Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts

Saturday, October 4, 2014

How to find cocaine

There is no definitive way to know if someone you know has an addiction to cocaine, but if you think that's the case, then there are signs that you should consider. Some are easier to detect than others.

If the person seems to be a lot of nosebleeds, and this is the case so far has never been, so this should be a cause for concern. Nosebleeds are one of the classic signs of damage to a person with large amounts of cocaine on a regular basis, the medication starts or even destroy the lining of the nasal cavity. A runny or stuffy nose can also with regular cocaine use can occur and actually available to start like symptoms before the nosebleeds.

The person in question can be a drastic personality change, loss of interest in people who have already seen regularly, and abandonment activities they used to enjoy. Cocaine has become the most important in the life of the addict to replace everything else.

A common feature of addicted to cocaine, and sometimes other drugs as well, is to stop going to work, school or college, and may lose his job if the situation. It is connected with the financial problems that are bound to be bad when they lose their jobs. An addict is nothing, think of all the money you have, the more of cocaine, which are not immediately apparent to those expenses. However, if you find that you are looking to borrow money or sell your property, then this should be a major concern.

Mood swings can also be a sign of cocaine use and addiction. When cocaine was taken recently, a person will be very happy and talkative in general, regardless of the talk someone is watching or not. This is known as a high cocaine and may be anywhere between fifteen and thirty minutes. Once the feeling is high, he calmed down, cocaine shortness of energy, perhaps depressed, and lack of mental clarity can be adjusted. This is the only way to prevent this, take more of cocaine, and it is obvious that this is the case when the person is going to find some privacy. If cocaine were used in large quantities, it is likely that the person too sleep for several days.

If you have large amounts of cocaine is not used for a long period of time, then it is possible that paranoia can begin. Sometimes panic attacks may occur with symptoms of chest pain and sweating. Normal social environment can also cause feelings of anxiety.

Another sign that the drug may indicate whether cocaine or something, if the person largely replaced all friends with people who have not seen before. In fact, an addict will start trying to time with others not asked or drugs used to prevent waste. When a friend started taking medication and addiction, which is always a difficult situation to be.

If cocaine is used for a long period, then you start to notice the physical differences of the individual. Be the apparent weight loss. Cocaine significantly reduces appetite, such as drugs increases, the amount of feed is consumed quickly fall. Weight loss is a classic symptom of the use and abuse of cocaine.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Drug Rehab: How it Works



There is nothing more important than devastating to a person's life than being addicted to a substance. Along with the myriad of health risks that tend to arise when a person is addicted to drugs, he or she will end up becoming financially destitute, causing a great deal of distress to those who care about him or her, and radically altering his or her behavior. It is exceedingly difficult for a person to stop using drugs through the sheer force of his or her will. As a result, special treatment centers have been developed to help remove patients from situations where they will have access to drugs and teach them different ways to manage their urges to use drugs in the future.

What is Detox?

Detox is the first part of the process of drug rehab. It involves stopping the patient from using drugs and then allowing the drugs that are currently in his or her body to slowly work their way out. This can be dangerous to the person who is going through the process because he or she may suffer heart failure and other physical symptoms. True rehabilitation cannot occur unless the patient's mind and body is not in the grip of the drugs.

What are the Methods of Treatment?

There are several different methods of treatment that are utilized by drug rehabs. The first is individual therapy. Individual therapy is when the patient and a therapist sit down together and talk. They will try to figure out the circumstances that led a person to using drugs, what his or her emotions are with regards to drug use, and different situations and environments that trigger the urges to use substances. This will allow action plans to be developed so that the person, when he or she gets out of drug rehab, is able to avoid using drugs in the future. Usually strong emotions cause a person to turn to drugs to deal. Different therapies such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will provide the patient with skills to manage those emotions.

A second method of treatment is group therapy. Group therapy is similar to individual therapy, but with several people and one therapist moderator. People in groups will have had similar experiences and will be able to provide advice regarding what worked for him or her in the quest to not use drugs.

There are also several other types of therapy, such as exposure therapy, which helps a person overcome different aversions, art therapy, which allows people to express their emotions through art, and physical therapy, such as yoga, that allows tension to be released.

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Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/mens-health-articles/drug-rehab-how-it-works-6953381.html
About the Author
Hugh Jackman is a psychologist who specializes in helping patients overcome their addiction to harmful substances. He is a strong advocate of intensive therapy programs such as drug rehab and intensive outpatient therapy (IOP).

