#75: Pocket Guide: What to Bring to Rehab

In this Pocket Guide episode of the Unbreakable Boundaries podcast, host Jennifer Maneely walks families through a practical but often overlooked question: how do you pack when your loved one is heading into treatment?

Jennifer starts with the basics: always use the treatment center’s official packing list as your primary guide. Space is limited, so bring a reasonable amount of clothing with layers appropriate to the season—think a range of jackets in winter or light layers for summer, especially since many facilities are heavily air-conditioned and temperature regulation can be difficult early in recovery.

She strongly cautions against packing anything expensive or sentimental that would be devastating to lose. Even non‑valuable but cherished items should stay home.

Instead, focus on comfort and emotional support items that are low‑risk but high‑value. One of Jennifer’s top recommendations is a good journal and pen. She shares how her own rehab journal, given to her by her mom over 20 years ago, became a meaningful way to process the experience and later reflect on how far she’d come.

Jennifer also addresses some “controversial” items that may or may not be allowed, depending on the facility:

- Candy and treats: While some people worry about sugar, Jennifer argues that, from someone who’s been through rehab multiple times, small comforts like candy or chocolate can provide a much-needed sense of normalcy and something to look forward to in an otherwise difficult environment—if the treatment center permits them.

- Recreational reading: Many centers prefer that clients focus solely on recovery material, but if allowed, Jennifer suggests sending one good, healthy, non-recovery book at a time. For people dealing with intense shame and mental overload in early recovery, a little “healthy escape” can be grounding. She recommends balancing this by not overloading them with books—let them finish one, maybe take a short break, and then send another.

Some things are almost always off-limits: over‑the‑counter medications like Tylenol or Advil. Treatment staff will handle and dispense needed medications themselves.

Jennifer also suggests sending a small backpack or tote so your loved one can easily carry essentials like their journal and book around the facility.

Finally, she encourages families to plan on sending at least one care package after their loved one has settled in. Once they’re there, they’ll have a clearer idea of what they need, and receiving a package is often a powerful emotional reminder that they’re loved and not forgotten—even if they don’t always show it.

Jennifer invites listeners to reach out with questions at info@therecoveringfamily.org or via therecoveringfamily.org, and she previews the next episodes: what to expect in the first few days after drop‑off, especially when someone doesn’t really want to be in treatment, followed by an episode on what the journey looks like when someone does want to be there.

