burtkobain

Hi all,
I am new to the site and the community. I have been struggling with alcohol addiction since years and now I have decided to make a change about it. Since I will be having a longer holiday time I am thinking of committing myself to an addiction camp.
Can somebody recommend an affordable addiction clinic or camp around Europe?
Thank you and all the best to everybody,

JamesfrmEngland

Where in Europe are you from?

Dee74

Hi Burt - got to be honest I've never heard of such a thing as an addiction camp?

Is it like the Salvation Army where you're put to work in return for rehab?

D

Meraviglioso

Hi and welcome to you! I also am not sure what an addiction camp is, can you describe it some more? Otherwise there are many rehab facilities available, but obviously it would depend on what country you are from and what language you speak. I went to a rehab facility here in Italy but all of the communication was in Italian so being advanced int he language was crucial to my thorough participation. I imagine most other facilities are the same- in France the language will be French, Germany, German, etc. So if English is the language you wish to communicate in I'd start your search in the UK.

One thing I will pass on to you is that there is a chain of rehabs marketed under the brand "Narcanon" They have facilities all over the world including here in Italy and around Europe. I did quite a bit of research before going to rehab (and in the end ended up going to a centre in Florence, run by the national healthcare system, so not a private centre) and found a LOT of negative stuff about the Narconon centres. If I remember correctly a lot of this negativity was that it was almost cult-like and it has some connection with the church of Scientology. They market themselves heavily and come up in nearly all types of google searches for rehabs in Europe. The websites are available in English and also the language of the country in which the centre is located. So, naturally it was attractive to me as English is my mother-tongue and I thought if I could go to an English speaking centre I would prefer to do so. But, after much research I was very wary of the Scientology connection. It is not easy to find that connection on the material on their website, but if you dig deep enough it comes out. That and the reviews by previous patients were less than stellar.

Maybe you are fine with a Scientology run program and if so, by all means go ahead. However, as it is not so clear from their website, but I feel an important consideration, I wanted to pass that information on.

They have many, many website, even several for the same facility but with a different home-page/look, but somewhere on there (usually at the bottom) there will be come reference to "Narcanon" and then, if you delve deeper you can find more about the core of the program. The programs sound amazing too, I was really attracted to the fitness and nutrition aspect of the program, but again, once you go further you kind of find out the whole philosophy is "sweating out alcoholism" (my god, if that worked I would have been sober years ago, I work out all the time) and success depends on converting to scientology beliefs.

Meraviglioso

Ok, yes, I just did a quick google search "rehab in Europe" and the first ones up were various facilities with English websites. After clicking on them you can find somewhere at the bottom a reference to Narcanon, which if you then click on takes you to another page entirely. If you then click through to get deeper into the "information" sections (this varies from page to page) you finally come to a page that has the core beliefs of the program and then down at the very bottom, written in small print is the name "L. Ron Hubbard" who, is the founder of scientology. It does not mention the word "scientology" on the page for the centre, or even on the second page you are re-directed to for Narcanon, but there is a clickable link under his name which takes you to the page for him. So, in my opinion very sneaky. It is not information clearly displayed or found on the centre websites, but again, I feel a very important consideration when evaluating a facility. And this is not a post bashing scientology per se, I would be wary and generally annoyed by any religion, particularly a cult-like one, being pushed on me while I was trying to get well.


Anyway, again, I wanted to post this as they have literally hundreds of websites, all with different looks, and while researching rehab facilities I wasted hours of time wading through them thinking I was reading about a new/different centre when in reality it was all the same thing just marketed differently. They are for-profit religious recruitment centres (based on the reviews I read) and not successful rehab facilities based on legitimate scientific and psychological standard practices.

Meraviglioso

Edited to add- and sorry to blow up your post here but I did want to add this as I prefer to be abundantly sensitive regarding religion. There is of course no issue with those that seek to recover through their faith. I see no problem with someone who would prefer to approach something so heavy by relying on their religion. However, I do feel that such programs should make very clear their approach, therefore stating something obvious such as "This is a Christian faith recovery program" "We approach recovery based on Islamic beliefs" "This program is run under the principles of Scientology" That is the problem I had with the Narcanon, the fact that they appear to hide that bit at the very bottom after pages and pages of clicks instead of being upfront about it on the home page.

Best wishes.