Monday, July 21, 2014

CRACK COCAINE A once-in-a-lifetime experience?



by : Barik
HOW TO QUIT COCAINE

The high from crack cocaine is intensely rewarding. But the experience is short-lived. Such immense well-being is unsustainable because its mechanisms don't subvert the systems of homeostatic feedback inhibition of the brain. So it's reckless to try crack cocaine at all - at least until one's death-bed - because its euphoric effect is so extraordinarily hard to forget. If one succumbs to curiosity, and finds out what one is missing, then the rest of one's life may pall in comparison. For there is nothing in life that's naturally so enjoyable as crack. Tragically, the user's family and loved ones may suffer the price of pleasure almost as severely as the addict.
So is a crackhead inescapably doomed to an early grave? Or are there ways (s) he can escape from the abyss?

Perhaps. Most of the GIs who got hooked on unmistakably physically addictive heroin in Vietnam kicked the habit when they returned to the USA. The veterans quit, often without undue difficulty, because most of the "conditioned cues and reinforcers" associated with narcotic drug-use in South-East Asia were missing back home.

Thus a complete change of environment, especially a holiday in the company of supportive family and (drug-free) friends, can help break a user's self-destructive cycle of coke-binges. The brain is given time to recover. Cue-elicited craving is a major cause of relapse in recovering coke-users. Indeed this cue-elicited craving may even increase during the first few months of withdrawal.

Good food, particularly an idealised stone-age diet [fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, wholemeal bread, pasta, rice etc] should help. Regular vigorous exercise is useful as well [and probably Faith In Jesus, though this isn't always a realistic goal]. Another option is joining Cocaine Anonymous.

More controversially, "cocaine vaccines" may soon be licensed. They are designed to induce drug-specific antibodies in the bloodstream. In theory, cocaine-specific antibodies which sequester the drug before its passage into the brain will prevent the relapsing user getting high. Perhaps children "at risk" will be vaccinated at an early age. The possible coercive use of  "vaccines against pleasure"  raises profound ethical problems.

Cocaine addicts motivated to quit might consider a course of the antiepileptic drug vigabatrin (Sabril), though it isn't licensed in the USA. Vigabatrin is an irreversible inhibitor of gamma-aminobutyric acid transaminase (GABA-T). GABA-T the enzyme responsible for the catabolism of the inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Feedback inhibition between the "feel good" dopaminergic and GABA-ergic neurotransmitter systems explains vigabatrin's therapeutic "antidopaminergic" action. Vigabatrin is a relatively safe drug. Even so, its use sometimes causes colour vision defects; the most common adverse side-effects reported are sleepiness and fatigue.

A future option for cocaine addicts who want to quit may be taking a dual dopamine/serotonin releaser. PAL-287 is a rationally-designed drug aimed at treating stimulant dependence while having minimal "abuse potential" of its own. Much more research will be needed before it ever gets a product license.

Another future option may be the benztropine analog JHW007. It serves as a functional antagonist to cocaine. JHW007 has a high affinity for the dopamine transporter with minimal cocaine-like subjective and behavioural effects.

Some drug-pundits recommend Total Abstinence from chemical assistance: "Just Say No." The ex-addict is encouraged to renounce "unnatural" chemical highs altogether. This course of action may indeed be prudent given our bug-ridden genome and current crop of misbegotten street drugs. Unfortunately, opting to embrace godliness, hard work and clean living isn't always the recipe for a happy life either.

For many cocaine-users have a pre-existing psychiatric disorder - even by the touchstone of today's impoverished conception of mental health. In effect, such users are self-medicating, even if they ostensibly take cocaine hedonistically "for kicks". Such users need more effective medicine to flourish. So in place of cocaine, the option of taking one or more clinically therapeutic mood-brighteners [e.g. desipramine (Norpramin), a noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor; venlafaxine (Effexor), milnacipran (Ixel) or duloxetine (Cymbalta), dual-action serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors; perhaps a glutamate-enhancing agent such as modafinil (Provigil); or more daringly, amineptine (Survector), a dopamine reuptake inhibitor; and/or anti-anxiety agents e.g. benzodiazepines] may be considered instead.