Transcript

Jennifer Maneely: 0:00

Welcome back to the Unbreakable Boundaries podcast, with your host, myself, Jennifer Maneely. This is going to be yet another pocket guide. This one is going to be really focused on you're getting ready to send in the treatment. How do you pack for for that? Now, a lot of treatment centers, I would start with just the guidelines, right? They're gonna, they're going to help supply you with those guidelines of what to bring and what specifically not to bring. I mean, do you have your general things, obviously you have clothes, but bring a wide array of, like, different kind of clothes, different shoes. Don't pack too much, though, because there's just not a whole lot of storage. You, they will be able to do laundry while they're there, but you know, you want kind of like different layers, depending on, you know what, what time of the year that you, you're going into, but having at least, like, if it's in the, if it's in the winter time, of course, that's really easy, like pack all sorts of different kinds of layers, some places you're going to be really toasty warm because you have the heat blaring, but in a lot of times if you're going in the winter, it's going to be cold, so you're going to need your heavy jacket, and then your mid-sized jacket, and then your smaller jacket, all that stuff in the same, in the, in the summertime, frankly, sometimes you might be in an air-conditioned place, and depending on what your loved one is experiencing with their body, it's can sometimes be hard to regulate temperature, so keep that in mind. Something to not bring, though, is anything expensive, anything that that loved one doesn't want to lose it doesn't really need to go with them, even if it's sentimental, but the more sentimental it is, even if it's not expensive, if they don't want to lose it, don't bring it. I remember when I went to treatment, my mom got me a journal. This was the first time I went to treatment, which was over 20 years ago, and somewhere in my belongings I still have that journal. That journal was a very good thing for me. I'm not much of a journaler, but you have a lot of idle time in rehab, and so sometimes it's a good idea to have something to do with your hands, so get your, get, get your loved one a nice pen or pencil, whatever they prefer, and a nice journal that they can journal things into. That's going to be really helpful. I love now going back to that journal. I'm like, I almost wish that I really wrote more about my experiences in there, because now I can reflect back, and I love going back to that journal and re-reading what I wrote back then, where my mindset was, and, and how far I have come. Now this is part of the guidelines, so some treatment centers may allow this, and some may not. So you're going to want to check again. The treatment centers should send you a packing list. On that packing list, it will be clear. You can probably even ask them this now. There's going to be some debate, but being someone who's been to treatment, I can tell you that this was actually really helpful for me. But I ate a lot of candy, and listen, we can talk about the sugar and how bad it all is, but your loved one is getting off of drugs, that is a really challenging thing already, I think that it is okay to kind of supplement some of that, because it's hard as it is with things like chocolate, things like just candy, whatever your whatever their favorite thing is, let them have it like it is, and I think this is debatable, right? Like I'm not gonna sit here and say that someone else is gonna say the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I'm just saying from a perspective of someone that's been in treatment a couple times, my rehab, I remember this all this years later, they had a candy drawer, and they kept that thing stocked with candy, and it got rated every time it got full. It got rated, and I will tell you, though, it was just something that made us feel, I think, just a little bit. Better, we looked forward to eating the candy, and it was something to actually really look forward to, something that actually made us feel a little bit normal. We were just needing something that made us feel slightly better, because I mean, listen, we're gonna rehab it. That kind of sucks. I'm not gonna lie about that. It sucks. So, any of those little things like that to make us feel better, I think is totally acceptable. It's totally okay. And let people just indulge. We're talking about someone who's been on drugs. Some candy is not gonna hurt them all that bad, it's probably need it anyway. So I would say, if your rehab allows them to bring in candy, let them indulge a little bit on that. Now, again, this is going to be another item that sometimes, like some treatment centers will tell you not to do this, some will, it just all depends. Like I said earlier, there's a lot of idle time, and sometimes, yes, we definitely want to focus on recovery. There is a lot of recovery. This is going to be another debatable thing, right? Again, some treatment centers are going to be okay with this, some are not. But bring a good book, just bring a good book. Let, let it's.. I get it. Like, we really want to focus on recovery, but sometimes we just need a little bit of a break from ourselves, because we don't have the skills and the tools yet to kind of control where our brain goes, and in those first initial, you know, 30 days, our brain has so much shame that it is trying to process and deal with and hide from, and we are such in a pattern of hiding, it's nice to have a healthy escape. Now, some treatment centers will suggest you not to. They want you to only focus on recovery and all of those things. And I understand where they're coming from, and I'm not even saying that it's wrong. I'm just saying that if you have a treatment center that is okay with it, bring a good book, so that sometimes you can get a little bit of an escape. I don't think that there's anything wrong with learning good healthy escape techniques. However, that should be balanced, which is why I'm suggesting only bring one book at a time. Right now, I mean, they're probably going to get it done pretty quickly, and they may be asking for another one. There may be books there at the treatment center. If not, you know, this may be something to plan on. Like, hey, like, you know, I'm only going to send you one book at a time. Let me know when you're close to being done that way, like they might get a chance to have a little bit of a break in between books to really focus on the recovery, so there's a balance to it, right, and they, and it's important that they learn balance, and that, like, don't completely escape and check out, because it's also important for them to be present in us, but especially when we're newer, we don't know anything about balancing, and, and how to not, you know, just completely escape, so you can kind of monitor and use your, a little bit of your discretion on that one, you know, maybe give them a couple of days in between books before they get another one, just so that there is that balance, but I think that that is a perfectly acceptable thing as well. Is plan on having them have a good book to read, even if they're not much of readers, they may turn into being readers while they're in there. Now, we'll say that treatment centers often don't like you to bring over the counter drugs, like even like Tylenol or Advil, or anything. They have those things, and they will dull them out as they feel that they are necessary. So, no over the counter medications, and they're probably going to need like a little book bag, or a little bag, or something to kind of carry, just carry things from, you know, small thing, just to carry, you know, books or pins, or whatever, their journal, their, their, the book that they're reading, just from one place to another, just a little small bag, just like a little book bag, or something like that. Now I would plan on also kind of planning to ship them things as they get settled in, and they're a little bit more clear about what it is that they need, right? They're not going to get everything, but they, they may find something that that they're going to need. While they're in there, and we didn't think about it, and because, like I said, every treatment is a little bit differently, they're gonna give you guidelines, but they're gonna get in there, and they're gonna discover, oh, I didn't think about this, or I didn't bring this, so, so plan on shipping at least one time to get some of, like, a little care package that will also make them feel still cared for and loved, and all of those things. Just getting packages like that is really, it really means a lot, even if they don't necessarily show it, or they don't say it. Sometimes it means a lot when they get care packages in rehab. Anyway, I hope this was really helpful. Please let me know if you have any more questions, thoughts. If you are just not sure about something, always feel free to reach out to me. You can email me, email info at The Recovering family.org or you could just go to my website, and there's all sorts of different ways to get in contact with me that way at the Recovering family.org Again, I hope this was helpful, and stay tuned for the next one, where we actually journey into what happens when you drop them off. What do the first few days look like? What can you expect while they're in there that whole journey, and we're going to start from the place of what if someone's going in there that doesn't really want to be there, because that happens quite often, and so we're going to start at that mindset, because they're, you know, depending on the mindset is going to be dependent on their experience in there, and so we're going to start with that mindset, and then after that, I'm going to do another podcast that's focused on what does it look like when someone who wants to be in there and their journey and their experiences. Thanks for listening, and stay tuned to another Pocket Guide coming at you soon.