Health Information Center

Some simple facts: Chronic pain affects one out of four adults; millions of people suffer from severe disabling pain. Once a patient addicted to pain killing drugs has completed detoxification, the treatment provider must then work with the patient to determine which course of treatment would be best for each patient. More than ten percent of high school seniors have started taking Vicodin for reasons other than reducing pain.

Opioids should never be taken when one is drinking alcohol (also a drug) or when alcohol may still be in the system. Patients can innocently start taking pain killers after a moderate injury or because of a severe injury in an automobile accident, fall or for post-operative pain. More than 2.2 million people aged 12 and up first abused painkillers within the past year; this is more than the number of people who had started using marijuana and has overtaken the use of cocaine.

Continue reading ‘Pain Killer Addiction – Stop Worrying – Act Now’ »

Why do some people choose to use drugs when they’re so bad for you? The causes of drug addiction are as varied as the amount of drugs that are available for use – both legally and illegally. There is no one cause for drug addiction just like there is no consistent profile of a drug user.

People who have a history of drug use or abuse in their families are at risk for drug addiction problems. It has been proven that children of alcoholics will exhibit addictive tendencies. Children of alcoholics or drug users generally have low self-esteem and see their parents escaping from problems using drugs. When they see this, their minds say that this is the way to act and they themselves become users.

There is also a biological basis for causing drug addiction. Drugs alter the brain’s chemicals and the way the brain functions. Drug addiction creates dependence in the brain by changing the brain’s reward functions – the part that reinforces certain behaviors.

Continue reading ‘What Leads To Drug Addiction?’ »

Everybody comes home from a long day and thinks about sitting on the couch while cracking open an ice-cold beer. After all, that is the reason it was created, to be a refreshing and relaxing drink enjoyed after a hard day’s work. Nobody could have possibly guessed that it would become such an addicting and dangerous substance. On the other hand, if consumed responsibly and drank on occasion, it is very unlikely that a person will become reliant on it. However, this is not always the case in everyone’s life.

Unfortunately, there are people out there that choose excessive drinking every day, and sometime multiple times a day, and these people end up becoming an alcoholic. Alcoholics usually end up causing a lot of damage due to their addiction. For instance, alcohol can severely damage your liver, ruin relationships with loved ones, get you in trouble with the law, and strain a person’s financial funding.

When people finally see that they have a problem, there are actions that can be taken to help alcoholics find their way back. Society has come up with alcohol rehab centers that help alcoholics get sober.

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Many people who have been addicted to something could attest than withdrawing from it is no joke. Take for example a woman who could not sleep at night without getting a can of soda or a man who needs to get a few cigarettes before going to work. Alcoholism withdrawal is the symptoms that one may experience after abruptly quitting their addiction or prolonged use of drinking alcohol. Most people who just suddenly decide to quit drinking suffer more than other addicts in other habits do. Therefore, it is very advisable to seek out a physician’s advice before deciding to quit from your addiction. For most people, it can be severe and unmanageable. Some are lucky enough to be able to survive and recover from the many after-effects of refraining from their old addiction.

There are many symptoms from alcoholism withdrawal and it varies due to many factors but here are some of the most common and it usually happens to everyone that suffers it. First, to be triggered is an individual’s anxiety. This is the most common reaction to all who have just recently quit a long-term habit. Others include being irritable, feeling nervous, tired, depressed, difficulty in sleeping. It is also common for most people to experience sudden mood swings, constant nightmares, loss of appetite, and loss of sense of balance, vomiting and sweating excessively. For some people, severe symptoms may occur such as convulsions, mental blackouts, hysteria and confusion. The effect varies from person to person and it is very important to seek out medical help from experts to prevent further damages.

Continue reading ‘The Signs of Alcoholism Withdrawal’ »

I recently interviewed an administrator in an addiction treatment center and found out that when clients come to them for help with a prescription drug addiction or abuse problem, they’re not just taking one or two drugs; it’s closer to 15.

The term ‘drug of choice’ has been around for a long time. But when it comes to the way young people are taking prescription drugs, the term has become obsolete. They take whatever’s going.

They often get them from parents’ and friends’ medicine cabinets, take the pills themselves, offer them to friends, and dump them in bowls at parties where anyone can take whatever strikes their fancy.

Continue reading ‘When Young People Take Prescription Drugs, They Don't Stop at One Or Two’ »

Drug addiction is a serious problem. The medical community now views addiction as a disease or illness because it has both mental and physical effects on the abuser. Detoxification and rehabilitation are often necessary methods for treating the problem, though it depends on the nature of the abuse. If the problem is severe, long term drug treatment is often required to help someone recover and remain drug free.

Long term programs can be very helpful to someone that can’t quit on their own and can reset to both a residential setting as well as an outpatient ongoing environment that provides counseling and support. They are comprehensive programs that include several elements. At a rehab facility, each program is customized to meet the needs of the individual addict and contain both group therapy and individual meetings with staff. There are also people that have succeeded in overcoming their drug problem by attending narcotics anonymous meetings and regularly attending in order to not slip back into old patterns of abuse.

