Drug Rehabilitation that works

Substance Abuse Treatment & Recovery Approaches for Women. Host: Ivette Torres, Associate Director for Consumer Affairs, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Invited Panelists: Becca Crowell, executive director of Nexus Recovery Center; Duiona Baker, associate administrator for women’s services at Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); Imani Walker, with the Rebecca Project for Human Rights (RPHR); and Steve Buchness, therapist, program coordinator, Emmorton Treatment Services. Substance use disorders present serious and unique health concerns for women. Unfortunately, few available services are designed to specifically meet the needs of women with substance use problems. Recent studies point both to the need for gender-specific services for women and to the greater effectiveness of such approaches compared to more traditional treatment modalities. This program will examine how treatment services are changing to help women successfully navigate the road to recovery. It also explores other issues that can affect their recovery progress, such as child care, co-occurring disorders, and domestic violence. Women drink less alcohol than men any way you look at. Women are more likely to be non-drinkers, start drinking at an older age, consume smaller quanties when they do drink, drink less frequently, and binge less than their …

Substance Abuse Treatment & Recovery Approaches for Women. Host: Ivette Torres, Associate Director for Consumer Affairs, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Invited Panelists: Becca Crowell, executive director of Nexus Recovery Center; Duiona Baker, associate administrator for women’s services at Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); Imani Walker, with the Rebecca Project for Human Rights (RPHR); and Steve Buchness, therapist, program coordinator, Emmorton Treatment Services. Substance use disorders present serious and unique health concerns for women. Unfortunately, few available services are designed to specifically meet the needs of women with substance use problems. Recent studies point both to the need for gender-specific services for women and to the greater effectiveness of such approaches compared to more traditional treatment modalities. This program will examine how treatment services are changing to help women successfully navigate the road to recovery. It also explores other issues that can affect their recovery progress, such as child care, co-occurring disorders, and domestic violence. Women drink less alcohol than men any way you look at. Women are more likely to be non-drinkers, start drinking at an older age, consume smaller quanties when they do drink, drink less frequently, and binge less than their …

Substance Abuse Treatment & Recovery Approaches for Women. Host: Ivette Torres, Associate Director for Consumer Affairs, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Invited Panelists: Becca Crowell, executive director of Nexus Recovery Center; Duiona Baker, associate administrator for women’s services at Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); Imani Walker, with the Rebecca Project for Human Rights (RPHR); and Steve Buchness, therapist, program coordinator, Emmorton Treatment Services. Substance use disorders present serious and unique health concerns for women. Unfortunately, few available services are designed to specifically meet the needs of women with substance use problems. Recent studies point both to the need for gender-specific services for women and to the greater effectiveness of such approaches compared to more traditional treatment modalities. This program will examine how treatment services are changing to help women successfully navigate the road to recovery. It also explores other issues that can affect their recovery progress, such as child care, co-occurring disorders, and domestic violence. Women drink less alcohol than men any way you look at. Women are more likely to be non-drinkers, start drinking at an older age, consume smaller quanties when they do drink, drink less frequently, and binge less than their …

Substance Abuse Treatment & Recovery Approaches for Women. Host: Ivette Torres, Associate Director for Consumer Affairs, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Invited Panelists: Becca Crowell, executive director of Nexus Recovery Center; Duiona Baker, associate administrator for women’s services at Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); Imani Walker, with the Rebecca Project for Human Rights (RPHR); and Steve Buchness, therapist, program coordinator, Emmorton Treatment Services. Substance use disorders present serious and unique health concerns for women. Unfortunately, few available services are designed to specifically meet the needs of women with substance use problems. Recent studies point both to the need for gender-specific services for women and to the greater effectiveness of such approaches compared to more traditional treatment modalities. This program will examine how treatment services are changing to help women successfully navigate the road to recovery. It also explores other issues that can affect their recovery progress, such as child care, co-occurring disorders, and domestic violence. Women drink less alcohol than men any way you look at. Women are more likely to be non-drinkers, start drinking at an older age, consume smaller quanties when they do drink, drink less frequently, and binge less than their …

