Rehab Referral Blog

Drug addiction help is sought by millions of people each year. People struggling with addiction, as well as their friends and loved ones, look for successful treatment options to their drug problems. Well-known addictive drugs include alcohol, heroin and cocaine, to name a few. But there are newer drugs out there, less well-known but just as dangerous. Some of these drugs are even being prescribed by physicians and psychiatrists as cures for mental and emotional problems. Xanax is one of these drugs.

Xanax or Niravam are the brand names for a drug called Alprazolam. It was originally patented in 1976 and released in 1981 for the treatment of panic disorders (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alprazolam). It is a benzodiazepene, a class of drugs that slow down the central nervous system in order to produce sedative effects. Because it depresses the central nervous system, it is often prescribed to people who have trouble with panic disorders because it disables the part of the nervous system that produces panic. When first taking Xanax, people often feel sleepy and uncoordinated. Xanax can be addictive and sometimes leads to abuse of the drug.

One of the most dangerous things about benzodiazepenes and other central nervous system (CNS) depressants like alcohol is the withdrawal effects with these drugs. CNS depressants slow down the brain’s activity. When a person stops taking them, the brain undergoes a pendulum swing to the other extreme of activity. Brain activity can increase to out-of-control levels, causing seizures and even death. This is the reason alcoholics experience delirium tremens during alcohol withdrawals and also the reason alcohol withdrawal is dangerous and potentially life-threatening. Yet Xanax and other benzodiazepenes are commonly used to treat alcohol addiction! Some side effects of Xanax withdrawal include homicidal ideation, rage reactions, hyperalertness, increased nightmares, and intrusive thoughts, according to The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Withdrawal from the drug must be done gradually and under medical supervision due to the potentially severe side effects of withdrawal.

The use of CNS depressants like Xanax to treat addiction to other CNS depressants like alcohol is a very good reason why you need to understand a drug addiction rehab program before enrolling in it. Drug Rehab Referral Services (www.drugrehabreferralsystems.org) is a service that does the research for you and refers you to a program tailor-made for you. Their programs do not use CNS depressants to treat addiction nor do they substitute one drug addiction for another. If you are looking for a program to help you or a loved one overcome addiction, they will find the right program for you.

One problem with drug addiction rehabilitation is the failure of rehab programs to adequately address all the problems surrounding addiction. Just as killing a weed requires pulling it up by the roots, so handling drug addiction requires finding and fixing the causes behind addiction. Many rehab programs focus only on the physical aspects of addiction—getting the drug out of the body and keeping the person “clean” for a prescribed time period. Others simply substitute prescription drugs for the drugs the addict was taking. Neither of these can achieve lasting results. To really rehabilitate the drug addict or alcoholic, all the factors of addiction must be taken into account.

First of all, let’s take a look at what factors might influence a person to turn to drugs or alcohol. Some experts have theorized that addiction could be genetic, but there is little evidence to support this theory. Others say that it is an incurable disease. But if you look at anyone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol, you can easily see they all have one thing in common: they are using drugs as a way to avoid or escape emotional or physical pain. People who are truly happy do not turn to drugs.

Drugs provide an escape from pain in several ways: first, they numb physical pain by interacting with the nerve channels in the body, second, they provide relief from mental pain by making the person feel removed or released from his problems. They do not actually fix anything, however, and no matter how much better a person may feel while he is taking the drug, once the drug wears off the mental or physical pain comes back worse than before. Here is the dwindling cycle that leads to addiction: the individual has to continue taking the drug and in greater and greater quantity in order to fend off increasingly intolerable physical or emotional stress.

For this reason, treating addiction must address the physical, mental, and emotional pain underlying the problem with drugs or alcohol. This is the actual root of the problem. If the pain is addressed it enables the person to feel happy again. Once he is no longer haunted by ghosts of the past, guilt over his misdeeds, regret over his failures, grief over past losses, or even actual physical pain, the person ceases to need drugs to cover these things up. If he can be happy on his own, he does not need anything to make him happy. This is one of the reasons that anti-depressants are not a successful treatment for drug addiction—they are simply another drug that substitutes for the substance he was abusing. Over time, the person can start abusing anti-depressants and other prescription drugs or return to using illegal drugs again.

