Drug and Alcohol Blog

Everyone probably knows someone who knows someone or heard of someone who is an alcoholic and down on his or her luck, but alcoholism effects many more people that we may know. It’s not the bums on the corner and those who have literally lost everything who have problems with alcohol, but also those who drink every single day without fail, those who have racked up DUI charges, those who don’t know when to stop drinking at a sitting and end up drunk every time, and these are everyday people. We all know them. Perhaps some of us have been them. Generally, I like to classify addiction as the condition which causes life to become unmanageable, but just because someone may drink everyday does not make his or her life unmanageable, right? Surely, this person could skip a day of drinking, but could they skip an entire week of consuming alcohol? What about a month? Even if this person never gets drunk from drinking everyday, it’s still a dependency forming habit and my guess would be that after a year of drinking on a daily basis, it would be virtually impossible for an individual to stop drinking for more than a few days. Does this make him a raging alcoholic? No, this makes him a functioning alcoholic and sometimes, functioning alcoholics are more dangerous than than those who are obvious with their alcoholism. No matter how it manifests itself, alcoholism is a deadly disease and kills from the inside out causing liver failure, organ shutdown and host of other serious health issues. For subtle alcoholism, the signs are hardly noticeable, and the alcoholic seems to have everything in order at home, at work, in his or her relationships, and generally gives no signs of trouble.

There is no science as to why some people are able to remain functioning alcoholics for long periods of time and others cannot hide their alcoholism, and seem to be screaming that there is a problem from the beginning. No matter what kind of alcoholic an individual may be, alcoholism is alcoholism and it’s danger is the same from one individual to the next. Regardless of how functional an alcoholic may be, there are always signs. This is why it is so important to know the warning signs, because to someone akin to these signs, even the most functional alcoholic cannot hide his problems.

Addiction is characterized as uncontrollable compulsive behavior, often that results in life becoming unmanageable and needing change. Most commonly, drug and alcohol addictions are treated through attending a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. Proven to be highly successful and powerful tools in the struggle to find recovery from addiction, these programs have helped countless drug and alcohol addicts throughout the years.
Along with drug and alcohol addiction, society has also felt the devastating effects of other addictions such as sexual addiction, gambling addiction, internet addiction, sexual addiction, and gaming addiction. Unfortunately, these kinds of addictions, while very real, do not receive the same amount of attention, research and treatment as do drug and alcohol addictions. far fewer addiction treatment centers address the problems associated with these kinds of addictions than drug and alcohol. Generally, people believe that sexual, gambling, gaming, and shopping addictions are not life threatening since there is no chemical substance involved. The truth is that an addiction is an addiction and it is not controllable. People affected by these more obscure addictions will resort to some of the same immoral and uncharacteristic behaviors to continue in their addiction as do those addicted to drugs and alcohol. These kinds of behaviors can prove to be very dangerous and destructive.
No matter what the addiction, individuals struggling with this dangerous, compulsive disease are at a great risk of not only losing everything they hold dear in their lives, but also their own personal health and safety. It is unfortunate that there has not been more research into gambling addiction, sexual addiction, shopping addiction, and gaming addiction, but many of the mainstream addiction treatment centers will do all they can to address these problems although their primary focus is drug and alcohol addiction.

Detox is probably the most dreaded part of drug and alcohol rehab. Detox is the physical withdrawal of the substance from the human body and for certain substances, can be very dangerous and requires medical monitoring.
Depending on the substance of abuse, detox symptoms can range from excessive sleep for numerous days to seizures, blackouts, and severe fever. Often for stimulant drugs such as cocaine, crack, methamphetamines and certain ADHD prescriptions, detox is generally not dangerous and consists mainly of extreme agitation, excessive sleep, moodiness, and fatigue. These symptoms can last up to a week and do not typically cause any permanent damage to the brain or body.
For drugs falling the opiate classification, detox can be much more jarring, including symptoms of nausea, diarrhea, muscle aches, vomiting, runny nose, high fever, and muscle spasms of the arms and legs. Opiate detox often requires medical monitoring because of the severe symptoms and extreme discomfort of the individual experiencing them. While opiate detox does not generally cause death or any permanent damage to the brain or body, it is a painful process that usually peaks around 72 hours after the last opiate dosage and can last for up to 10 days before subsiding.
For drugs in the benzodiazepine group such as Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, and Valium, detox can be quite dangerous and does require medical monitoring. The symptoms of benzodiazepine detox mimic the very symptoms they are indicated to treat - seizures and severe anxiety. Accompanying these detox symptoms are also high blood pressure and increased heart rate, symptoms also commonly treated with benzodiazepines. A person who has suddenly ceased use of a benzodiazepine can experience mild to very severe symptoms and because of the dangerous risk of cardiac arrest and other complications from seizures and increase heart rate and blood pressure, medical staff and equipment are highly recommended for the detox.
Detox from alcohol can also a very dangerous process as the detox symptoms range from mild to severe delirium tremors (DTs), seizures, cold sweats, high blood pressure, nausea, and vomiting. Detox from alcohol can be dangerous and a physician should be consulted before attempting to undergo alcohol detox alone.

In general detox is a very unpleasant experience for any addict, but required to receive drug and alcohol rehab. In many cases of addiction, it is the detox symptoms (withdrawal) that motivates addicts to continue use. They simply cannot handle the discomfort and pain of detox symptoms on their own. always consult a physician before attempting to detox yourself from any substance.

With the persistent growth of drug and alcohol addiction in our society, methodologies, philosophies and opinions on drug and alcohol rehab have grown exponentially. This blog has been designed to serve as a public forum open to all with questions, opinions, and experiences relating to drug and alcohol rehab.

Often, the search for drug and alcohol rehabilitation is daunting and can result in poor, uneducated decision making due to lack of knowledge of various kinds of drug rehab and the specific conditions requiring specialized treatment. Getting a handle on this information can require a great deal of time consuming research and we constantly strive to make the search for drug and alcohol rehab less daunting and more informational through comprehensive websites, free assessments, blogs, and interactive drug and alcohol program directories.

We encourage open contribution to this blog regarding drug and alcohol rehab news and developments, experiences within or from substance abuse rehabilitation problems and resources, as well as any and all questions regarding recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.