Drug Abuse
The Encarta dictionary defines drug
abuse as ‘the harmful and illegal non-medicinal use of drugs or alcohol’.
Drug
abuse usually begins in an effort to relieve some sort of pain or discomfort; this could be emotion, mental, or physical.
Many drugs do this, but only temporarily and generally when the drug wears off the pains and discomforts remain, often times worsened.
Since they worked once more drugs are used in an effort to obtain further relief, and since tolerance builds up in most cases more and more of the drug or alcohol is needed.
More and more of the person’s life centers around obtaining and using drugs. The drugs and alcohol have long ceased to cure any problems and have themselves now become the problem. At this point,
drug abuse involves abuse of finances, relationships, health, career, etc. When one handles the reasons for the initial
drug abuse the need for drugs fades away.
Drug Rehab Information By State
When considering effective
addiction treatment drug
rehab locations are one of the factors to be considered.
Generally a rural location far from the addict’s usual environment is usually a better choice than urban and close to home.
As most drug
rehab facilities are not lock down facilities and can’t force someone to stay, the further away they are from familiar turf and easy access to drug sources the better.
Addicts will often second guess the decision to receive treatment, especially at the beginning.
This stems from cravings, guilt, and depression that cause them to want to run to drugs as the solution they always used before when these symptoms set in. When the logistics are more complicated than simply walking out the door and going to the nearest corner dealer it allows the time needed to think things through and most often keeps the addict in
treatment when he or she may otherwise leave.
Executive Director of Narconon Arrowhead Gary W. Smith reports, ‘Although the number of people coming to us who are abusing pot is a smaller percentage of our total clientele, in the 30 years I have been in the drug
rehabilitation field I have not seen these numbers of individuals literally hooked on marijuana and unable to stop on their own.
We’ve known for a long time that marijuana use can lead to other drugs but it is shocking to see people whose lives are being destroyed by smoking pot just like others we are treating who are addicted to crack or alcohol.
I believe this is happening because the strength of the pot that is being smoked today is probably ten times stronger than the pot of 20 years ago.’
Rehabilitate means to return to a previous condition or an improvement of even that.
An
addiction rehab that is truly effective will bypass restoring the individual to a previous condition and go straight for an improvement of even that.
The reasoning is relatively simple.
The previous condition obviously contributed to and led up to the drug
abuse and
addiction to begin with.
If one is trying to insure a drug free productive condition that will last a lifetime than one better locate, address, and fully resolve those past factors that contributed to and let up to the addiction initially and then kept it going.
When you consume more drugs than your body can tolerate a
drug overdose can occur.
Most drugs create a tolerance with increasing amounts needed to create the same effects. Drug abusers and addicts are constantly faced with the risk of a drug overdose. There can be a fine line between getting the high they're seeking and overdose leading to serious injury or death. Mixing drugs such as heroin, pills and alcohol is the most common cause of death by overdose.
More and more participants in drug
rehabilitation are reporting multiple drugs being
abuse simultaneously. This vastly increases the medical complications that can result from this dangerous mixing of drug ‘cocktails’.
This is all in
addiction to the sometimes life threatening side effects that can occur from abusing
prescription drugs especially painkillers and anti-depressants.
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