Drug Rehab Referral Services is a referral program for those seeking help with addiction. They refer clients to treatment programs with a holistic approach, meaning they address the person as a whole, not just his body. These programs do not substitute one drug for another but rather seek to address the root of the drug problem so that the person does not feel the need to return to drug use. They have a very high success rate. They return to the former addict his sense of self-worth and restore his self-esteem. With these things in place, the person no longer needs drugs or alcohol to feel better—he feels good on his own.

Teenage Drug Addiction is a huge problem in America. So may young teens are experimenting with drugs, being prescribed drugs, and all at a very early age. Before entering high school 20% of teens are reported to have tried marijuana, 15% of high school age teens have reported to have tried cocaine, and over 1.8 million teens aged 12 and older are current cocaine users.

Teens that drink are proven 50% more likely to experiment with illegal drugs than those who don’t. The younger the teen is when they start drinking or experimenting with drugs, the higher the risk they are to develop an addiction. Dealing with teenage drug addiction can be extremely difficult, as in most cases, there are underlying physiological problems that exist.

Teenagers who have had a trauma in their lives, such as a divorce in the home, sexual abuse, or physical abuse are more likely to become addicted to drugs. The fact that one or both parents have an alcohol or drug problem will also be leading factors in the teen’s drug addiction.

Low self esteem, peer pressure, and the need to fit in, along with any or all of the above factors, can throw a teen in to an addiction, where they try to numb the pains of reality that are proven too difficult to deal with. You have to find out what is going on in the teens life to determine what the reason was they turned to drugs in the first place. The teen will need professional help to deal with the emotions that surround their addiction. There are great programs that are geared towards teenage drug addiction, the Drug Rehab Referral Service, located on the web at: www.drugrehabreferralservices.org, will offer some very helpful information on finding the right rehab or treatment center.

Te best way to deal with teenage drug addiction, is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Just by talking to your child about drugs and alcohol will make them 42% less likely to experiment with drugs. If your teen has been dealing with depression, anxiety, or had a trauma in their life it is best to talk to them, help them thru any difficult times, but most of all, listen to them, watch them, and keep them on track and out of trouble.

Teenage drug addiction is a serious problem, one that will carry on into their adult life. Because they usually fail to see the long lasting repercussions of their actions, we should see it, and do what we can to prevent it.

Prescription drug addiction has become a major problem in the United States over the last two decades.  Most people have heard something about it; it’s been everywhere from celebrities like Ozzy Osborne and Anna Nicole Smith to political activists like Rush Limbaugh.  On a personal level, if you or someone you love is suffering from addiction to a prescription drug, the situation can be as bad as addiction to illegal substances but harder to spot because the drug was prescribed by a physician.  Drug Rehab Referral Services, a referral service for those seeking holistic treatment of drug and alcohol addiction, has access to programs with an up to 80% success rate in treatment.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, in 1999 nine million Americans abused prescription drugs.  Eleven years later, the problem has only increased.  According to NIDA around 20 percent of people in the U.S. have used  prescription drugs for reasons other than medical.  One of the reasons could be that prescription drugs have become more available.  Doctors prescribe more drugs these days and there are more problems classified as health problems (e.g. Restless Leg Syndrome, Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder).  This means that more drugs are available and it is easier for people to access prescription drugs for non-medical uses.

On the other hand, people often become addicted to prescription drugs because they were taking them for medical purposes to begin with.  Some of the drugs prescribed for pain management after surgery are highly addictive opiates like Oxycodone and Vicoden.  A person who starts taking these drugs during recovery from surgery or a major injury can become dependent on the drug very quickly.  A friend of mine who had been taking Vicoden after major dental surgery told me that after only a few days of taking the drug he started to feel compelled to take more.  “Even though enough time had passed that I shouldn’t need pain relief, every time the drug wore off I started to feel like I was going to die if I didn’t have another one.  That’s when I knew I needed to stop.”

Unfortunately, not everyone is smart enough to know when to stop.  What begins as simple pain relief can easily mushroom into a dangerous problem—addiction.  And because the addiction is mental as well as physical, professional programs are required to treat it.  Coming off the drugs by yourself isn’t just painful, it could be deadly.  The side effects of drug withdrawals can be extremely medically dangerous and certain drugs have to be physician-supervised in order to come off of them.   Drug Rehab Referral Services provides referrals to a number of drug rehab programs that treat both the mental and physical aspects of drug addiction terminatively, without just giving the patient a different drug to become addicted to.  Their service will help you tailor-make a treatment plan and program as a patient or family member of someone suffering from addiction.  A good program gives anyone addicted to prescription drugs hope for a drug-free future.