Preparing to Enter Residential Treatment
Use the program’s current admission instructions as your packing list. This organizer helps you ask what applies to you and keep practical arrangements together.
For: People seeking help or planning their own support · 2 PDF pages
No email or account is required. Use the PDF or printed spaces for private notes. This guide does not collect worksheet answers. Save and reopen a completed PDF to check your notes.
NIAAA recommends asking about a program’s expectations, services and arrangements for medical care. The questions below adapt that approach to preparation; they do not state any particular facility’s rules.
Sources: [1]
Confirm before you pack
Scroll the table sideways on a small screen to compare all columns.
| Area | Question for the program | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Arrival | Is admission confirmed? What time, entrance and contact should I use? | Date, address and contact |
| Medicines and health needs | How should I bring my medicine list and prescribed medicines? Who will discuss ongoing care with me? | Exact clinical-team instructions |
| Documents | Which identification, coverage or other documents do you need? | Requested items only |
| Clothes and personal items | Can you send your current allowed-items list, including toiletries and laundry arrangements? | List location and date |
| Devices and communication | What are the phone, charger, internet and visitor arrangements? | Who can clarify exceptions or accessibility needs |
| Accessibility and daily living | How will the needs I have described be supported? | Named contact and confirmed arrangements |
My admission and home arrangements
- Arrival plan
- Confirmed date/time/location, travel and the person to contact if plans change.
- Home responsibilities to arrange
- Dependents, pets, work, bills or other tasks; who has actually agreed to help.
- Program instructions and unresolved items
- Where the written list is saved; specific questions and who will answer them.