Opioid Addiction Treatment – Opioids are a class of drugs that includes both prescription and illegal painkillers. Heroin, hydrocodone, oxycodone, and codeine are a few examples of opioids. Opioid addiction treatment is designed to help the person wean off the drug while working on overcoming the psychological effects of addiction.

Signs of Opioid Addiction

The signs of opioid addiction may be more evident in illicit drug users than in patients dependent on prescription medications. Nevertheless, the signs of addiction are similar for all opioids.

An addict may exhibit some or all of the following symptoms:

• Using more of the drug than prescribed by the doctor
• Crushing pills and snorting or injecting them
• Track marks or small sores on the arms, feet or other areas caused by injecting opioids
• Slurred speech, sedation, sluggishness, a slow pulse, and difficulty keeping the head up
• Complaints of pain and using medication to treat it long after the pain symptoms should have abated
• Spending a considerable amount of time obtaining, using, and recovering from opioid use
• Experiencing adverse life consequences related to opioid use, such as legal problems, financial difficulties, and strained interpersonal relationships
• Refusing to acknowledge that a problem exists despite the aforementioned signs to the contrary.

Physical symptoms may include the following:

When any of these signs or symptoms of drug abuse are present, it is time to start investigating opioid addiction treatment options.

Help for Opioid Addicts

Regardless of whether it takes place on an inpatient or outpatient basis, opioid addiction treatment begins with detox and addressing the symptoms associated with withdrawal. This treatment involves a process that can last for several days. According to statistical evidence, a detox program provides the best results if medication-assisted therapy is implemented.

All opioid addiction treatment programs should begin with some version of detox. Most individuals suffering from addiction need medical care during the process to prevent relapse, relieve withdrawal symptoms, and forestall any other complications that may occur.

Opioid withdrawal is very unpleasant, and heavy users may encounter the most severe symptoms. Fortunately, detox programs often include medications such as naltrexone and buprenorphine, which attach to opioid receptors in the body and reduce withdrawal symptoms and cravings without activating them or inducing euphoria.

In limited doses, these drugs help the body through withdrawal with minimal discomfort. Patients will continue the medical treatment through the next stage of recovery and beyond.

Inpatient Opioid Rehab

Opioid patients, like other drug addicts, receive psychiatric treatment in rehab. This process helps them get to the heart of their addiction, identify alternative ways to cope, and learn the skills needed to prevent relapse in the future.

Exercise, nutrition, mental health evaluations, counseling, and group support supplement the treatment. Medical providers also devise structured pain management programs to help prescription opioid addicts manage the pain that contributed to their addiction.

Inpatient or residential treatment for opioid addiction may go beyond the typical month-long rehab. Opioids take longer to clear the body and require more coping mechanisms and monitoring than many other drugs do. The duration of a patient’s stay depends on the severity of his or her addiction and the underlying factors driving it.

Intensive Outpatient Rehab

People who choose intensive outpatient rehab may still receive medications to prevent withdrawal symptoms and to assist in the recovery process. They reside at home, go to work, and are able to spend time with friends and family. However, they also have scheduled clinic visits, ranging from daily to twice per week, to receive addiction treatment.

These patients also receive individual and group therapies. They are offered pain management assistance from a doctor and mental health assessments as well. Individuals in this program can expect to go to the treatment clinic between two and seven days each week for a period ranging from several months to a year.

Aftercare

After completing the program, people can continue treatment with periodic group meetings and visits with a counselor. Some patients choose to stay in sober living homes that provide some level of supervision to help them transition back to society.

All patients can take advantage of aftercare planning that will identify local counselors or therapies that can continue their treatment and other resources for long-term support.

Getting Treatment

If you or someone you love is suffering from an addiction to prescription or illicit opioids, contact us as soon as possible to discuss treatment options. Harmony Ridge Recovery offers a complete continuum of care from detox to inpatient and aftercare.

