The initial stage of alcohol rehabilitation is the most crucial stage, after this an alcohol dependent person finds the rest of the process as a stepping stone to alcohol recovery instead of an obstacle that threatens to bring him down. It is also important that family and friends offer support to an addicted person. By knowing that there are people who love and care for him can serve as an inspiration and courage to finish the program as well as inspiration to continue to stay clean of alcohol.
Recovery is never successful without the complete participation of the patient itself. An alcoholic person who finally decides to enter a facility has either hit rock bottom or realized the harmful effects his alcohol addiction is doing to him. The process of coming clean and shying away from alcohol addiction can be long term or short term. Depending on the person's willingness to stop, the path towards recovery and living a normal life is never too far.
Before a facility can take any reliable information as well as useful and intelligent conversation with an alcoholic person, it is a standard procedure to let the person withdraw from his alcoholism and remain sober. Counseling is less during detoxification as the person can be irrational or not in his normal state of mind. He becomes a threat to other people.
The advantages of recovering from alcoholism are never clear to someone who's still addicted and the idea of submitting to rehabilitation is by far the last on their list. This is the part where alcohol rehabs are most challenged. Even when a person decides to sign up to an alcohol rehabilitation facility, there is still the tendency of not being cooperative most of the time. A counselor should not insist and judge the person in situations like this. The road to recovery is about interaction between a counselor and a patient, discussing the various reasons why he's an alcoholic, what prompted him to be dependent and the factors that keep him from breaking away from his addiction.
Alcohol recovery roots from the person's cooperativeness and willingness to share his experience to others. He does not succumb to relapses and is strong enough to detach himself from the people that tend to influence him to going back to his addiction. Abstinence in the intake of alcohol is clear and obvious as well as their continued participation to discussions, counseling and even community service.