Can you believe that today is the last day of November? It seems like we just started 2016, not that we’re going to end the year in about a month.

Talk about months, days, and years is also common in treatment and recovery circles. If you belong to 12 step organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA), you discuss how long you’ve been sober. These organizations give chips to people who’ve been sober certain amounts of time and even birthday cakes to mark the date of a person’s sobriety.

Treatment also comes with its own talk of days and dates. People often mention 28-day rehab, and there’s even a film called 28 Days starring Sandra Bullock as a woman who attends treatment for her substance use disorder.

There are more options, of course, than 28-day rehab. Not everyone’s alcohol abuse or drug addiction is the same, so why should their treatment be the same?

Some people might attend rehab for brief amounts of time because they are concerned about family, personal, or career responsibilities. Others might feel that insurance companies will limit the amount of time they have for treatment, but these people should consider calling a placement agency for help. These agencies work with insurance companies to help patients get the best treatment.

If people have abused substances for a long time, or if they have to seek other treatment (such as treatment for depression, anxiety, or eating disorders), they might have to stay in rehab for longer periods of time. Some treatments require people to wean off drugs little by little. This process can take time, especially if a person is accustomed to using large amounts of drugs at once.

Regardless of how long they attend rehab, people need time to recover from drug and alcohol abuse. They probably didn’t become hooked on these substances overnight, so their rehab will likely take time as well. But this recovery is well worth it, since they might be able to measure their eventual sobriety in days, months, and hopefully years.