Pet Friendly Rehab: How Your Furry (or Feathered) Friend Can Support Your Recovery

The Role of Pets in Addiction Recovery

Addiction recovery can be an emotional rollercoaster for most people as it’s not just affecting your physical health but your mental health as well. People can lose friends and family when they go through addiction. Sometimes by the time you seek addiction treatment, it’s too late to mend back those friendships and relationships with family members, so it’s a lack of support during a hard transition to sobriety. Choosing a pet-friendly rehab can make a significant difference, as it allows patients to bring their pets along for unconditional love and support during the addiction treatment process. Pets are also known to be judgment-free, improving mental health, and reducing stress and anxiety. 

Emotional Support and Comfort

One of the benefits of having a pet, specifically an emotional support animal or service animal, during addiction treatment is the emotional support and comfort they provide. Part of providing emotional support and comfort goes hand in hand with companionship as well. The unconditional love a pet offers their owner can give someone going through recovery at rehab some relief and motivation to get better. 

Reducing Stress and Anxiety

When someone gets diagnosed with a substance use disorder, they can also have a co-occurring mental health disorder like anxiety. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pets can help decrease mental health symptoms. Pets are known to relieve stress as well and this has been shown regularly when college campuses get therapy dogs to show up on campus during final exam week. There have been other studies done that when someone is going through mental health therapy and a dog is there during it, it helps to decrease the anxiousness and distress they are feeling. When you touch a dog or any other type of pet, it gives the body a feeling of calmness as it increases oxytocin levels. 

What is Pet-Friendly Rehab?

You might be wondering what makes a rehab consider pet-friendly. Pet-friendly rehabs allow patients to bring their pets with them while they go through inpatient addiction treatment. It does depend on the specific rehabs that allow this as there are many regulations and documentation you might need to bring and follow when enrolling in addiction treatment to bring your pet. These types of rehabs are usually more holistic with their addiction treatment approaches as well. Resurgence Behavioral Health has holistic approaches and medical approaches when putting together an addiction treatment plan for each patient. Even after being admitted to the addiction treatment center with your pet, you still are responsible for taking care of the pet with feeding, picking up the waste, and bringing any other necessary supplies. You are also responsible for your pet’s behavior especially if they misbehave you will have to come up with different arrangements for your pet. It’s a privilege to be allowed to have your pet with you during rehab, so if your pet doesn’t behave they will have to leave as it will become a distraction to other patients during their recovery process. 

Types of Pets Allowed at Resurgence Behavioral Health

Resurgence Behavioral Health allows patients to bring emotional support animals and service animals that are birds, cats, dogs, and lizards. Animals that are considered in the more exotic category are to be approved on more of a case-by-case basis. An exotic animal would be considered any animal that’s not domesticated or usually not considered a domesticated animal. 

Preparing to Bring Your Pet to Rehab

When preparing to bring your pet to rehab, there are a few things you need to get in order. If you don’t have all the correct documentation for your pet and the necessary health requirements proven by those documents, you might not be allowed to come back and bring it making it impossible for you to be allowed to bring your pet to rehab. 

Necessary Documentation and Health Requirements

Before you’re able to enroll in rehab and start treatment with your pet by your side, you must have the necessary documentation that proves your pet is up to date with vaccinations, the licenses as an emotional support animal or service animal, and any other additional information that might be deemed necessary for service animals. 

The Therapeutic Benefits of Pets in Rehab

When a patient brings a pet to addiction treatment, the patient can get many positive therapeutic benefits. The main benefits that pet-friendly rehab enhances are pet companionship and building healthy exercise routines. 

Enhancing Therapy with Pet Companionship

When someone starts mental health therapy, it can be emotionally draining and possibly hard if they don’t have any outside support from friends and family. This increases the role of your pet to be a companion to patients going through the hard adjustment of recovery mentally and physically. 

Building Healthy Routines with Your Pet

When you bring your pet to rehab, you can start adding healthy routines during recovery that maybe weren’t a priority when you weren’t seeking sobriety during your addiction. Pets like dogs, pigs, and even rabbits require their owners to keep up with their exercise routine to stay healthy. This is beneficial to the owner as well as the pet as it can help with improving their cardiovascular health. possible when going through a similar process as your partner. 

How Resurgence Behavioral Health Can Help

Resurgence Behavioral Health offers a pet friendly rehab. When patients are looking to enroll in a rehab, they might need one that allows pets. This might have to do with having an emotional support animal or service animal in which case the pet friendly rehab like Resurgence Behavioral Health would approve of it. This might provide the patient with more comfort and increase the chances of them staying on track to become fully sober while getting treatment at the facility as well as give them love and support during the whole process. Call Resurgence Behavioral Health at 855-458-0050 to find out how you can enroll in this pet friendly rehab.

David Rofofsky
After growing up in New York, David chose to get help with substance abuse in California because of the state's reputation for top-tier treatment. There, he found the treatment he needed to achieve more than nine years of recovery. He's been in the drug and alcohol addiction rehab industry for eight years and now serves as the Director of Admissions for Resurgence Behavioral Health. David remains passionate about the field because he understands how hard it is to pick up the phone and ask for help. However, once the call is made, someone's life can be saved.

Research | Editorial