Thursday, August 19, 2010

Holistic Drug-Alcohol Treatment - An Amalgamation of Love, Care and Support

The death toll in the United States due to taking drugs is rising at an alarming rate of about 10% with each passing year. Drug or alcohol treatment is never easy. Most people refuse to acknowledge the fact that their children or loved ones have fallen prey to this fatal addiction that is claiming millions of lives each year. Some tend to turn a blind eye to this problem, thinking that it will be alright in due course of time.

What most people fail to realize is the fact that as time passes, the urge to take drugs or alcohol becomes more uncontrollable. Drug addicts might need a dose as often as every two hours in cases of severe addiction. Taking alcohol can also lead to a mad craving which becomes impossible to stop after a certain period. Drinking or taking drugs continuously will slowly harm the body till it is too late to do anything.

For those of you, who have been able to understand and accept the fact that someone close to you is a drug or alcohol addict, there is still hope left. There are various Holistic drug treatment (or alcohol treatment) centers that aim to approach the problem in a slightly different method as opposed to other centers.

The Holistic alcohol treatment (or drug treatment) tries to synchronize the working of the mind and body in a more effective way. Each case is unique in its own way. First of all, the patients' physical and mental state will be noted down and the treatment strategy will be mapped out accordingly. A detox program is performed on the patient, which is basically getting rid of the toxic elements and drugs in his body. The craving for drugs or alcohol increases after this stage due to the fact that the body's urge is not satisfied. A proper diet plan is carried out so that the person gets back his physical strength.

The mind is healed through extensive counseling. Once the person truly understands the bad effects of drugs or alcohol, he will be able to motivate himself to get rid of his addiction. He will also be brought into contact with other patients who are going through similar phases. Support groups and joint counseling sessions are of immense help in curing the mind.

Reference: Gardner Wilkinson

Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Recovery - A Quick and Easy Motivation Tool

The fancy psychological term for this quick and easy motivation tool for helping people to help themselves with alcoholism and drug addiction recovery is called decisional balancing. It may sound complex, but it is really very simple.
Decisional balancing simply means weighing the costs and the benefits of using or drinking. The object of this quick exercise is to list the pros and cons, the pluses and minuses of using or continuing to use alcohol and drugs.

Simply sit down with a piece of paper and pen and draw a line down the center of the paper forming two columns on the first column lists benefits or pluses of drinking and driving and the next column lists drawbacks were negative consequences of drinking or drugging.
Then just do a brain dump. Just start writing don't worry about how important or how silly anything sounds just get it all out. We will look at content later.
In the benefits column you might have things like it numbs the pain, I like to get high, it helps me to forget, I feel like I can do more, it helps me to get in. In the negative consequences site you might have it costs a lot of money, I went to jail, it might be causing my depression and anxiety, my health is going down, destroying my relationships.

Now that you have the lists done, they're a couple questions to ask yourself. The first question is how different are the two lists? Compare the two columns and see if the benefits are still outweighing the negative consequences. Most people will find that the benefits that they use to get out of drinking and drugging I'm no longer occurring, while the negative consequences for the minuses list is growing and growing.

The next couple of questions you should ask when comparing the two lists is how much time does the drinking and drugging occupying your life? Are you spending the vast majority of your life either looking for the high, getting high, or recovering from the high? You might even be doing it to the point where you gave up activities which he used to find enjoyable. That is a sign of addiction.

The final important question to analyze an answer is are you addicted to the drinking and drugging and are you objected to the lifestyle you are currently maintaining, or trying to maintain? How is it working for you? If the answers to these questions are causing concern it might be time to ramp up the motivation to change. One of the most insidious background features of drug and alcohol addiction the fact that it keeps us" stuck". We come to believe that we have lost the power to change. But that is not true. The ability to change ourselves and our reaction to life in the situations around us is a fundamental quality of being human.

Is it time for you to change? We can help with answers to your questions on entering addiction recovery. There are lots of free help and resources available.

Reference: Bill Urell

Drug Abuse Recovery - 4 Common Myths Debunked and Destroyed

Most people who have no direct connection with using drugs find it very difficult to understand the illness of addiction.

And, to make matters worse, there are some common generalized myths about drug addiction and drug use that have become firmly rooted in society. In this article we will take a look at some common myths with the object of dispelling them.

1. The person using the drugs is bad and makes a choice for that lifestyle.
The choice to initially experiment with the drugs is definitely within the user. But then certain factors assert themselves that are beyond the control of the drug addicted person, such as genetic factors. At some point in using drugs they "crossed the line" into addiction. At that point they have lost the ability to control their use of drugs, and the phenomenon of obsession and compulsion to use take over their entire life. They prioritize drug use above all else, even family and work. Ironically, it does not mean they do not love their family, they are mesmerized by the drug.

2. Stopping drug use means just saying no.
While ultimately the goal is to never use drugs, being in complete abstinence, is not as easy as simply saying no. In order to be successful, the person must be physically detoxed from the drug. They need to address triggers and situations which led them to use drugs to begin with. Next they need to find a new way of life, living skills, and communication skills to handle the ups and down of life without resorting to drug use. If drugs were providing relief to life situations, we need to work on skills to handle life situations. This takes time and education.

3. You can't force people into treatment; it has to be their own choice.
Eventually the person has and must make the ultimate decision to become abstinent and stay sober, this is true. However, studies have shown that people entering treatment through interventions, the power of a court order, or other involuntary means have the same outcome rates as people who voluntarily entered treatment. Many people who are "forced" were backed into a corner to enter treatment come to the realization while they are there that their problem is significant. They may become agreeable about dealing with it. The fact is, treatment works.

4. Once a person completes treatment or rehab they are done.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that maintaining longtime abstinence and sobriety involves a lifelong process of maintaining awareness. A metaphor might be riding a bicycle uphill. As long as you apply force and effort you will continue to move forward uphill, but as soon as you stop peddling the pull of gravity is toward falling down or a slide toward the bottom. A drug addict's natural pull is to use drugs. There must be a constant effort and awareness applied against that natural tendency.

Reference: Bill Urell

Adolescent Alcohol Treatment For the Alcoholic

Being addicted to alcohol is a terrible thing. Certainly, some of us might often drink some shots of alcohol. A shot or two would be fine, especially when we were in a party or some other kinds of occasion. But somehow, some of us used the alcohol for their daily beverages. Moreover, some of us used the alcohol as the solution to run away from some problems. Life could be so sucks, but runaway from life by drinking some bottles of alcohols would be the dumbest thing that any human being would ever do. When we had some sorts of problems, we should get the adolescent alcohol treatment.

This might be the only ways for us to be free from some possibilities of the worse addictions over alcohol. By getting the adolescent alcohol treatment, you would be free from some threats. The alcohol simply has terrible impacts to the health, especially your liver. When you drank too much alcohol, sooner or later, it would ruin your liver. And guess what, it would impact to the other internal organ of our body. The kidneys would be the next target. Today, the alcohol doesn't seem to have some huge impacts to your body, except you were passed out and getting the bigger tummy.

But soon enough, it would have some impacts, and the impact would be terrible. That is why, try to stay away from alcohol and don't make it as the solution of some problems. Getting drunk is not an option. Instead of solving the problems, it adds more. That is why, if you had some problems with alcohol, and you had already felt some symptoms of being an alcoholic, feel free to visit the nearby alcohol rehabilitation center and get the adolescent alcohol treatment. It might be the best solution for you.