We employ medical professionals who specialize in addiction and are trained to deliver therapeutic services with care and expertise. We aim to provide all clients with the tools and support they so direly need to overcome addiction and experience long-lasting sobriety and wellness!

How to Reduce Anxiety Without Substance Abuse – Anxiety, although it is an entirely normal human experience, is also an emotional response that can cause us to over-analyze situations and paralyze us when we encounter critical decisions. An anxiety disorder may develop when anxiety continues for a prolonged period and begins to interfere with daily functioning.

Anxiety is an unpleasant and sometimes terrifying emotion, and it’s completely understandable that some people try to find ways to reduce, prevent, or block these feelings. While drugs and alcohol may alleviate anxious feelings in the short term, substance abuse can make anxiety worse in the long run.

Fortunately, there are much better, healthier ways to reduce anxiety than through the use of drugs and alcohol.

Common Symptoms of Anxiety

People who experience these feelings often engage in unhealthy behaviors as a means to escape, prevent, or mitigate anxiety, such as:

• Avoiding situations that foster anxious feelings
• Withdrawing from others/social isolation
• Abusing substances to self-medicate

These means of addressing anxiety may be somewhat helpful in the short-term but can result in chronic problems. Moreover, they disconnect individuals from their potential support networks and can worsen the underlying problems that contribute to anxiety instead of resolving them.

Why Do People Use Substances to Deal With Anxiety?

The answer may seem obvious at first, but there’s actually a real science behind it. In research, people with chronic anxiety have been shown to have an overactive amygdala, a region of the brain that is responsible for fear and anxiety-related memories. The amygdala interacts with a stress response subsystem in the body called the HPA axis.

The HPA axis, also called the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, is a complex set of interactions between the hypothalamus and the pituitary glands in the brain and the adrenal glands that are located at the top of each kidney. The HPA axis is associated with stress and is responsible for the release of cortisol, which prepares the body for a fight-or-flight response.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that counteracts the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate. GABA can suppress thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, while glutamate leads to an excitatory effect. The balance between these two chemicals greatly contributes to whether a person is feeling relaxed and calm or alert and anxious.

Other chemicals, namely dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, also play a vital role in the development of emotional states such as anxiety. Pharmaceuticals can address a chemical imbalance issue by using agents that target and modify the GABA system in a way that reduces anxiety.

Some people resort to using central nervous system depressants to cope with anxiety because they increase GABA activity, which in turn increases feelings of relaxation. Unfortunately, however, it’s only a short-term reprieve from stress.

How to Reduce Anxiety Substance-Free

Fortunately, many self-help methods target the same anti-stress mechanisms in the brain that do not produce the adverse effects that alcohol and drugs wreak on one’s life.

Mindfulness & Meditation

Mindfulness is a method of focusing that helps the person practicing become more connected to his or her thoughts, emotions, and body. There are many ways to integrate mindfulness in one’s life, and getting started is simple.

To begin, sit in a relaxed position and breathe deeply. Breath in slowly and hold it for four seconds, and gradually release it over five seconds. Pay close attention to breathing, and if the mind begins to wander, acknowledge the thought without judgment and then let it go. Return to focusing on the breath.

Mindfulness helps the practicing individual remain firmly in the present without ruminating over the past or worrying about the future. It has also been shown to promote inhibitory control in the brain, which is precisely the remedy for anxiety.

Yoga

Like mindfulness, yoga is another practice that reduces anxiety through breathing and centered attention on the body. Yoga requires deep breathing during uncomfortable and sometimes awkward positions and encourages people to breathe through stress using only the mind and body. It does this, in part, because it increases GABA levels which promotes relaxation.

Biofeedback

Biofeedback is an effective, evidence-based treatment for anxiety that teaches a person how to respond to anxious thoughts and feelings properly. Biofeedback employs an electronic instrument that displays involuntary physiological processes so that a person can learn to affect those processes by modifying their thought processes voluntarily.

