My intervention saved my life. It's normal to feel worried about confronting a loved one with the painful truths of addiction. An intervention won't be easy, may create some tears, and life will never be the same after you speak your mind; but if you really care about that person, it's the best thing you can do to get them the help they need.

The news that Lindsay Lohan was once again heading to rehab got me thinking about celebs, and the current trendiness of the star rehab experience. It seems that rehab has become a career move, and that any sins can be wiped clean by a public apology and a couple of weeks of country club rehab.

I made it through. I've never been to prison, and I survived...and those two victories put me well ahead of too many of my old friends.

Why am I now enjoying the sunshine when they do not? It's not that I was in any way better or stronger than most of them, but I had a family that cared, and I got lucky; and I wonder how much better our nation would be if the billions now spent on incarceration were diverted to treatment and rehabilitation?

For men it's the threat of losing a job, and for women it's being married and living with a spouse; surprisingly, men and women seem to have dramatically different motivations for successfully completing an aftercare program.

Making the decision to get help takes you closer than anything else you'll ever do to getting sober and getting better; but even once you've decided that you need residential drug or alcohol rehab treatment, you still have an enormous availability of choice as to where to get it, and thus a difficult decision. For people wanting a quick transition into rehab and into a better life, the many options available brings unwanted stress into an already difficult time. The deciding factors may include location, price, philosophies, and probably also treatments offered; and when evaluating the last of those, it's easy to wonder how important seemingly frivolous programs such as yoga or meditation really are to your likelihood of recovery. After all, wouldn’t your time be better spent in therapy?

There is no problem. Anyone who wants to get into drug rehab, regardless of how much or how little money they have, can get in… Or at least that's the message I keep getting from state social services personnel. Which is kind of funny, since a lot of the people I talk to that are struggling with addictions are telling me a very different story.

Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about drug or alcohol rehabs…until they need one. Once you make a decision to enter into treatment, the sooner you can get help the better. Unfortunately, since you need to make a decision about rehab quickly, you can easily get overwhelmed by the difficulties of finding an appropriate facility, and even in finding accurate and transparent information.