Addiction Treatment Blog

One of the most controversial topics in recent times has been that regarding cannabis addiction. Some people believe that cannabis is not physically addictive, although it is impossible to deny the effects that it can have on an individual’s life.

One uncertainty regarding cannabis addiction is whether physical factors or psychological factors are the driving forces. There are many things that need to be focused on in order to determine whether a person is dependent on the drug. Most importantly you need to figure out if consumption is increasing every day.

Cannabis addiction can be difficult to assess, as people have a tendency to want to believe that they still have control over their lives. Most therapists who deal with drug addicts try to ascertain whether the addict is developing a tolerance to it. If more of the drug is required to get the same high, then it could be a serious problem.

Many addicts generally start off by trying a drug once, moving to once a week and then every day. This is when addiction takes hold.

If people who have tried quitting have found it extremely difficult, it could be that they are suffering with cannabis addiction, and they should seek help as a matter of urgency.

Cocaine is a white powder, derived from a South American coca plant, and is a stimulant that can be injected into the veins, smoked or snorted. Irrespective of the way in which cocaine is consumed, its effects are highly addictive.

In the short term, cocaine addiction can make a person feel unreasonable, irritable, restless, excitable and have difficulty sleeping. Cocaine addicts may also experience anxiety and hallucinations.

Physical effects of cocaine addiction include increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, enlarge pupils and rapid breathing.

Cocaine addiction can be difficult to diagnose, as there are very few cocaine addicts who will ever admit to being addicted- no matter how bad their life may become. The hard truth of drug addiction is often denial that there is any problem whatsoever.

If you have a loved one who is addicted to cocaine, taking them to a drug rehabilitation centre is one of the best things that you can ever do for them.

Rehab centres can help cocaine addicts to break free from their addictions and start to live a more normal life again.

Consuming alcohol at parties, restaurants, bars and clubs is normally called social drinking. However, some individuals get so used to drinking regularly that they find it difficult to cope without it, even in non social situations.

Alcohol addiction leads people to damaging their body and acting in a way that is completely out of character.

Alcohol addiction can make people lose their mental balance and addicts often don’t realise that the damage and pain not only affects them, but also their family and friends. There is an alarming rise in cases of suicides, domestic violence and accidents caused by alcoholism. Alcohol addiction can be as harmful as dreadful as drug abuse, and the importance of effective treatment is equally as important. Unfortunately, immediate withdrawal from severe addiction can also be harmful.

There are several reasons why people get addicted to alcohol:

• Some people consume alcohol to hide their feelings, emotions, depression and anxiety, which can soon become a habit.
• Many deal with loneliness by relying on alcohol.
• Alcoholism has not yet been proven to be hereditary, although many youngsters tend to imitate the actions of elders in their family.
• Mental illnesses can get worse with the consumption of alcohol and people with such problems can be more susceptible to addiction.
• Stress is another factor which can lead to people drinking regularly.

The thing to remember about alcohol addiction is that it often starts with a couple of drinks before becoming a big problem, and many people often don’t realise that they have a problem.

Alcohol addiction brings countless miseries into the lives of addicts and their families. The effects of alcohol addiction can be horrifying and widespread. These effects not only cause damage to the addict’s body, but their mental health and social life.

Negative effects of alcohol addiction include:

Physical disorders – Excess consumption of alcohol has a terrible effect on the body. It leads to cirrhosis of the liver, pancreatitis, alcoholic dementia, heart disease and in certain extreme cases death.

Severe loss of income – Alcohol addicts lose control on both their body and mind – failing to perform normal activities and putting their careers in jeopardy. Loss of income throws entire families into crisis which can lead to further addictive tendencies due to the depression and low self esteem.

Social stigma – Alcohol addiction brings with it a negative social stigma for the individual and whole family. It causes social isolation and severely strains relationships.

Treating an alcoholic is a tough task. You can’t always abruptly discontinue their consumption of alcohol as this can lead to convulsion, shakes and hallucination. Withdrawal needs to be controlled by medical practitioners. Treatment for alcohol addicts includes bringing about changes in behaviour and management of physical symptoms. This is done through medication and psychotherapy.

Social support is a critical component of alcohol addiction treatment. Rehabilitation centres help alcoholics to come out of addiction and live normal lives.

