Prescription Drug Addictions

Non 12 Step Programs as a Solution

December 30, 2009 By Psychiatric Disorders Help Leave a Comment

When I was sixteen I learned a thing or two about life. My parents had stopped me dead in my tracks. I was confronted head on by family, about my addiction to alcohol and cocaine. I foolishly thought I was hiding it well. But that mistake comes with being young, dumb, and addicted to drugs. Fortunately I had parents who understood well enough to keep an eye on me and my friends My parents are also both recovering drug addicts who know the devastating effects of abusing your body and mind for too many years. They did not want the same life for me.

They knew me well enough to know that a standard alcohol and drug rehab would not be enough to solve the issues I was facing. They had each been in and out of several programs with only limited results. After some research they had checked themselves into an alternative drug rehab center and since have never looked back. So when it came the unfortunate time in their lives to put their only son into a treatment center, they had no hesitation about what to do. They enrolled me in a form of nontraditional treatment that focused on holistic healing. In other words, this alternative rehab focused on me as a whole, as one with the earth and the universe. Sounds corny right? Well it worked. And it’s been working for two decades.

For anyone who has tried a standard treatment program and failed, I highly recommend checking out an alternative center for recovery. After doing some research of my own, I’ve discovered many that may be suitable for all walks of life. There are centers strictly for men, women, GLBT, faith-based, and holistic. And since I’ve followed the holistic style of alternative drug rehab, please allow me to tell you a little about it and why it worked for me.

First of all they focus on your diet. They believe that improving the food you take into the body, the more it improves the mind and spirit. By removing additives and empty substances from the diet, the holistic approach intends to move the brain to its highest levels of functioning.

This approach also includes massage, meditation, and relaxation treatments, in order to cleanse the mind of all negative thought. We believe that taking away negative thinking and negative influences, will create a positive and enlightened, free path to follow. Tai Chi and Yoga also play a large role in healing the strength of mind and body in order for it to take care of itself and shut out any dependence on substances.

These are just a few of the things that the holistic approach to nontraditional treatment has to offer. After completing six short months in the program, I saw that my life had turned a new leaf. I wrote to my parents and let them know that I was going to train to become a holistic drug counselor and help others just like me. Holistic healing had opened my eyes to a world of peace and enlightened achievement. I urge anyone who may have a problem to seek help. But I want to show that there are alternative drug rehab programs out there if a twelve step program isn’t for you.

Cocaine Abuse

December 24, 2009 By Psychiatric Disorders Help Leave a Comment

The word cocaine is seen as synonymous to the word addiction. Cocaine gives the impression of negativity to people, either emotionally or ideally. Indeed, it is a substance known to be easily abused and thus, users eventually become addicted to it and the cycle goes on and on. Like any other drugs, cocaine addiction can harm lives. It changes anyone, his perspectives, his motives, perception, and behaviors.

Cocaine is a powerful and extremely addictive drug. It is extracted from the leaves of coca bush. Cocaine consists of two primary forms. One is the powdery type. It is used for snorting up the nose. The second is freebase, better known as crack cocaine.This is used for smoking. A small percentage of cocaine addiction is done intravenously. When cocaine is snorted, the cocaine powder gets inhaled up into the nose where it is readily absorbed into the bloodstream. Dopamine gets released when cocaine reaches the brain which stimulates feelings of pleasure. The crack cocaine, commonly called as “crack” is the term for the smokable form of cocaine. Crack is the street name given to the type of cocaine that has been processed into a smokable drug. Smoking crack cocaine sends large amounts of the drug to the lungs, producing an quick and extreme euphoric feeling. The rush is usually very strong, but does not last very long. The rocks of crack cocaine are ignited in a crack pipe and the following vapors get deeply inhaled.

A person abuses the use of cocaine when he takes in the drug for pleasure purposes and in inappropriate dosage. With repeated use, the individual becomes lenient with the drug and then becomes dependent with it. The person seemed to be craving for the drug every now and then. Cocaine addiction is characterized as continuously craving for the drug despite the negative consequences of cocaine to the person’s body and mind. The physical signs of cocaine abuse can vary, depending on the person. For one, cocaine acts as an appetite suppressant so cocaine abusers often aren’t hungry and end up losing considerable amounts of weight.