In essence, biofeedback allows a person to view his or her physiological responses to stress and learn how to control them without the use of drugs.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Mental health professionals often use cognitive-behavioral therapy as a technique to identify, challenge, and modify thought processes to alleviate the symptoms of anxiety. CBT is goal-oriented and often requires the participant to engage in activities and practice at home outside of therapy.

Part of feeling anxious involves one’s own interpretation of biological and chemical changes. CBT works to reframe negative beliefs and thinking patterns, helping people mitigate their subjective experience of anxiety.

Make Informed and Healthy Choices

Certain lifestyle choices can affect our mental and emotional state and hinder or promote our ability to deal with stress. Positive, healthy practices, such as the following, can serve to reduce stress and increase resilience and overall well-being:

Treatment for Co-Occurring Conditions

Integrated treatment is a comprehensive rehab program that provides all the medical, therapeutic, and holistic resources essential to help clients heal physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Each client should have a customized treatment plan, but for those who are living with both an addiction disorder and a mental health disorder, an integrated treatment program may typically include the following services:

Medical Detox

For those who struggle with drug or alcohol addiction, the detox period, or the first days following the cessation of substance use, can be characterized by unpleasant physical and mental withdrawal symptoms. Detox services provide medical and mental health support to clients with and monitoring, if needed, to help them stabilize during treatment.

Evaluation and Diagnosis

To ensure that all co-occurring mental health symptoms are accurately diagnosed, an evaluation is the next step in integrated treatment. Also, all other issues that may be barriers in the client’s path to recovery are identified.

Based on the evaluation results and the reported experiences of the client, diagnoses are identified to help the client understand and frame past experiences and prepare for the future.

Treatment Plan

A customized treatment plan is developed for each client that combines an array of therapeutic and medical interventions with the objective of empowering the client to recover from addiction, learn how to manage mental health conditions, and address personal issues that may be problematic.

Individual Therapy

One-on-one therapy is the basis for recovery, as it provides the client with a safe and confidential forum to address past experiences, current issues, changes that occur during therapy, and goals for the future. As treatment goals are achieved based on the initial treatment plan, the client can collaborate with the therapist to identify new therapy goals and modify the treatment plan accordingly.

Group Therapy

There are a variety of groups that may be employed as part of an integrated treatment program. These include 12-Step groups, groups that focus on a specific aspect of addiction, support groups for people who experience the same mental health issues, and groups that help members cope with a commonly shared life issue such as parenting or legal problems.

Family Therapy

Working together with loved ones to repair relationships damaged during active addiction and untreated mental health symptoms can play a huge role in recovery, especially if the client will be returning home to live with family members after treatment has been completed.

Aftercare

Before leaving treatment, clients are urged to work with a therapist to create an aftercare plan. Similar to the treatment plan, this should include a combination of therapeutic services that serve the treatment goals and needs of the client during and after the transition into independent living.

Getting Help for Addiction and Mental Illness

Using an integrated approach to addiction and the factors that drive it, we provide patients with the tools and support they so direly need to achieve a full recovery and enjoy long-lasting sobriety and wellness.

If you are suffering from an addiction to drugs or alcohol and a co-occurring mental illness, please contact us today!

What does it mean to carry a dual diagnosis? Is that when you have a broken leg and the flu? Plenty of patients have more than one illness or diagnosis at any given time but when we talk about dual diagnosis, we’re specifically talking about a diagnosis of a mental illness or disorder in combination with an addiction. An alcoholic with severe anxiety or a heroin addict with bipolar disorder are examples of a dual diagnosis.

Let’s learn more about dual diagnosis and its treatment including examples of dual diagnoses, why it’s so difficult to treat, what treatments are used, and how those suffering from dual diagnoses can get help.

Different Types of Dual Diagnosis

Dual diagnosis comes in many forms which makes treating it a unique challenge. A patient could be an alcoholic with clinical depression or an opioid user with a nasty case of OCD. Similar issues but several subtle differences. Because there is such a variety of dual diagnoses, treating them can be difficult. Let’s learn how modern drug treatment facilities and other centers tackle dual diagnosis.