Substance Abuse Treatment & Recovery Approaches for Women. Host: Ivette Torres, Associate Director for Consumer Affairs, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Invited Panelists: Becca Crowell, executive director of Nexus Recovery Center; Duiona Baker, associate administrator for women’s services at Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); Imani Walker, with the Rebecca Project for Human Rights (RPHR); and Steve Buchness, therapist, program coordinator, Emmorton Treatment Services. Substance use disorders present serious and unique health concerns for women. Unfortunately, few available services are designed to specifically meet the needs of women with substance use problems. Recent studies point both to the need for gender-specific services for women and to the greater effectiveness of such approaches compared to more traditional treatment modalities. This program will examine how treatment services are changing to help women successfully navigate the road to recovery. It also explores other issues that can affect their recovery progress, such as child care, co-occurring disorders, and domestic violence. Women drink less alcohol than men any way you look at. Women are more likely to be non-drinkers, start drinking at an older age, consume smaller quanties when they do drink, drink less frequently, and binge less than their …

Dr. Stanton Peele’s July 26, 2007 appearance on Lynn Martin’s Ontario, Canada based talk show discussing Addiction-Proof Your Child. See Stanton Peele’s website at www.peele.net Find out more about Addiction-Proof Your Child at http

At the very start, it is important to mention that heroin addiction treatment in North Carolina is considered to be one of the most crucial forms of addiction treatment in the state. Heroin is an opioid and by its very nature it is a very difficult drug dependency to treat. When an opioid enters a person’s system, the first thing it will try to do is to stimulate the person’s central nervous system. It will trigger the nervous system of the person to get a false feeling of happiness and felicity through the release of a hormone known as dopamine. As the person continues taking in more and more of heroin, their dependency increases because the dopamine levels in their body go higher. A time comes when the person starts equating the feeling of pleasure with this stimulation through heroin consumption. When that happens, it becomes very difficult to shake the dependency.

This is the main reason why the heroin addiction treatment in North Carolina is so difficult to perform. The substance needs to be removed not just bodily, but also from the nervous system.

One of the biggest differences that exist between heroin addiction treatment in North Carolina and treatment of other kinds of drug dependencies is in the detox program. Heroin detoxification is quite elaborately planned because of the nature of the addiction. It is almost always provided in an inpatient setting. The person is supposed to live at the treatment center in almost complete seclusion. The idea is to take the person away from any factor that might trigger a memory of the addiction in them. That is the reason they will have to stay away from friends and even family.

Within a day or two, depending on how intensely the addiction has affected the person, the withdrawal symptoms will begin to make their appearance. This is where medical treatment becomes important. Two significant medical approaches that are used during the heroin detox treatment in North Carolina are:-

1. Methadone

2. Buprenorphine, including medications containing this chemical such as Subutex and Suboxone

Both methadone and buprenorphine are opioids themselves, just as heroin is. The principle of medicating the person with these substances is to replace the dependency of the opiate in the person’s mind with another opiate. It is easier to remove the person’s use of these substances than it is to take them away from the heroin addiction. As these two substances are provided to the person and they slowly begin losing their craving for heroin, the dosages of the medications are slowly lessened and gradually stopped.

Between the two, methadone is more difficult to administer due to its own habit forming nature. There is a risk that the person will suffer from a methadone withdrawal when the administration of the substance is stopped. That is the reason why the treatment provider administering methadone treatment should be well-qualified and know the subtleties involved with this treatment. The provider must implement the right kind of dosage and reduce it in the right manner so that the person does not suffer a methadone withdrawal which may take them back to their heroin dependency.

However, methadone heroin addiction treatment in North Carolina is still popular due to the fact that it has been used since over three decades for the purpose and is considered to be a more effective drug than buprenorphine is.

Buprenorphine was introduced less than a decade ago in the heroin treatment scene of North Carolina. Due to that reason, it is still in the process of becoming popular, but it comes with several advantages over methadone. It is almost as effective as methadone but it is not as habit forming. In fact, the newly approved buprenorphine formulation, Suboxone, contains naloxone in a combined form with the drug. Naloxone helps immensely because it creates aversion for buprenorphine in the person’s mind. Hence, even the remotest possibility of the person getting addicted to it is averted. Also, there is no danger of buprenorphine interfering with other prescription medications that the person might be taking, which makes it safer to use than methadone.

