I've been asked if it's a good idea to either go to drug rehabilitation centers or participate in retreats intended to help people overcome addictions.
As far as such options are concerned, there are many different types of them. Some will be facilitated by medical facilities, be focused on psychological principles, and adhere to the 12-step paradigm. And certain people will elect to spend time in the wilderness or go off to a faraway land to commune with nature: A retreat in the woods or by the ocean can be life changing.
I feel that it's best for a person to take whatever approach will be most effective in getting them away from their own toxic habits. Any route that a person chooses should be one that enables them to learn about the emotional and psychological components of their particular addiction, the ways that they think, and strategies to help them learn how to cope. Coping methods will likely include things such as proper breathing, connection with the natural world, and overcoming boredom, loneliness, and harmful compulsive actions.
I don't think it would be wise of me to try to tell people which recovery systems work and which ones don't. People have to learn things for themselves, and unfortunately I know this from making many mistakes in my own recovery processes. One such mistake was my stopping recovery work after getting enough sobriety in my life that I wasn't in fear of relapsing: When that occurred, I lacked the intense motivation that I had when I was first getting sober.
I was also not well-versed in what specific measures I needed to take to overcome the levels of anxiety that kept me from properly addressing my psychological and emotional problems. My coping mechanisms had improved, but I didn't realize at that time that I had a long way to go. So, I stagnated.
During my first 28 years of recovery, I faithfully stayed sober no matter what I was feeling. But I needed to confront my early childhood traumas, and I did. Before getting to that point, I did certain things that were good for me (such as yoga) and certain things that probably weren't (such as extreme sports). But I was for the most part just trying to escape emotional pain when I did those things.
We all must realize that we need to go through painful and sometimes frightening things such as facing up to our childhood traumas in our journeys of recovery. It's better to experience a small amount of suffering than to stay stuck in emotional and psychological pain our entire lives.