PRESCRIPTION DRUG ADDICTION

Prescription Drug Addiction

Prescription drug addiction is, to put it bluntly, a deadly foe. Drug use and abuse impact the lives of millions of Americans, and only professional drug treatment and drug rehab can help addicts meet their long-term sobriety goals. If you or someone you love has succumbed to substance abuse, you need help today.

Prescription drug addiction is especially insidious because it tends to sneak up on those that it afflicts: Prescription drug abusers generally don’t know they’re becoming prescription drug abusers until it’s already too late. By the time evidence of the problem becomes readily apparent, prescription drug addiction has often laid claim to another victim.

Even more importantly, no one is immune to prescription drug addiction. Drug dependency is an equal opportunity disease: It affects everyone, regardless of race or class or age or anything else. Living in a nice neighborhood won’t protect you from prescription drug abuse. Neither will driving a fancy car or sporting a big bank account. Drug abuse can happen to anyone, and he who denies prescription drug addiction is bound for a most unfortunate collision with the truth.

The good news is that prescription drug addiction, for all the pain and suffering associated with it, doesn’t have to be the end of the story: Substance abuse recovery is a real thing for millions of Americans, and it can be real for you too. The key to successful drug rehab lies in self-education, and in the patient’s willingness to see the drug treatment process through to its conclusion. To beat prescription drug addiction, you’ve got to see it for what it actually is, and you’ve got to resolve to help others help you get better.

If you’ve made it this far, you already know the stakes: You know that prescription drug addiction ruins lives, and you know that the status quo, for you and your loved ones, just won’t cut it anymore. At The Addiction Recovery Center, we can help you overcome prescription drug addiction, but you’ve got to be an active agent in your own recovery. With so much on the line, you can’t afford to leave the future in anyone else’s hands. For more information or help finding the right drug treatment facility for you, call the professionals at The Addiction Recovery Center Addiction Treatment Programs 1-888-510-2481 or visit http://thewatershed.com.

Drug Abuse and Drug Addiction

Again, the first rule of drug recovery: You can’t beat drug abuse unless you understand it. Drug addiction is the product of an underlying disease, and the symptoms of drug abuse are hard to miss. Knowing exactly what you’re up against is a key to the ultimate success of your drug treatment center experience.

In 2004, the United States Department of Health and Human Services found that more than twelve million Americans demonstrated signs of unhealthy substance abuse. That is, to say the least, a most troubling figure: a number that represents almost five percent of the total American population.

Studies have also indicated that as many as three million Americans use prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes in any given year. Such prescription drug addiction is unsettling for two reasons: Its connection to teenage drug abuse and the risk it carries of overdose and death.

The number of youths between the ages of twelve and seventeen who reported prescription drug abuse suggests that the fight against the disease is one that will shape the very future of our national society. More to the point, it is in many ways a fight against death itself: Prescription drug addiction accounts for a disproportionate percentage of annual drug-related emergency room visits in the United States, and chronic prescription drug abuse leaves addicts particularly predisposed to the risk of overdose and death.

Clearly, then, prescription drug addiction should occupy a prominent niche in our national consciousness. It’s a problem that needs fixing, and a problem that won’t fix itself; prescription drug addiction isn’t going anywhere, you might say, unless we collectively resolve to do something about it. The question, of course, is a deceptively simple one: How do we beat it? If you or someone you care about is a prescription drug addict, the answer might just be the most important one you’ll ever hear.

Painkiller Addiction and Drug Dependency

The chemical nature of painkiller addiction makes it particularly tough to beat. Prescription painkillers like morphine, codeine, and oxycodone are linked to the same kind of drug dependency that underlies heroin abuse. Getting better means getting help at a qualified drug rehab center.

Prescription painkillers like morphine, codeine, and oxycodone belong to a class of drugs called opioids. When taken in proper doses, opioids can be extremely effective in alleviating chronic pain conditions. Unfortunately, large doses of opioids trigger euphoric highs by activating pleasure pathways in the human brain, thus predisposing prescription drug abusers to repetitive cycles of use and abuse.

The threat of prescription drug addiction is compounded by the low that follows the high: Overingestion of drugs like morphine, codeine, and oxycodone is followed by a period of restless anxiety, which gives prescription drug abusers strong incentive to use again. Even more troubling, chronic prescription drug addiction is known to warp the body’s endogenous opioid system, leaving users incapable of experiencing pleasure without the aid of artificial chemical stimulation.

The side effects of long-term prescription drug dependency speak for themselves: chronic anxiety, appetite suppression, insomnia, gastrointestinal disorders, respiratory dysfunction, and fetal complications in pregnant women. Again, if you’ve come this far, you already know what’s at stake, and you already know things can’t stay the way they are. Before tomorrow can get brighter, though, you’ve got to resolve to do something about today. For more information or help finding the right drug treatment facility for you, call the professionals at The Addiction Recovery Center Addiction Treatment Programs 1-888-510-2481 or visit http://thewatershed.com.

Drug Treatment and Drug Rehab Programs

Like all forms of drug treatment, prescription drug addiction recovery plans must address both the physical and psychological roots of the disease. Through drug detox and addiction counseling, prescription drug rehab programs treat addiction in its entirety, and aim to help patients make a successful return to independent sober living.

