Rehab Hospital

A short stay in a rehab hospital is sometimes and important and vital beginning to the drug rehabilitation process. This is not required in all cases by a long ways. However some extreme cases of alcoholism as well as some cases of prescription drug abuse necessitate very close medical supervision. These substances can present life threatening side affects is use is ceased cold turkey. This is quite different from randomly giving out substitute drugs because someone is uncomfortable or fearful. This should be evaluated by competent medical professionals who are thoroughly familiar with the treatment of drug and alcohol addiction. Most addicts do well with a drug free withdrawal process, while a small percentage are going to require a medically supervised step down at a rehab hospital.

Any drug could be an addiction drug if the individual finds himself unable to control the use of it. An addiction drug causes physical addiction, mental addiction, or both. Drugs are essentially poisons. The amount taken determines the effect. A small amount of a given drug acts as a stimulant, a larger dose will act as a depressant, and enough of any particular drug can kill one dead. An addiction drug becomes addictive when the individual’s attempt to handle mental or physical pain becomes dependant on the use of the drug, and the individual craves the relief that only ‘appears’ to come from the use of the substance. The substances in the long run will be found to escalate the discomfort and create new emotional and physical side effects in many cases, thus not only are dosages increased but one often finds himself using new drugs to try and counteract these new side effects. Once an individual is restored to an ability to feel better (mentally and physically) without the use of the drug, then one no longer requires the drug and rehabilitation can progress to an address of the underlying causes.

Alcohol and drugs are often separated out in addiction thinking for some reason. These both are actually in the same category. All drugs are essentially poisons. A small amount of a drug will act as a stimulant, a little more and it will act as a depressant, and given enough of any toxic substance and it will kill you dead. Alcohol definitely falls into this category. In the case of extreme alcoholism withdrawal from use can be one of the roughest of all drugs and can be life threatening. Once withdrawal is accomplished the rehabilitation of an alcoholic is quite similar to that of a drug addict – A thorough, complete, and long term handling of cravings, guilt, and depression resulting from and being perpetuated by the alcoholism.

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.

At Narconon Arrowhead rehab treatment center we recognize depression as a factor the locks an addict into his addiction. Depression is a source of significant discomfort that prompts continued use and is a major barrier to recovery. Some traditional medical and psychiatric-based programs treat the depression as the cause of addiction with further drugs and medications which only serve to mask the symptoms. Once these additional drugs wear off, depression returns, often worse. This makes the recovery process more difficult, if not impossible. In most cases depression actually manifests itself after the person becomes addicted, not before. The cause of the depression is linked to the drugs themselves.