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Rapid Detox is a new method of detoxification that speeds up detox by speeding up withdrawal symptoms from a drug so withdrawal that may have taken weeks will now take only hours. In case you are wondering, the patient is sedated through all of this so feels nothing.
The beginning of any recovery program for addiction is detox. Simply stated, the addictive drug is no longer ingested causing withdrawal symptoms as the body adjusts to being without the addictive substance. Living through detox can be rather painful and uncomfortable.
Drug addiction has always been viewed as a psychological problem and treated as such but the rapid detox approach deals with addiction somewhat differently.
Addiction is viewed as a physical problem; a chemical imbalance in the bain brought about by the addictive drug so addiction is treated as a medical problem. Rapid detox is performed in a hospital – an ICU or Intensive Care Unit no less.
First the patient is admitted to the hospital at least 24 hours prior to the procedure and a detox ‘plan’ is developed from careful monitoring of the patient. Next the actual detox procedure is performed with the injection of drugs designed to speed up withdrawal while the patient is sedated.
Last, the patient is monitored for another 24 hours in the ICU for any changes in vital signs.
This form of treatment, known as the Waismann Method, performs a very dangerous procedure within a hospital in case emergency medical care is needed.
The one drawback is the fact that medical insurance will not cover these costs. In spite of this the long term recovery rate of patients who had undergone this treatment is cited at 75%.
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There is a growing trend among drug treatment centers to provide initial detoxification without the use of drugs to minimize cravings.
This ‘cold turkey’ approach combined with sauna baths to release toxins from fatty tissues and life skills therapy is proving to be very promising.
The rate of recovery for this new method of detox is cited at a whopping 70% permanent sobriety. Mostly this treatment has been used with heroin/opiate users but is gaining popularity as a form of treatment for all types of substance abuse.
I’m sure we will here of this approach in the future.
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.
From the Big Book – Step 9:
“Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”
After facing yourself, your past and the wrongs, identifying what needs to be fixed….then time to fix them, if possible. Unless fixing them would directly injure others further.
I’m sure everyone has heard this before but….substance abuse in America is increasing at a scary rate. Did you know that over the last 10 years the number of substance abusers has more than doubled from an estimated 6 million abusers to a current record of 15 million drug abusers. And most of this increase is due to abuse of prescription drugs.
And even though the number of dug abusers has risen 150% the amount of drug treatment programs has not changed in 10 years. There is virtually no treatment for a substance abuse problem!
The media used to refer to the rising drug problem as ‘the war on drugs’ which fostered an attitude that drug users do not live next door, so called ‘normal’ people do not have such a problem… But this view is slowly changing; with the increasing number of professional people being cited as having substance abuse problems, the ‘war on drugs’ is now the ‘war on ourselves’.
More than ever before, people are openly admitting they have a substance abuse problem except there is little to no treatment available!
Successful marketing programs funded by the pharmaceuticals coupled with an increase in the number of wriiten prescriptions has resulted in an out-of-control abuse of legal drugs. We are conditioned from birth to take a ‘pill’ to ‘make it all better’. Anxiety is dealt with through benzodiazepines – pop a Xanax and feel better.
‘Mothers little helper’ in the 50s and 60s was nothing more than a pill to supress anger and frustration in other words, a mood stabilizer. If we have a headache we reach for the aspirin, tylenol or ibuprophine. There is a pill for every conceivable disease and condition and we all take them…
Do you personally know of anyone who does not take pills for something, whether aspirin or prescription medication? I don’t. It’s scary…
I spent 8 months as a counselor intern in what I’ll call a ‘recovery center’ for lack of a better word. It was a place where people socialize, attend AA meditation meetings and attend groups oriented toward personal growth.
This was a time when I practiced group facilitation and individual counseling but mostly it was to learn more about myself to see if I would make a good counselor. And to see if I even wanted to do it.
I did enjoy it but it was a tough time: doing an internship in addition to normal work hours is hard enough but one designed to make you face your inner self….? Extremely hard and discouraging at times. Also very rewarding.
The internship finished the beginning of May and I was invited back today to see everyone and to attend a special luncheon centered around 3 AA speakers.
As usual the group setting, the speakers and the comradeship were inspirational; I realized what I had been missing the last 2 months – security in a group.
Some notable thoughts from the meeting (paraphrased):
“You’ll never have it all so once you learn to celebrate your life and be thankful for what you do have, you will be happy.”
“You do not go through the 12 steps just once, you make them part of your life and use them every day.”
“We, alone, are responsible for taking drugs and drinking. No one is forcing us to do it.”
“Drinking is done to fill the ‘black hole’. The problem is it’s bottomless.”
“Start drinking for self medication and watch everything of value in your life slowly vanish until you have nothing.”
What would we do without a good rationalization to protect us from the truth. I know I cannot get through the day without a rationalization.
So what am I talking about? A rationalization is a Freudian defense mechanism and it merely means finding a positive reason for something we did wrong in an attempt to minimize how wrong that action was.
