ANSWER: No, so be careful! Medical detox does not "work" every time!

Beware the tricky language used by treatment providers. Technically, medical drug detox works every time, because it is a medical procedure utilizing adjustable protocols (precribed drugs combined with management). They will drug you until you are adequately sedated, and then taper you off all of the drugs. In this sense, it "works".

Many people return to medical detox over and over, as they suffer relapses into using, continuing into drug addiction after leaving the detox or rehab center.

ANSWER: No, but it's usually much better if you do.

The truth is that each drug addiction treatment provider will prefer you attended their chosen rehab after completing their preferred medical detox. Since detox is medically-supervised, and rehab is expensive to manage, they are much more cost effective and operationally efficient when you follow their standardized processes.

Of course each company makes its own decisions about profit, vs. delivering quality and compassionate care. Rehabs are run by people, and vary considerably in quality, dignity, and compassion.

Be careful about not changing enough of your life while attendiong rehab, such as attending outpatient on a part-time basis while still living in the same place, with the same friends (and stresses), and be careful about changing too much of your life (such as traveling to another state for rehab).