Getting addicted to cocaine is like submitting yourself to be controlled by the drug. They would not be interested with normal activities of life because they only focus on obtaining and taking the drug. Thus, people around these addicts are affected because they interact every day. Cocaine addiction often involves not only compulsive cocaine use but also a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors. This can frequently get in the way with normal functioning in the family, workplace and community. Cocaine addiction also can place people at greater hazard for a wide variety of other illnesses. These illnesses can be brought on by the addiction type behaviors, such as poor living and health habits that often come with the lifestyle of an addict and the toxic effects of the cocaine itself.

Medical studies have focused their attention to one drug that could have possibly treat cocaine addiction. The compound GBR 12909 was initially tested as a potential antidepressant. With GBR 12909, the patients’ cocaine-seeking behaviors were eliminated within a few hours without affecting food-seeking behavior. Studies have shown that both GBR 12909 and cocaine reduce the action of a protein called the dopamine transporter. By slowing down the transporter, both GBR 12909 and cocaine elevate the levels of the pleasure-inducing chemical messenger dopamine outside the nerve cells, a procedure that increases and prolongs dopamine’s pleasurable effects. However, GBR 12909 acts more gradually and pumps up dopamine levels less than does cocaine. By attaching to the dopamine transporter, GBR 12909 also blocks cocaine from binding there. GBR 12909′s chemical beauty for the transporter is 500 times that of cocaine, so it binds to the transporter and stays there for a long time. While it’s sitting on the transporter, cocaine has no access to the transporter, so the cocaine can no longer act to bring on euphoria. The therapy using GBR 12909 should be prolonged so that the medication to have time to transport the dopamine transporter levels back to where they were before the patient started taking cocaine. The breakthrough in the discovery of GBR 12909 could be a gateway to help cocaine addiction victims in dealing with the problem they are so afraid to face.

When you find yourself or anyone in the condition of cocaine dependency, get medical help fast.

Overeaters Anonymous

December 28, 2009 By Psychiatric Disorders Help Leave a Comment

Even felt like eating another slice of that chocolate cake you had fifteen minutes ago? Sometimes, we eat more than what we need. We eat not only to be full and to satisfy our physical needs. Most of the time, we eat because it makes us feel good for a moment. We eat because it is our way of running away from the negative emotions we feel. When we feel depressed, we eat. We use food as ourrefuge, a sort of security blanket amidst our insecurities towards the world.

Our life’s physical, emotional, and social condition can be affected by the simple habits of eating and eating. Overeating can sooner or later lead to food addiction. Yes, there is such a thing as food addiction and for sure, one would not be happy with the effects.

Obviously, with too much intake of food or overeating, one becomes overweight. Being overweight does not only mean being oversize and having undesirable physical figure. It also would mean a possible health risk such as heart problems.

With overeating or compulsive overeating, people tend to use eating as a way to hide from their emotions, to fill a void they feel inside, and to cope with daily stresses and problems in their lives. Men and Women who are compulsive overeaters will at times conceal behind their physical appearance, using it as a blockade against society common in survivors of sexual abuse. They feel blameworthy for not being “good enough,” shame for being overweight, and generally have a very low self-esteem. They use food and eating to cope with these feelings, which only leads into the cycle of feeling them ten-fold and trying to find a way to cope again. With a low self esteem and often constant need for love and validation he/she will turn to obsessive episodes of binging and eating as a way to forget the pain and the desire for affection.

Consequently, because of this sad reality that many people are facing, the Overeaters Anonymous have come to being. Overeaters Anonymous is a twelve-step program for people with problems related to food including, but not limited to, compulsive overeaters, those with binge eating disorder, bulimics and anorexics. The requirement for one to be able to join Overeaters Anonymous is as simple as an individual’s desire to stop eating compulsively.

The sharing of experiences and the giving of hope are what the members of Overeaters Anonymous gets. The members give aid to each other in facing their individual battles with overeating. This cannot be done without the help of the very famous 12 Steps of Overeaters Anonymous which includes the following:

1. We admitted we were powerless over food – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

There is also a custom which is being lived by Overeaters Anonymous Members. They are:

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon O.A. unity.

2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3. The only requirement for O.A. membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or O.A. as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose-to carry its message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers.

6. An O.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the O.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

7. Every O.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. Overeaters Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. O.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. Overeaters Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the O.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Overeaters Anonymous promotes the action of refraining from eating compulsively. With the adequate group support and the recovery tools used, the individual may not only achieve the desire to be able to control eating habits but also the will power to be in control in one’s life and improve self-esteem.