For example: you have been drinking and as you walk down some steps you trip. When you get up you say ’someone should fix those steps’. Or you cheat on your taxes and justify it by the fact that the government wastes money anyway so why should I give them all of my money?
As a drug and alcohol counselor you can hear some rather interesting rationalizations for relapse and continued drug use. Such rationalizations include: ‘Everyone said I wouldn’t last so went and I took the drug’ or ‘I relapsed because I got mad at my parents. That’s what made me do it’. Another: ‘So I got drunk and got arrested…it’s not like I shot someone…’.
And my all time favorite is ‘I’m just seeing if I can resist temptation’.
All these rationalizations have one thing in common; they all avoid reality by making excuses. And that is what continued, compulsive drug seeking behavior does, it forces us to make excuses to help justify the compulsion.
One of the goals of counseling, both individual and group, is to help the patient take responsibility for their behavior. Coming to terms with addiction by making it personal is a good step in overcoming it.
I look back on my posts and I find I’m even depressing myself at times….
Yes, there is tragedy here in the posts – ‘Jerry, The Addict’, Tom, Len, Derek…. and the list could go for miles. Yes, I’m just a link in the chain and as such I may never see much success.
So here is a success story…
Doug has managed to overcome his weakness for whiskey, which he drank constantly for years. Whiskey brought out the ‘bad’ in Doug which meant several fights, several arrests and a rather serious motorcycle accident which left him with TBI, traumatic brain injury.
However this never slowed him down. The day he killed someone in a bar with a baseball bat was the day he stopped drinking – mainly because it landed him in jail which turned into a prison sentence.
No access to alcohol meant a rapid detox, extensive counseling and rehabilitation and lifelong AA group attendance. When Doug left prison he was remanded to a residential setting which meant more counseling, antipsychotic drugs and drugs to reduce his craving for alcohol such as Campral.
He virtually had to be taught how to live independently once again and after years of therapy, Doug now lives alone but is still supported through the residential setting. He holds down a part-time job, shops, pays bills on time including rent and has a cat.
He still takes his mood stabilizing and craving reducing drugs but has now made new friends; friends that would never have been made had he still been drinking. On the days that I work, Doug calls me several times for everything from looking for another apartment to how to cook something. He is a pleasure to talk to and I like Doug a lot.
Doug is on his way to a very fulfilling life complete with genuine relationships…all without alcohol.
So how is opioid addiction treated?
When I say ‘opioid’ I am referring to everything from opium to the synthetic and semi-synthetic opioids such as vicodin, codeine, morphine, methadone, oxycodone, hydrocodone, buprenophine and, of course, heroin just to name a few.
After detox and immediate withrawal this addiction is treated differently from most other addictions. Keep in mind that as an addiction, it was extremely time-consuming.
A typical day may be spent like this: wake up with the need to somehow raise $200 for the daily habit. Once this is accomplished maybe you will now spend time looking for a needle, preferably a clean one. Next, a dealer is found and more time is spent being drugged… By now the day is over only to begin again tomorrow.
You can see that an opioid addict has learned to spend almost all available time around the drug and after a couple months this is the only life that is now known.
Now that detox and initial withdrawal is over you begin to find all kinds of time on hand. You sit around, become bored and begin to crave…
To avoid this, recovery needs to focus on filling time with normal activities – nondrug activities. Getting and maintaining a checking account, an apartment, shopping, getting a drivers license – all the activities ‘normal’ people engage in but activities the opioid addict has forgotten.
And I probably should mention regularly attending individual and group counseling sessions as a time-filler also.
With extended drug use comes tissue dependence as the body adjusts to the drug and slowly comes to rely on it. When drug use stops, withdrawal symptoms will occur which is the body attempting to rebalance itself to a state of normalcy.
 And the types and severity of withdrawal will vary according to the drug of choice.
Symptoms can range from mild discomfort such as headaches due to caffeine withdrawal to convulsions resulting from benzo withdrawal. Fear of withdrawal seems to be one of the reasons addicts continue using.
Four distinct types of withdrawal symptoms have been documented:
- Withdrawal with distinct physical signs – such as heroin withdrawal resulting in sweating, pain and vomiting.
- Withdrawal with emotional signs – although there may be no physical signs there may be extreme feelings of nervousness, panic and paranoia directly caused from withdrawal.
- Drawn out, protracted withdrawal – such as experiencing severe drug cravings long after detoxification. How many of us ex-smokers have reached for a pack of cigarettes and experienced severe cravings of short duration years after quitting smoking?
- Post acute withdrawal symptoms – or ‘PAWS’ which are physical and emotional problems occurring for the first few months of recovery such as insomnia, dizziness, overreaction to stress or memory problems.
Any way you look at it, quitting results in withdrawal and it is very tough to deal with. And if withdrawal symptoms are not adequately treated, relapse will occur.
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