see you thrive. Call an admissions specialist at 410-593-0005.