Critical Thinking Skills and Drug Rehab

What a Drug Rehab Should Have: Critical Thinking

When one is plagued with drug or alcohol abuse, the ability to think critically gets overshadowed by impulsive, irrational thinking, often driven by cravings for more drugs. The person struggles with the compulsion to get more drugs, to stay high or to ward off withdrawal symptoms. He may only be able to see as far as the drug dealer who can help him get through another day.

He may not be aware that he is hurting his family or others. If he’s a teenager, he may have such a strong desire to fit in with his peers that he will do things that are destructive to him or others around him. Or she may go to extreme lengths to gain acceptance and approval from others. These choices can include doing drugs, engaging in promiscuous sexual encounters, or other harmful or criminal activities.

What is critical thinking?

The World Health Organization calls critical thinking “disciplined thinking that is clear and rational, unbiased, and informed by available evidence.” It isn’t rational to continue to take substances that cause you to become horribly ill when you stop taking them. When a person becomes addicted to drugs, he cannot think rationally. The drugs have started to do his thinking for him.

Recovery Demands Rational Thinking

When a person does get on the road to recovery from drug or alcohol abuse, he has to do more than just regain his sobriety temporarily. He has to learn how to think critically to navigate his way through many situations and still maintain his sobriety for the long term. He must be involved in controlling his life and know that he can move forward soberly on his own. Lacking this skill, the person may be easily led into substance abuse again. Learning how to think critically is one aspect of the World Health Organization’s suggested components of Life Skills Education.

Narconon Rehab Includes Critical Thinking Education

With a step by step approach, the Narconon rehab program helps the person to develop or re-learn this ability to think critically. For example, one course is designed to help a person learn how to study any subject and understand it. Being able to grasp information aids one in developing critical thinking skills. As he learns the key data about how to study, he can use these tools to help him to study and absorb the knowledge from the rest of the courses at Narconon, and in any subject he studies after Narconon. For most people, this may be the first time they ever learn how to study.

A person who has been abusing drugs can lose his perspective and ability to evaluate other people accurately. He is used to lying and manipulating others and being lied to and manipulated by others so an honest assessment of others is nearly impossible. Another course helps the person recovering at Narconon to analyze which type of people he wishes to associate with. This course includes observable, objective characteristics of two different types of people. On this course, the person can recover his ability to make better judgments based on critical, clear, rational, observable characteristics. He can learn which type of people he should steer clear of, as they could lead him back into a situation of abusing drugs again.

Lindsey recovered from addiction to crack cocaine and OxyContin with the help of Narconon Arrowhead in Oklahoma. She said, “Now that I’m done, I’m so proud of myself. I’ve completed something. I’m a better person for it.” She learned critical thinking and many other life skills with the help of the Narconon program. These helped her to restore her relationships with her family and herself.

Learn more about the full Narconon program at www.narconon.org.

Reference

• Partners in Life Skills Education; Conclusions from a United Nations Inter-Agency Meeting, World Health Organization, Geneva, 1999.