Treating Dual Diagnosis

Dual diagnoses are notoriously difficult to treat for several reasons, but they are treatable. One factor that makes treatment of dual diagnoses so difficult is the chicken or egg situation.

Treatment professionals must figure out if the addiction is playing into the mental illness, the other way around, or if the two conditions are mutually exclusive. Did the patient turn to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate their depression or did they become clinically depressed only after the addiction took hold? Was the patient already genetically predisposed to both mood disorders and addiction? Determining where different problems stem from and how they interact with each other plays a large part in determining success.

Doctors may talk long patient histories, involve the patient with more counseling, or utilize several therapies that are proven effective against addiction and mental disorders. Common therapies include cognitive-behavioral therapy, group counseling, eye movement sensitization and reprocessing, neurofeedback therapy and much more.

Therapies Used for Dual Diagnosis

Which type of therapies are used for dual diagnosis depend on the individual diagnoses. You won’t use the same techniques to treat major depression as you would treat PTSD and the same applies to addiction. Though every diagnosis gets its own unique treatment, there are some guidelines you can expect for therapy.

Getting Clean

You will not have the capacity to combat your other disorders or learn to grow as a person if you’re still drinking or using drugs. Treating immediate addiction is one of the first steps in treating any dual diagnosis. Again, what type of drug or alcohol treatment you receive depends on the individual situation, but most modern centers use a combination of counseling, pharmaceuticals, and good old-fashioned psychology to help you flush the drugs from your system with a positive attitude and get ready for long-term sobriety.

Because dual diagnosis needs more specialized care you may have to move to another treatment facility or seek another form of counseling after your initial detox period. The standard 28-day inpatient rehab treatment is generally not enough to beat dual diagnosis.

Medication / Nutrition & Supplements

Medication with proper nutrition habits and supplements are often used in dual diagnosis. While addiction alone doesn’t often come with long-term medication, dual diagnosis can. Doctors may prescribe antidepressants along with other medications as well recommend supplements to help your recovery. You will also receive lessons on diet, nutrition, exercise, and how some foods can give you a huge boost. Many addicts shy away from doctor-prescribed pills but in the case of dual diagnosis, it could be a life-saver.

Can You go to Any Treatment Center for Dual Diagnosis?

Though all mental disorders can cause severe issues and consequences, most modern addiction treatment centers are much more concerned with treating the immediate addiction before touching on other disorders. There are dozens of reputable and licensed drug and treatment centers across the country, but many are not equipped with personnel and strategy to correctly address a dual diagnosis during short-term treatment.

If you think you carry a dual diagnosis you will need to take extra care if you’re seeking drug and alcohol treatment. You will need to search specifically for treatment centers equipped to handle other issues outside of immediate addiction. It will take more time, will leave you fewer options, and may ultimately cost more but your chances of beating both your addiction and other disorders rise significantly when you choose a treatment center that is proven to handle both.

Women and Dual Diagnosis

Women are more likely to be diagnosed with a mood disorder on top of addiction more than men. It is not known if women suffer a higher frequency of mood disorders or if men simply don’t report or seek treatment but statistically women are more likely to suffer from dual diagnosis.

Women seeking treatment for dual diagnosis are likely to enjoy more success in a gender-specific rehab program that is equipped for dual diagnoses. The good news is that female-oriented treatment programs tend to put more emphasis on treating issues outside of addiction. Like any other type of treatment, a more specialized and targeted form of treatment can better help women recover from their unique issues.

Getting Help for Dual Diagnosis

If you or a loved one is suffering from a dual diagnosis, chances are good that life is difficult. If you need help treating your dual diagnosis get on the phone or head online to find treatment centers in your area. Because dual diagnosis is difficult to treat you will need to search for a treatment option that has the staff and knowledge to cater to your needs. Searching can be difficult but you can’t get help until you reach out – pick up the phone today.