The physical dimension of prescription drug addiction speaks to the extent to which prescription drug abuse warps the body’s internal chemistry. Chronic prescription drug addicts, as noted above, ultimately lose the ability to maintain normal metabolic function without an infusion of prescription drug chemicals. Such a state of drug abuse creates conditions under which addicts literally need drug use and abuse in order to survive, and makes the first stages of drug recovery particularly difficult.

Thankfully, professional drug detoxification programs can help recovery patients navigate the withdrawal process with as little discomfort as possible. Using advanced medical therapies, doctors and caregivers at drug detox facilities ensure that an addict’s system is entirely cleansed of drugs and drug byproducts, thus providing a firm foundation for the remainder of his drug rehab experience.

But remember: Drug detox is merely a prelude to the intensive addiction counseling that follows it. Prescription drug addiction is also, after all, a psychological disease: a product of cognitive and emotional conditions under which an addict is incapable of facing the world or himself without first getting high. Only expert therapy programs can help recovery patients break those bonds, and regain the sort of self-esteem and self-control that are vital to long-term sobriety.

We should note here that addiction recovery is never easy. Drug rehab is a struggle, and drug treatment will test the will of even the hardiest soul. Keep in mind, though, that drug treatment centers are ultimately places of hope, of optimism: A successful drug treatment center plays host to patients who are forever working to make the future a little bet better; patients who are struggling yes, but patients for whom the struggle is an eminently worthwhile thing. For more information or help finding the right drug treatment facility for you, call the professionals at The Addiction Recovery Center Addiction Treatment Programs 1-888-510-2481 or visit http://thewatershed.com.

Drug Treatment Centers and Aftercare Programs

In a drug rehab market full of options, choosing the right recovery plan can be difficult. As a general rule, the most successful drug treatment centers are those that provide for the full scope of their patient’s substance abuse recovery: from the moment they walk into a drug rehab center until they’ve completed their final aftercare program.

Again, prescription drug addiction is a disease that exists in both physical and psychological dimensions. Long after a patient’s system has been cleansed of prescription drug chemicals, the psychological craving remains: the need, the want, the sense of having to use, if for no other reason than that not using is something to monstrous to contemplate.

Of course, such cognitive processes doom many addicts to relapsing cycles of drug use and abuse. The key to long-term recovery, it follows, lies in addressing those processes, and ensuring that patients have sufficient access to the support they’ll need to stay sober for the rest of their lives. The fight against prescription drug addiction, you might say, is an ongoing one: It never ends, and patients can never stop fighting it.

With that in mind, competent drug rehab programs do and must address the continuing care of their discharged residents. In practical terms, this means enrolling patients in aftercare facilities, and in establishing ties with independent 12-Step support groups in the local community. Beating prescription drug addiction is a lifetime undertaking, and no addiction recovery plan can expect to see it through to a successful conclusion if it loses interest before the battle is finished.

Drug Recovery and Sobriety

The ultimate goal of drug recovery, of course, is functional sobriety: that state in which a recovered addict can reclaim life as he used to know it, and himself as he used to be. To get there, you need help from a drug rehab center that treats you as you actually are: as a unique individual with unique individual needs.

The bottom line here is an obvious one: You are your own person. There’s no one else quite like you, no one else who has lived life in your shoes, or seen the world through your eyes. By the same token, no one else has experienced prescription drug addiction quite like you have: Your drug abuse history is uniquely and intimately personal to you, and no drug rehab program can work for you if fails to recognize the truth for what it actually is.

On the contrary, the most effective drug rehab programs are those address the needs of each and every individual patient. In your fight against prescription drug addiction, you need a drug treatment plan that works for you and no one else: a drug treatment plan specially constructed to meet your personal needs, in a way that can help you rediscover life as it can and should and must be lived.

It goes without saying that no two drug addicts are ever exactly alike. The less obvious corollary, though, is that no two drug recovery plans should ever treat them as if they were. Some drug rehab programs claim to have discovered a catch-all cure for drug addiction: They insist that what works for one drug addict should work for every drug addict. Unfortunately, wishing something were true doesn’t make it so, and “one-size-fits-all” drug treatment plans rarely achieve lasting success.

Again, you’ve already made it this far, so you obviously understand what’s at stake. Prescription drug addiction is a killer, a disease that wrecks everything and everyone it touches. Getting better isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessatiy…and you can only get better if you find a drug rehab center that’s right for you. Anything less just isn’t good enough: not for you, not for the people you care about.

At The Addiction Recovery Center, we understand prescription drug addiction, and we know how to make prescription drug recovery happen. Our expertise doesn’t count for anything, though, if you aren’t willing to seek it out: You’ve got to come to us, and you’ve got to want to let us help you.

In the fight against prescription drug addiction, you’re the only one who can take the first step. For your sake, for your family’s sake: Let today be the day you start walking towards the sunrise. There’s no time like the present, after all, to turn the future into something worth waking up for.

For more information or help finding the right drug treatment facility for you, call the professionals at The Addiction Recovery Center Addiction Treatment Programs 1-888-510-2481 or visit http://thewatershed.com.

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