Outpatient drug treatment, appealing to many who wish to remain with family, to remain working, and to avoid the expense and disruption of residential care; is unfortunately less effective than more intensive residential rehab drug treatment.
Outpatient patients never get a real break from exposure to temptations, triggers to start abusing again, from the normal responsibilities of every day life, and are unable to focus as intensively on the needed lessons of recovery.
Although some people with recent substance abuse histories and less severe addictions may require only outpatient care, most addicts require the more intensive and immersive therapies of drug rehab to integrate the lessons of treatment into daily life.
A residential rehab offers recovering addicts a temptation free period of sobriety, and enough time away from abuse to relearn and enjoy the feeling of clarity that abstinence can bring.
The therapeutic approaches of in and outpatient care do not differ much, but the intensity does, and recovering addicts benefit greatly when all of their focus centers on recovery.