The Alcohol Abuse Center

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The health care professionals at your local alcohol abuse center can assess your drinking situation and develop a treatment plan that is the most suitable and the most effectual for your specific drinking problem.

The Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has created a website that features a "Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator."

To get started, you have to click on the location where you live and you will be taken to a page that asks you to enter your city, state, and your searching radius information. After you have entered this information, the "facilities search tool" will produce a number of substance abuse facilities within the city, state, and the searching radius that you entered. The following information will be listed for each facility:

• Services Provided (for example, substance abuse treatment).
  
  
• Type of Care (in-patient or outpatient.
  
  
• Primary Focus of Treatment (for instance mental health or substance abuse services).
  
  
• Special Programs/Groups (for instance, pregnant/postpartum women, persons with co-occurring mental and substance abuse disorders, DUI/DWI offenders, etc.).
  
  
• Special Language Services (for instance, ASL or other assistance for the hearing impaired).
  

• Forms of Payment Accepted (for example, self payment, Medicaid, or Medicare).
  
  
• Payment Assistance (Please check with facility for details).

The Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator can be found here:  http://dasis3.samhsa.gov/

The Alcoholism Treatment Center:  Conclusion

If you have a "drinking problem," it is imperative for you to find out if your problem involves alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence. The health care practitioners at your local alcohol abuse center will be able to appraise the scope of your drinking problem and will then develop a "drinking plan" that is less dangerous and more health-oriented than your current drinking activities.

Be forewarned, however, that this "plan" may mean total abstinence, it may include ways in which you can substantially reduce the frequency and the amount of your drinking, or it may help you identify the emotional and situational "hot buttons" that trigger your problem drinking, therefore resulting to more control over your drinking behavior.

Whatever "plan" is generated by the staff at the alcohol abuse center, remember this important point: without "buying into" and following through with your particular program, little, if anything of significance will result concerning your drinking circumstances.

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