Suboxone Treatment Delray Beach: Are You Ready to Recover?

If you have been struggling with opiate addiction, the Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program provided at our facility can help you get clean and return to a normal life without suffering through withdrawal symptoms. But using Suboxone for opiate maintenance is about more than avoiding withdrawals. It’s about staying clean over the long term so that you can get the counseling you need to live a drug-free life. So when you enter our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program, you can expect to be taking Suboxone to manage your opiate withdrawal symptoms for at least six months to a year.

Suboxone Is a Long-Term Opiate Maintenance Medication

Research supports the use of Suboxone as a long-term opiate maintenance medication. If you want to use Suboxone to get off of heroin or other opiate drugs, it’s best if you’re in it for the long haul. Studies show that the short-term use of Suboxone for opiate detox does very little to prevent full relapse into opiate addiction. To obtain the maximum benefit from Suboxone therapy, you should plan to remain on this medication for the long term – at least six months, but preferably for a year or even much longer.

Is It Time to For Suboxone Treatment Delray Beach Has to Offer?

The goal of Suboxone treatment for opiate withdrawals is to eventually taper off of Suboxone so that you’re living entirely drug-free. Few recovering opiate addicts will need to remain on Suboxone for the rest of their lives. But recovering from opiate addiction requires time and addiction counseling; just getting clean isn’t enough. You need to deal with the underlying issues behind your addiction, or you will eventually relapse.

We recommend that clients in our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program remain in therapy for at least two years before attempting to completely stop using Suboxone. Remember, there’s no rush; while you’re on Suboxone you’re capable of living a productive life and functioning in society, but when you stop taking Suboxone, you run the risk of relapsing into full-blown opiate addiction. Opiate addiction causes physiological changes in the brain that may be permanent, but with maintenance medications like Suboxone, you can manage the symptoms related to these changes.

Are you ready to taper off of Suboxone? Here are some signs that you may be ready to stop using Suboxone:

  • You have been in our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program from six months to two years.
  • You are at least 30 years old.
  • You have a stable job, and are financially secure.
  • You’re no longer hanging around with your old opiate-using friends.
  • You wouldn’t know where to get illicit opiates if you wanted them.
  • You have done addiction recovery work in inpatient or outpatient rehab, one-on-one counseling, and recovery support groups, and are prepared to continue doing this work.
  • You’re in a stable romantic relationship or you’re comfortable with being single.
  • You are taking your dose of Suboxone each day automatically, without feeling like you “need” it and without having a lot of complicated feelings or thoughts about it.
  • You’re comfortable lowering your daily dose of Suboxone.

Sometimes, when a client in our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program first lowers his or her dose to begin tapering off of the drug, he or she finds that he or she can’t tolerate the lower dose of Suboxone. In other words, the client begins to experience opiate withdrawal symptoms on the lower dose of Suboxone. The point of our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program is not to force a client to endure opiate withdrawal symptoms.

If you find that you experience withdrawal symptoms on a lower dose of Suboxone, or if you have trouble tolerating a lower dose of Suboxone for longer than a couple of days, you may still be able to slowly begin tapering off. We can try cycling your dose, so that you take a lower dose every other day, and your usual dose on the alternate days. Gradually, we can extend your cycle so that you are taking the lower dose two days in a row, then three days in a row, and so on.

Opiate addiction has the potential to kill.  Our  Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program saves lives. We can help you get off the roller coaster of opiate addiction and start feeling normal again as soon as your first day of treatment.

Call us today at 888-699-5679 to learn more.

Vaccine Could Change the Face of Addiction Treatment Delray Beach Has to Offer

23.9 million Americans use illegal drugs, and every day, 105 people die of an overdose in this country. Here at our addiction treatmen Delray Beach program, we try to do what we can to ameliorate the problem, but even with a comprehensive holistic treatment plan that consists of medical care, psychotherapy, behavioral therapy, social support, career counseling and aftercare services, relapse rates are high. Addiction is a chronic disease, and there’s a 60 percent chance that the people we help in our addiction treatment Delray Beach program will find themselves in the grip of active addiction again at some point during their lives. This is the nature of addiction.

But what if there was a vaccine that could cure addiction? Such a vaccine could save thousands of lives by preventing addiction relapse. And scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College believe it could soon be a reality.

How Could an Addiction Vaccine Work?

The proposed vaccine would trigger a recovering addict’s immune system to “attack” molecules of an addictive substance once they enter the body. This immune response would stop the drug molecules from reaching the brain, so the recovering addict would no longer feel the high he or she had become accustomed to after using the drug.

But how is it possible for the immune system to detect molecules of an addictive substance in the blood? Normally, those molecules would be too miniscule for the immune system to identify them. But study leader Roger Crystal and his team have attached molecules of an addictive substance – in this case, cocaine – to a particle that mimics the structure of a viral protein. When Crystal and his team inject the vaccine into a primate, its immune system recognizes the viral protein and launches an attack against them – and against the cocaine molecules attached to them.

Though Crystal and his team are working on developing a vaccine against cocaine addiction specifically, he points out that it’s possible to use to same method to create a vaccine against other substances, too. Researchers on other teams are working on vaccines to stop meth, heroin and PCP addiction. Such vaccines could prove lifesaving to folks going through our program for addiction treatment in Delray Beach.