The medication is continued even after the detox signs have calmed down because the person needs maintenance treatment when they are coming out of a heroin dependency. Also, there is a very elaborate aftercare system in the heroin addiction treatment in North Carolina which is mainly targeted at equipping the person to come out of any cravings for the substance that might be present in them.

There are many effective alternatives to the 12-step addiction recovery approach. This article will describe the major treatments and support groups that one might choose if interested in a non-12-step (alternative) approach. These alternatives need to be widely known because individuals who might never attend an AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting might attend treatment or a support group with a different approach. What might not be possible for them in AA might be possible elsewhere. It would benefit everyone if the alternative approaches were as widely known and as easily available as AA and other 12-step groups. Even AA would benefit from the individuals who chose to go elsewhere. Those remaining in AA would know that they were attending because they had freely chosen to attend, not because there might be something better but they couldn’t find it!

Let’s begin with alternative support groups: SMART Recovery, Women for Sobriety, LifeRing Secular Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety, and Moderation Management. All support abstinence, except Moderation Management, which supports alcohol moderation or abstinence. All are non-profit organizations. All tend to have discussion meetings (with “cross-talk” as opposed to a series of speakers who don’t reference each other). Women for Sobriety is the oldest, having started in the mid-1970′s. SMART Recovery and Moderation Management are both science based (as opposed to AA’s spiritual foundation). The recovery programs offered differ significantly from each other and from 12-step. If they don’t hold meetings in your locality there are web-based meetings you can attend.

Are these alternative support groups as effective as AA? We don’t know because-this may shock you-from a scientific perspective the effectiveness of AA is unknown. Although it is widely said that “AA is the only thing that works,” at best this statement reflects the experience of someone who has been immersed so much in 12-step recovery that they have missed some important facts about recovery. Perhaps the most important fact about recovery is that the majority of individuals who recover do so without attending a support group or treatment (i.e., natural recovery). To be clear, if we have 100 individuals with alcohol problems, what will happen to them is unknown. If we have 100 individuals who have recovered from alcohol problems, the majority of them will have done so using natural recovery.

Do you have a hard time believing that AA is of unknown effectiveness? Consider the comments of two reputable organizations. Every three years the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services sends a report to Congress entitled Alcohol and Health. The 1990 report states: “The effectiveness of AA has not been scientifically documented, and methodological problems make such an evaluation difficult” (pg. 265). The National Academy of Sciences published in 1990 a massive report entitled Broadening the Base of Treatment for Alcohol Problems. The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by Congress as its advisory body on the application of scientific knowledge to public policy. In the United States there is no higher authority on such applications. This report (commissioned by Congress in 1986) states: “AA is considered by many lay persons and professionals to be the most successful treatment for persons with alcohol problems, despite the lack of well-designed and well-executed studies that can be cited to support or negate the validity of this perception” (pg. 111). These quotes may seem old in this internet age, but the situation has not changed. Nearly 20 years later AA remains relatively unstudied from a scientific perspective.

As to treatments, there are a dozen or more that have substantial scientific evidence of effectiveness. They are quite different from one another. Some treatments are medications, some enhance motivation to change, some reward new non-drinking behaviors, some teach new ways of thinking, some build up a person’s negative reactions to drinking (or drugging) using a process called aversive conditioning, some enhance the person’s relationship and social skills, and one uses acupuncture. Quite diverse! The bad news is that there is no simple way to answer a question like “how does alcohol treatment work?” Presumably these very different treatments work in very different ways, but we may still “not be seeing the forest for the trees.” The good news is that if one treatment does not appeal to you, perhaps another one will. And all of them have much more scientific evidence of their effectiveness than AA does. One introduction to the science behind these treatments is published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse:

http://www.drugabuse.gov/PODAT/PODATIndex.html

This is not to suggest that you should avoid AA. .Its free, widely available, a choice very few will argue with, and likely to introduce you to a large number potential recovery role models. But if you don’t like AA, isn’t it good to know you have options?