Individual psychotherapy is also responsible for some people being able to remain consistent in staying drug free. Some say that long term drug treatment outpatient care is the foundation of any successful program. The recovering addict receives a broad range of testing and medical attention. Drug abuses causes a lot of damage to the body and regular checks are necessary to ensure that serious issues are caught, treated, and monitored as soon as possible. Outpatient programs also include any medications that may be needed and monitoring their levels and use.

Continue reading ‘Long Term Drug Treatment Programs – Get Out of the Cycle and Back to Your Self’ »

Chronic pain affects one out of three or four adults; millions of people suffer from severe disabling pain. If you think you are addicted and want to get off pain killers or other drugs, it’s best to get detoxified as fast as you can and then go through some type of rehabilitation; it’s important to have others to lean on and learn from and offer support to you. Patients can innocently start taking pain killers after a moderate injury or because of a severe injury in an automobile accident, fall or for post surgical pain.

There are a number of effective treatment options to treat pain killer addiction to prescription opioids and to help manage the sometimes severe withdrawal symptoms that can accompany sudden stopping of pain killers or drugs. Pain killer addiction includes: opiate dependency, opiate addiction, narcotic dependency, narcotic addiction, and pain killer dependency or painkiller dependency. An opioid-dependent pain patient has improved function with the use of the drug while an opioid-addicted patient does not have improvement.

Continue reading ‘Pain Killer Addiction – Take Control Of Your Life Today – Be Well Tomorrow’ »

If you’re an opiate addict today, nobody is quite sure what to do with you. You buck the trend, you don’t quite fit into any of the pre-defined categories of substance abuse and your addiction doesn’t progress in a linear and predictable fashion. You’re different and that makes you very difficult to treat…or rather, it makes “The Opiate Addict” in general very difficult to treat. Most of the drug-rehabilitation community has no clue how to treat your addiction the way that you need to be treated and it’s driving everybody nuts…especially you.

Let me explain. Have you heard the term “evidence-based medicine” before? Well, I could write a long, nauseatingly boring essay on the central tenets of evidence-based medicine but I’ll spare you and just give you the basics. As a result of numerous factors including, managed care, litigation, legislation and a bunch of other issues that don’t have to do with you, doctors have been “forced” to adopt treatment protocols as opposed to being able to treat you based on their intuition and what their experience has taught them. For instance, if you go into your doctor with a series of symptoms, your doctor will most likely treat you based on what the “data” has shown to be clinically effective as opposed to what his or her experience has taught them. The “data” that I’m talking about includes, clinical trials, other studies, clinical abstracts, clinical advisory panels etc. etc. The data is the “evidence” in evidence-based medicine. So you could say that most doctors these days are going to treat you based on the odds and pre-defined clinical protocols rather than treating you as an individual case with unique circumstances. And most of the time, these clinical protocols work…but sometimes you could be the odd man out. It’s all about risk-avoidance and not necessarily about good medicine. Again, I don’t fault the doctors for protecting themselves against lawsuits and to their credit they are also following clinical protocols because that provides you with the best chance of getting your treatment paid for. If the insurance company sees that your doctor is not practicing “evidence-based medicine” they are not going to pay for it.

Continue reading ‘Opiate Addiction – A New Breed of Drug Dependency Warrants Unique Approach’ »

Many concepts have seen a transformation in past two centuries and one of them is change in moral and cultural values of societies. Use of Alcohol was previously seen as a status symbol, but with time, it turned into a form of addiction for many. Reasons and factors did vary from regions and different cultures.

Unfortunately, it took more time to realise that alcoholism is a drug addiction. “Because we have been led to believe that drug addiction or alcohol addiction is a disease. We have been told that the only way to “recover” is to attend treatment and endless AA, NA meetings for the rest of our lives. ”

Any drug addiction including alcohol addiction is not a disease rather a choice. One does not has to be a passive bystander to an illusory disease of drug addiction or alcohol addiction; one should give up his will; be marked as an alcoholic or “in recovery”; or turn up meetings and treatment for the rest of his/her life!

Continue reading ‘Is Alcoholism a Drug Addiction?’ »

What is Addiction?
Addiction is obsession, compulsion or psychological dependence on any specific thing. It’s a kind of situation in which you can’t resist against that particular thing. In this condition people don’t think about the side effects of the use of that thing and continues to use them. They feel more pleasure in using them and they don’t realize that they are harming their health and social life. To get pleasure from that product they often use illegitimate sources to get money. In this condition substance abuse is a main thing which affects people badly.

Types of Addiction:
If we talk about types of addictions, then we will find that there are many common addictions. There are many substances which are commonly known as source of addictions like abusive drugs (heroine, hashish etc), but everything which a person cannot resist and becoming dependent on them and feel really depressed without that substance becomes addiction regardless of how much it is useful. Using anything more than it is needed becomes addiction. Drug addiction, crime addiction, pornography addiction, computer or internet addiction, games addiction, nicotine addiction, food addiction, sex addiction are some of the common addictions. A person can be addicted to anything which gives him some kind of pleasure and in the absence of it a person feels withdrawal symptoms.

Continue reading ‘The Problems Of Addiction’ »