Is an addiction taking over your life? With any problem it is very difficult to acknowledge there is a problem and breaking the habit seems impossible. It can take over your life and cause problems in relationships, careers and finances. Seeking help from professionals may be the only way to control the habit. You may need them to help you set goals and targets to allow you to overcome this. However it can be tough and you may need to find the trigger for your relapses, to help you avoid them. This is where hypnosis comes in. Read more…

Tranquillity

Before the second half of the 19th century, the dominant medical and popular notions of disease rested on a humoral theory, first put forward by Hippocrates and Aristotle, and then Galen, later in the 2nd century AD. According to this theory, there were humours – phlegm, choler, bile and sanguine – and diseases resulted from an imbalance between them, or an imbalance between the humoral state of the individual and conditions in the environment (1).

A version of this theory survives to this day in the Chinese notions of yin and yang, which are popular in alternative medicine settings, and in the three dhosas of Ayurvedic medicine. The yin and yang notions and four humours theory are very similar in their trust. In each case what is aimed at is a state of harmony. Treatment consists of efforts to restore balance or internal equilibrium. Until the last century, this was done by regulating diet or by bleeding, purging, inducing vomiting, raising blisters (in which noxious vapours could collect), or giving a variety of tonics – agents that were stimulant or strengthening in some way. Diet and tonics of various sorts remain the most popular methods today. Read more…

Over the past two decades there appears to have been a shift within health care from an expectation that patients with medical problems should entrust themselves passively to the care of physicians to an expectation that they should co-operate in their own care and indeed have some responsibility for the outcome of medical procedures they undergo. The changes are reflected in the terms we used; the word patient, which means someone who endures, is being replaced by terms such as client or consumer, which suggest a more active and discriminating participant in the medical process.

Nowhere is this shift more clear than when it comes to the question of what is known as informed consent. Informed consent was not an issue in medical practice 20 years ago. Today it forms a central issue in a number of ethical codes from the Nuremberg Code to the Helsinki Code as well as Codes originating from the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) in the United States and the US Department of Health. Read more…

If the induction of appetites and cravings, which has been hitherto seen as psychological dependence, is not in fact any more psychological than the physical dependence that underlies withdrawal, is there any other psychology involved? There almost certainly is (1). For example LSD, phencyclidine and many of the new designer drugs do not cause either type 1 or 2 physical dependence. Yet they are increasingly abused, despite evidence that many of these compounds may be fatal. Phencyclidine, for example, has led to a considerable number of fatalities and, despite not leading to any obvious euphoria, during the 1980s became for a period the second most common drug of abuse in the USA. Why?

Common to many of these drugs is the fact that they alter consciousness and, as a result, are interesting to take. On tis basis, one explanation that may account psychedelics, opiates or alcohol, there is a certain amount of playful activity. Read more…

In 1954, Olds and Milner discovered that there appeared to be pleasure spots in the brain. Implanting electrodes in certain areas of the brain, through which a rat can give itself an electric current by pressing on a lever, produced in most brain areas nothing of note. In some areas, however, the rats seemed keen on the effects of self-stimulation and, in some cases, if left to their own devices would self-stimulate to the exclusion of all else – even food and drink.

As mentioned, noradrenaline was discovered in the brain in 1954. In 1959, a second catecolamine, dopamine, was identified, which was shown to be deficient in Parkinson’s disease.

The later mapping of dopamine-containing neurones has shown that they too, like noradrenergic neurones, tend to originate in a discrete area, the ventral tegmentum. Some of these neurones run to strictly motor areas of the brain and constitute the nigrostriatal system, and it is loss of nerve calls in this pathway that leads to Parkinson’s disease. Read more…

Separation Liability

Liability for drug induced injuries did not become an issue of general concern until quite recently. However, a number of drug-induced problems from thalidomide in the 1960s to Opren and diethylstilbestrol in the 1970s have caused widespread public disquiet and led to increasing awareness of issues to do with liability. In psychiatry, concern in the UK focuses on the question of benzodiazepine prescribing, while in the US the paramount issue concerns the occurrence of tardive dyskinesia in individuals taking neuroleptics. The question has become an emotive one with some commentators who survey the problem referring to the appalling frequency of drug-induced injury, while others comment on its astonishing tray (1). Whatever the absolute frequencies, contrary probably to public belief, the evidence suggests that the larger the pharmaceutical company, the better its practice regarding drug safety is likely to be (2).

Drug-induced problems may stem from toxic effects of a drug, or toxic effects caused by an impure additive, or from allergic reactions to the drug or its additive. Problems may also stem from over prescribing. For instance, in the case of someone who dies from a resistant bacterial infection, a relative could claim that the subject’s death arose in part from the excessive prescription of antibiotics that in its own right brings about the production of resistant infections. In the case of neuroleptics, problems may be brought about by the overuse of these drugs but this overuse, far from being solely promoted by drug companies stems in part from the current politics of mental health – deaths have stemmed from rapid tranquillisation often by harassed staff in psychiatric units. Read more…