Your drug or alcohol addiction is a complex problem. More often than not, addiction affects all areas of your life, including work, relationships, money and even your health. By recognizing these problems, you’re getting closer to recovery.
Addiction is a disease that causes compulsive drug use, despite negative consequences. It’s a chronic condition that therefore requires treatment and ongoing support.
If you’re struggling with addiction, it’s important to seek help. There are many treatment options available, and with the right support, you can overcome addiction and live a healthy, happy life. You just have to make the decision to enter inpatient or outpatient rehab for addiction. Find out more by calling us at 866.262.0531.
What is Outpatient Rehab For Addiction?
Outpatient rehab is one of several levels of care available for addiction treatment. Outpatient rehab treatment offers many benefits and drawbacks, depending upon your particular drug problem. Some benefits include being able to continue working, attending school or taking care of family while going through rehab. You live at home during rehab, attending daytime sessions and sleeping at home each night.
Outpatient programs vary from rehab to rehab. However, there are some constants among these programs. For example, outpatient programs usually meet several times each week. These sessions are usually just a few hours. During the rest of the week, clients live their own lives while practicing what they learn about sobriety in rehab.
For people with advanced addictions, an outpatient program may not work. Some people need the structure, safety, and focus of residential rehab. If your addiction is treatable through outpatient, this type of program will save you time and money.
To succeed in outpatient treatment, you must be relatively stable in your addiction recovery with only a mild addiction problem. You have to participate fully in your program for it to work. Before starting outpatient, you need a thorough addiction evaluation for development of an independent treatment plan and to ensure OP rehab meets your needs.
Potential Challenges of Outpatient Rehab
Outpatient rehab is absolutely right for some people. However, it’s not necessarily right for everybody. Here are challenges that certain individuals might face:
- Absence of supervision for most of each week: One of the biggest drawbacks to outpatient rehab is that there is very little supervision. Most people attend outpatient rehab three times per week for only a few hours each visit. This leaves ample time for individuals to relapse or engage in other risky behaviors.
- Regular, easy access to the substances you abuse: This is a huge risk, as it can be very easy to give in to temptation when you’re outpatient rehab. The environment and people you associate with can have a big influence on your recovery.
- Greater risk of relapse: One of the biggest dangers of outpatient rehab is the increased risk of relapse. This is because you are still living in your regular environment, which can be a major temptation for those struggling with addiction.
- Less continual support: You’re not constantly surrounded by people who are also in rehab, so you may feel more isolated.
Intensive Outpatient and PHP Programs
Intensive outpatient (IOP) treatment is a more structured version of outpatient treatment. In IOP rehab, you continue living at home, going to work, attending school and taking care of family. People with mild to moderate addiction do well in IOP treatment.
An intensive outpatient program also treats people with co-occurring conditions, such as depression or anxiety. IOP treatment costs more than outpatient but less than residential rehab.
Partial hospitalization (PHP) programs offer more structure than IOP programs. Many people call PHP programs “day rehab” because you stay at the rehab facility for two to eight hours each day and return home for sleep. This structure provides time for more intensive therapy programs than IOP or OP treatment affords.
People with co-occurring conditions benefit from PHP rehab, whereas outpatient treatment may not be adequate. Clients in partial hospitalization need to be able to stay on track in recovery when at home, even if they need PHP’s higher level of care during the day. Partial hospitalization is also effective for people with health problems that require monitoring.
Both IOP and PHP are good for people who have suffered a relapse and need to rebuild recovery. Outpatient is more often a solution for post-residential treatment, as a continuation of rehab.
Pacific Northwest Outpatient Rehab Addiction Treatment
Crestview Recovery in Portland, Oregon provides multiple levels of care for addiction treatment. If you seek recovery from alcohol or drugs and live in the Pacific Northwest, Crestview Recovery provides an opportunity to rebuild your life close to home. Levels of care at Crestview Recovery include:
- Inpatient/residential
- Partial hospitalization
- Intensive outpatient
- Outpatient
- Aftercare
- Extended care programs
All programs at Crestview Recovery provide extensive counseling and dual diagnosis treatment under masters-level therapists. The extended 90-day program ensures you are strong in recovery before returning home.
If you or someone you love need complete recovery from drug or alcohol addiction, Crestview Recovery can help you achieve your goal. Call Crestview Recovery at 866.262.0531 for more information about available programs. The program you need is available in the Pacific Northwest.

Since 2016, Dr. Merle Williamson, a graduate of Oregon Health Sciences University, has been the Medical Director at Crestview Recovery, bringing a rich background in addiction medicine from his time at Hazelden Treatment Center. He oversees outpatient drug and alcohol treatments, providing medical care, setting policies, detox protocols, and quality assurance measures. Before specializing in addiction medicine, he spent 25 years in anesthesiology, serving as Chair of Hospital Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and Chief of Anesthesia at Kaiser Permanente. This experience gives him a unique perspective on treating prescription drug addiction.