Labels: addiction help, detox, drug detox, drug rehab, medical detox, medically-supervised detox, successful drug rehab, successful drug rehab program
-------- AUTHOR: Eric DATE: 5/26/2007 08:19:00 AM ----- BODY: Drug rehab is more successful when other drugs aren’t substituted I was recently doing research on alcohol abuse and came across some startling information – the current trend in alcohol and drug rehab programs is to get the person off drugs or alcohol by putting them on another drug. In other words, they simply substitute one drug for another and send the ‘former’ alcoholic or addict on their way – allegedly cured. This is called ‘medication therapy’ and, believe it or not, is actually considered valid ‘treatment’. However, successful drug rehab programs offer a drug-free approach. Let me clarify the role of drugs in stopping addiction: When an alcoholic or drug addict wants to quit the habit, they first have to go through withdrawal. How painful an experience that will be depends on how much they’ve been drinking for how long, or what drugs they’ve been taking, and how much, for how long. Withdrawal can be severely painful and sometimes dangerous, even life-threatening. In fact, fear of withdrawal symptoms is often enough to deter any efforts to get clean. To get through withdrawal safely and relatively comfortably, many people choose to do a medically-supervised drug or alcohol detox. This process often involves the use of drugs to lessen the withdrawal symptoms. However, the drugs are given for a very short time – sometimes just a few days – not enough to cause addiction. By the time the person has completed the detox and goes back out into the world, they are no longer taking drugs – not the drug they walked in on, and not the drug that helped them through withdrawal. Having come through withdrawal safely and relatively comfortably, the person can now get into full drug rehab, as needed, to address the reasons they turned to drugs or alcohol in the first place so they can fully handle their addiction. This bears no resemblance to ‘medication therapy’, and you should not confuse the two. I’ve worked with many families and friends of addicts over the years and most are looking for programs that don’t require a person to be drugged up on pharmaceuticals when they leave treatment. The fact that so many places are now promoting the use of these substitutes for any type of addiction was shocking to me, especially in light of the fact that none of the drug rehabs using this type of treatment have a decent success rate. How could they? They’re not addressing the problem in any way, shape or form. To the average person looking for help this may seem like the way to go. Personally, I would much rather not have to wake up every morning and take a pill just to get through the day. There are plenty of successful drug rehabs out there that don’t use ‘medication therapy, it’s just a matter of finding one that is the right fit for the user. If you’re looking for help for yourself or someone you love, my advice would be to ask for a drug-free drug rehab program.Labels: alcohol detox, detox, drug rehab, drug rehab program, stopping addiction, successful drug rehab, successful drug rehab program
-------- AUTHOR: Romie DATE: 4/13/2007 11:00:00 AM ----- BODY: Under the state of California’s Proposition 36, anyone convicted of drug possession has three chances to complete a drug and/or alcohol rehabilitation program before they are sent to prison to serve time for their offenses. According to a recent article released by the San Francisco Chronicle, an assessment of California’s Proposition 36 has just been done and shows that half of those sentenced to drug rehab never completed a program and a quarter never showed up. And even those that complete most treatment programs often do not end up staying off drugs long term as many programs offered have a permanent recovery rate of 3-10%. In fact, I spoke to a former addict who told me that while in a program he was told that only 1 out of 10 would complete it and out of those, one would stay off drugs. Currently in California, the governor demanded that judges be allowed to put those in jail who do not complete treatment and/or who continue to use drugs. But, statistics show that jailing drug addicts also does not solve the problem. There are a few drug rehab programs offered that have over 70% success rates for recovery but why are these not offered to those required to do treatment so that they have a very good chance for permanent recovery from addiction? Why would the government not fund or provide financing for those programs that achieve very good results? Are we setting drug addicts up for failure by allowing them to go to programs with low success rates? Article by Eric Digg It | Reddit | Newsvine Seed Add to your bookmarks in: del.icio.us | Yahoo! | Google | Furl | ma.gnolia | SpurlLabels: detox, political, rehab
-------- AUTHOR: Romie DATE: 4/05/2007 10:39:00 AM ----- BODY: Most people’s definition of detoxification is simply just withdrawing from the drug. In most cases, a medically-supervised withdrawal is not necessary, especially with most stimulants and even painkillers and heroin, although it is often preferred with the latter two. Even though a common aide is to have someone ‘sleep it off,’ alcohol and some other drugs can be very difficult to withdraw from when a person is consuming large quantities. Medical detoxification helps someone to systematically withdraw from alcohol or drugs by reducing the amount and/or using other medicines to ease the process and eliminate the risk of seizure and other severe drug withdrawal symptoms. People most often wanting or needing a medically-supervised detoxification before beginning addiction treatment include those on benzodiazapines (Xanax, Valium), opiates (prescription painkillers, heroin, methadone), barbiturates (Phenobarbital) and heavy amounts of alcohol. One main problem with this is, though, that many drug users will try to stop their treatment after detox thinking that their problem is solved, but in actual fact they are much better off statistically to go into a longer-term drug-free residential rehabilitation program after detoxification. In recent years there have also been other classes of prescribed drugs that require medical detox to step down from. These drugs include antipsychotics (Zyprexa, Risperdol, Seroquel), antidepressants (Paxil, Prozac, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, etc.) and other mind-altering prescriptions. Given that more information and side effects of these drugs are discovered each year, more and more people are deciding to not take them and are seeking alternative treatments. These types of drugs have very severe withdrawal symptoms and people coming down from them often experience sudden psychotic episodes, so stepping down gradually in a medically-supervised environment is a good approach rather than weaning down at home. Have you known anyone or heard stories of someone trying to withdraw from some of these drugs on their own? What was the result? Article by Eric Digg It | Reddit | Newsvine Seed Add to your bookmarks in: del.icio.us | Yahoo! | Google | Furl | ma.gnolia | SpurlLabels: alcohol, detox, general-drugs, prescription, rehab
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