What happens for behavioral addicts after inpatient care?

What happens for behavioral addicts after inpatient care?

Marc Kern (Addiction Expert, Director of Addiction Alternatives) gives expert video advice on: What is "outpatient care" for behavioral addiction?; What is outpatient treatment like for behavioral addiction?; How can recovering behavioral addicts reduce the risks in their environment? and more...

Outpatient, or after care, is probably one of the more controversial domains right now in the addiction field. It's come to be recognized that the greatest failure of addiction treatment right now lies in after care. Historically, people check-out after thirty days, or maybe even sometimes forty-five days, and they say, "Good-bye". then there's very little follow-up. The hospital never calls them again and they're just left to their own devices. Unfortunately, that still continues on a very large scale. There are some more progressive inpatient facilities that do follow-up, provide after care services, provide services via telephone, and annual meetings where you come back to the facility. Other places have developed contractual relationships to outpatient services within various communities around the country and you would be assigned a counsellor at a facility local to you, continuing with the same philosophy that you were taught while you were inside the treatment facility.