What is "inpatient treatment" for behavioral addiction?

What is "inpatient treatment" for behavioral addiction?

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...

Inpatient care in this country is a multi-billion dollar business. There are a variety of different sort of inpatient facilities, but they all are essentially the same as they last around thirty days. Why thirty days? Well, because the insurance companies deem that an appropriate length of time. I'm not a believer that it's a magic number; that thirty days is the magic cure. A twelve-step disease model, a treatment centre, would typically again last thirty days. You'd go to groups all day long. There would be some individual therapy. There would be twelve-step groups, of course, in the evening, and a follow-up that would be involved in the twelve-step community. Emphasis would be on doing the twelve steps; the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, there's probably only five or six inpatient facilities in the whole United States that primarily the cognitive behavioural model, but they too sort of align with the thirty-day idea. They do, as well, focus on groups and individual talk therapy. There'd be more emphasis probably on relaxation techniques, and things to help the individual desensitise to the arousal one might get when in the presence of a video monitor, or something like that. However, in a traditional twelve-step or diseased model facility, I don't mean to say that they're awful, but generally speaking you're not going to get that much more than you would get in a traditional self-help group for substantially a lot less money.