Alternatively, if the user wishes to Say No To Drugs completely, then a "natural", gentle mood-brightener and anti-anxiety agent, hypericum (St John's wort), may be taken indefinitely. Unfortunately, this traditional herbal medicine is not a dependable remedy for deep melancholic depression - coke-induced or otherwise.

S-Adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe) is another natural antidepressant. But its efficacy in treating cocaine-induced depression is untested in controlled clinical trials.

Inevitably, present-day mood-brighteners, whether herbal or clinical, won't stand comparison with tomorrow's revolutionary designer-drugs. Nor do they deliver the rapturous but addictive rush of a fast-acting euphoriant. Contemporary therapeutic mood-boosters yield desperately little joy compared to the lifetime of genetically pre-programmed superhealth on offer to our descendants. But our legacy DNA didn't design us to be happy. So for now, the dirty chemical stopgaps licensed for use in contemporary clinical medicine are often better than nothing at all.

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Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/mental-health-articles/crack-cocaine-a-once-in-a-lifetime-experience-4842714.html

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Withdrawal symptoms of opiates



With prolonged use of opiates such as morphine or heroin, the brain cells gradually stop synthesizing the endorphins they normally produce. As a result, the nerve cells develop a physical dependency on the supplied opiates. When you attempt to suddenly stop taking these opiates, it therefore leads to several changes in your body's metabolic process and these effects are together described as the withdrawal symptoms of opiates.

People who use illegal opiate narcotic drugs such as heroin get addicted to it. Over time, the body develops a tolerance to the usual levels of this drug and finds it necessary to take a larger dose to experience the same "high" as before. When such a person later enters a detoxification program, the body responds by producing the typical severe withdrawal symptoms of opiates.

In other cases, individuals who are on treatment with morphine, methadone or fentanyl for the relief of severe pain may also develop a dependence on the drug and need to undergo a detoxing to rid themselves of this dependence. Such individuals too will suffer from opiate withdrawal symptoms. These signs and symptoms generally set in about 12 hours after the last dose of the opiate if it is heroin or about 30 hours after an opiate drug such as methadone.

The withdrawal symptoms of opiates are highly uncomfortable and that is the reason many people look for a clinic to help them detox. You can do a detox by yourself in the privacy of your home, because these signs and symptoms do not pose a threat to life. However, the process can be a scary one when you are confronted with the magnitude of the signs or symptoms and therefore, you need the right guidance from a trained professional as well as a close friend or family member to support you physically and emotionally throughout the process.

Making the decision to give up opiates is most likely easier than actually sticking to it. Some people decide to go cold turkey and suddenly stop taking the opiates. This approach holds remarkable appeal because you imagine that in one shot you will be free of your dependence. Reality, however, is sadly different. Opiate withdrawal leads to a series of signs and symptoms that include muscle pain, a running nose, increased anxiety, sweating and sleeplessness along with severe abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

In a graded opiate detoxification program, you have to gradually reduce the dose of the drug to which you are addicted. This gives your body a little time to adjust to the declining levels of the opiate. The withdrawal signs and symptoms of opiate removal will persist but they are easier to manage as compared to those on a sudden stoppage. You will need to take a few medications to reduce the muscle cramps, anxiety and running nose. Besides, you will also need to replenish the fluids your body loses through vomiting and diarrhea by consuming fresh fruit juice, light soups or some sports drinks that can give you the essential electrolytes.

The withdrawal symptoms of opiates are most severe during the first few days of a detox program. During this period, you have to battle the physical effects of the drug withdrawal on your body. Typically, the intensity of the signs and symptoms is such that it can be very tempting to simply give up on the detox. This is exactly where your personal will power to overcome the addiction counts a lot for a successful detoxification. For all those moments of weakness when you fear of succumbing, have a close friend close to you at all times during this period. Once the physical element of the withdrawal of opiates dies down begins the daunting part of overcoming the psychological craving for the drug. Joining a group like Narcotics Anonymous can help you build your will power as well as learn from others who have been through the process.

drugwithdrawalprogram.com is an informative self help website. We offer free information on drug withdrawal as well as provide a very effective home detox program.



Article Source:
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/withdrawal-symptoms-of-opiates-5605744.html
About the Author:
nnassif
drugwithdrawalprogram.com is an informative self help website. We offer free information on drug withdrawal as well as provide a very... (Bio)