Month: April 2007

How to Choose a Drug Rehabilitation Center

Drug addiction is a condition wherein people compulsively use psychoactive drugs up to a point where they can no longer choose any other option than to continue using the drugs.

Since treating drug addiction on your own can be difficult because of the condition s complexity, a drug rehabilitation center can help identify the problem and provide an effective treatments and approaches in helping the patients to withdraw and be drug-free for good.

When drug addicts become uncontrollable, drug rehabilitation centers help the patient to put an end to the use of drugs and maintain a healthy lifestyle, while learning a productive way of functioning at work, in the family and within the society.

Drug rehabilitation centers are not only designed for patients with drug-related problems. These rehabilitation centers also provide medical, psychological and physical assistance to people with alcohol drinking problems, suicidal tendencies, criminal offenses and behavioral problems.

When choosing a rehabilitation center, you have to determine if you want an inpatient, residential or outpatient set-up. You also need to choose if you need or want to stay long-term or short-term for all your medical needs.

Things to Consider in Choosing Rehabilitation Center

Since efficiency of a particular drug rehab program relies greatly on the services and programs offered by a rehabilitation center, it is important that you choose the center that could meet all your needs, whether physical, mental, psychological or social needs.

Upon the arrival in a certain rehabilitation center, the patient is examined and asked certain information such as age, insurance options, kinds of drugs used and history of criminal offenses, if there are any. You should also provide information such as patient s support and history of drug treatment as well as psychological and behavioral problems associated with the drug problem.

After the initial examination and interview, you need to determine the services available and approaches used by the rehabilitation center. Ask about the different medications, supplementations and other natural treatments used in a particular program.

Be aware that the more services offered by a rehabilitation center, the better outcome you can expect. Ask about the patient-to-counselor ratio to determine whether the patient will be supervised by a professional everyday.

Ask the rehabilitation center about treatments, such as how they handle withdrawal symptoms and assess infectious diseases like hepatitis. Determine the duration of the program you have chosen and if the families will be allowed to get involved throughout the treatment program.

Since the lives of the patient are at stake, finding the most affordable rehabilitation center may not be the best choice. Remember that each program should be able to provide long lasting results for the patients lives.

The Most Humble Oil Lamp

Oil lamps have been a part of human life since earliest times and have lit our way through most of history. Even today they are still used in many parts of the world and many have retained their simplest form. It is quite probable that the first oil lamp was nothing more than a small crude clay vessel or bowl made to hold tallow or some form of plant oil and a wick made of reed. In early times man most likely went to bed with the setting sun or made do with the glowing light from his fire but archeological finds show that prehistoric man used some form of oil lamp 20,000 years ago and in the fifteenth century Leonardo Da Vinci was the first to enclose the flame in a glass chimney which helped to protect the flame from drafts and eliminate the flicker.

The Early Oil Lamp

Before the Revolutionary War, the primitive open oil lamps and rush lights were still in use. The rush light consisted of a reed held upright in a dish containing grease. These primitive forms of oil lamps remained in use as late as the Civil War. In 1784, Ami Argand invented an oil lamp which drastically changed and improved the path of lighting forever. It had a reservoir that held oil and a flat wick that burned on both the inner and outer surfaces. As air rose up through the center, oxygen consumed most of the carbon while providing a stronger and brighter light with less smoke and little flicker. Later that same year a Frenchman added a glass chimney to Argand’s invention, creating a draft, thus greatly intensifying the amount of artificial light.
In 1879, with Thomas Edison s improvements to the light bulb, lighting the night was forever changed.

Still Lighting The Way

Today many of these early oil lamps still exist as antique collectibles or even remain in use in remote areas where no electric lines reach. Some people still keep an oil lamp handy in case of power outages and you can find modern functional versions of the oil lamp that serve as decorative accent pieces or burn scented oils.
It s easy to see that the humble oil lamp has a very long and interesting history. It may have been the invention of the wheel that started man on his journey to modern times but it was the oil lamp that lit his way.