Gateway Rehab Center

¶ … function for the Gateway Rehabilitation Center (GRC) is the drug and alcohol treatment that assists addicts in kicking their dependency on either drugs or alcohol. As the GRC website touts "if you are abusing alcohol or other drugs, Gateway Rehab's personalized treatment plans can help. Our highly trained experts will give you the tools you need to reclaim your health -- and rediscover a life worth living" (GRC, 2015).

In other words, GRC is a regional Center with locations throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania that offers a variety of treatment options for addicts of alcohol and drugs. Clients Served GRC offers treatment services to those men, women, and youth addicts from Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. There are 20+ locations, with a main campus in Alquippa, Pennsylvania. There are four locations in Ohio and 16 locations in Pennsylvania.

Services are geared towards males, especially the Extended Care division that includes a house for adolescent males between the ages of 13 -- 20 and two halfway houses for adult men. Three additional divisions include the Genesis, Corrections and Ohio divisions. Genesis provides outpatient and detoxification services, Corrections provides services for addicts with legal problems, and the Ohio division caters to those addicts from the North Eastern part of Ohio. GRC provides extended care programs that are focused on not only the age of the addict but the gender as well.

The Extended Care division provides specific help to address the peer pressure, anger, bullying, body-imaging issues and low self-esteem often experienced in the teenage years and that can lead to drug and alcohol use and abuse by teenagers and young adults. Many of these young people discover that the use of drugs is often linked to emotional health problems such as depression, psychotic symptoms and anxiety disorders (McCrystal, Percy, 2010).

According to the GRC website, GRC focuses on assisting these young people in a wide variety of settings through programs that are fundamentally different and addresses adolescent concerns rather than adult concerns and provides more structure and supervision than do the adult addicts. GRC strives to provide these services primarily at its Youth Services Center minutes from the Pittsburgh International Airport. GRC touts the fact that they can provide a warm, comfortable and welcome setting to ensure that youthful therapy is effective.

Other services provided by GRC include; detoxification, out and in-patient services, medication assisted treatment, counseling and education. Detoxification services are accessible all day, every day and the program is "designed to bring patients to a drug-free state so they can begin the next step to recovery from addiction" (GRC, 2015). When an individual goes through the detoxification process, harmful drugs are flushed from the body; often detox is considered a transition to a healthier and happier state of being.

A recent study determined that "inpatient detoxification option would be a safer, more effective modality to meet the needs of this heavily addicted population, most of whom are unable to achieve abstinence on an outpatient basis" (Ford, Zarate, 2010, p. 304). GRC seeks to provide that option for those individuals who may need it most. Once detoxification is complete, GRC then provides therapy, and sometimes medication, as the next step to addressing addiction. Other services offered by GRC include inpatient and outpatient care.

Inpatient care consists of a 28-day program for adult individuals of either gender. The program is considered intensive and, according to the GRC website "focuses on early recover skills, including an understanding of disease and developing tools to maintain self-control." The Center also offers therapy in a number of settings that focus on the specific needs of the patient; those settings include individual and group environments as well as including family, gender-specific and even pastoral counseling.

Inpatient stays at the Center can be as short or as long as necessary depending on the individual's needs and treatment regimes. Outpatient stays can be scheduled at a time that is convenient to the client, and can take place at any of the centers with treatment capability on an almost daily basis. GRC also provides the local communities and schools with programs to assist individuals in avoiding addiction.

These services include in-school consultations, student services, training and support for school teachers and administrators as well as for business and industry personnel, and presentations geared to parents and communities. Open house events are held on a regular basis at most of the locations and community members are encouraged and invited to attend. Program Aspects For the most part, the Gateway Center is staffed with professional counselors, administrators, therapists and professional medical personnel.

The Center is a non-profit entity that is funded through a number of avenues included fees, business partnerships and collaborations, donations, grants and other financial and in-kind sponsorships. The budgets for each location are based upon both projected usage and real-time numbers. Annual budgets are set before the fiscal year begins and is broken down by location and demographics.

Program effectiveness Treatments and prevention of drug use and abuse can be deemed successful if it assists even one individual; however, in the real world statistics can either be misleading or downright wrong. A recent study determined that individuals in treatment over extended periods "decrease their criminal activity, and improve their occupational, social and psychological functioning" (National Institute, 2012).

Keeping those thoughts in mind, and remembering that there are no specific numbers readily available from the GRC, the effectiveness of the treatment programs offered by GRC can generally be accessed not only by the number of patients that go on to lead productive lives, never confronting the travails of drug abuse again, but can also be ascertained by the patients that (while not fully cured) become better citizens with increased participation in society as well as continued adherence to treatment programs that assist in substantially helping the individual become less dependent on drugs or alcohol, a decrease in their criminal activities, and an improved functioning socially, psychologically, within their work settings, and with their familial.