Human Clinical Trials Coming Soon

Crystal and his team have successful tested their cocaine vaccine in mice and rhesus macaque monkeys. When the researchers injected the vaccinated monkeys with cocaine, they found that cocaine antibodies in the monkeys’ immune systems successfully blocked the action of the cocaine. When offered a choice of cocaine or chocolate, the vaccinated monkeys – who would have previously chosen the cocaine – instead chose the chocolate. The researchers took this as evidence that the cocaine was no longer doing anything for the vaccinated monkeys.

The experts here at our addiction treatment Delray Beach program are excited to announce that human clinical trials of Crystal’s cocaine addiction vaccine are expected to begin by the end of 2014. “The fact that works very well in monkeys is a real suggestion that it might work well in humans,” Crystal said.

It’s believed that if addicts no longer get a rush from their substance of choice, they’ll be less prone to relapse.

An Addiction Vaccine Can’t Replace Addiction Treatment Delray Beach Programs

Although the cocaine addiction vaccine is very promising, it’s no substitute for comprehensive addiction treatment. That’s because, although addiction does cause physiological changes in the brain, it also has its roots in psychological, emotional and behavioral problems. Many of the people we help in our addiction treatment Delray Beach program, upon finding that they could no longer get high from cocaine or another drug of choice, would simply look for another substance to abuse.

A drawback of the proposed addiction vaccine is that it can’t block the action of substances across the board – it can only be effective against one substance. Addicts would still need help from an evidence-based, holistic treatment program in order to make a sustainable recovery.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, our addiction treatment Delray Beach program can help. Call us today at 888-699-5679.

Study Highlights Brain Differences in Women Needing Alcohol Detox Delray Beach Program

The results of a new study from Indiana University compared the brain activity of alcoholic women, like those who seek the help of our alcohol detox Delray Beach program, to that of women not addicted to alcohol. The study, which used functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI, found surprisingly distinct differences between the brains of alcoholic and non-alcoholic women. Researchers believe that the anterior insular region of the brain could play a strong role in the development of alcoholism in women.

Binge Drinking on the Rise in Women at Our Alcohol Detox Delray Beach Program

This study is part of a larger effort by researchers to better understand the gender differences between men and women who need the services like our alcohol detox Delray Beach program. Differences in the way that men and women process alcohol make understanding the mechanisms behind female alcoholism particularly important. Women become addicted to alcohol much more quickly than men, and experience physiological damage due to its effects much sooner. For women, the dangers of drinking too much alcohol include heart disease, liver damage and breast cancer. The threshold of safe weekly alcohol consumption for women has been set at eight drinks, compared to 14 for men.

However, binge drinking is on the rise among women. One in five teen girls binge drinks at least three times monthly. One in eight women between the ages of 18 and 54 binge drinks at least three times monthly. According to the CDC, a drinking binge is defined as consuming four or more drinks in less than two hours if one is woman, or five or more drinks in less than two hours of one is a man. The more often a woman binge drinks, the greater the danger that she will find herself in need of a program like our alcohol detox in Delray Beach.

Identifying Differences in Brain Network Activation Among Alcoholic Women

In order to better understand what causes women to need our alcohol detox Delray Beach program, researchers devised a set of “ecological” tasks. For the study, participants were asked to first make decisions about control stimuli – like food or neutral stimuli – so that researchers could establish a baseline for risky behavior in both alcoholic and non-alcoholic women.

Then, study participants were asked to make a decision about one of two situations regarding alcohol – a low-risk situation and a high-risk situation. In the low-risk situation, study participants were told to imagine they were in a bar, and that they had been offered a drink, along with two shots, and a ride home. For the high-risk situation, study participants were again asked to imagine themselves in a bar, where they were offered a drink, along with six shots, and no ride home.

Lindsay Arcurio, a grad student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, said of the two scenarios, “We wanted to take a sledgehammer approach to really find the differences between cases that are definitely high-risk and those that are definitely low-risk.” In other words, by drawing such a clear distinction between the low-risk and the high-risk scenarios, researchers were better able to distinctly see the brain differences between women who do and women who do not need services like our alcohol detox Delray Beach program.

Women in the control group demonstrated less brain activity in regions associated with “approach behavior,” the sort of behavior required to decide to take the drink in a high-risk situation. Instead, these women demonstrated brain activity in the region associated with a relaxed, enacted or resting mental state, which many believe is also associated with thinking about one’s future.

In contrast, alcoholic women in the study did not demonstrate reduced activity in any of the three brain regions studied. Instead they demonstrated activity in the part of the brain associated with reward and pleasure, activity in the part associated with resting or thinking about one’s future, and activity in the part associated with cognitive control. Researchers believe these findings mean that women who need programs like our alcohol detox in Delray Beach have trouble switching between one region of the brain and another when making a decision regarding alcohol; they are unable to settle on an appropriate strategy.

Deactivating one part of the brain in order to activate another – what the researchers describe as “switching between networks” – is a function that’s associated with the anterior insular and anterior cingulate regions, where significant differences between the alcoholic women and the non-alcoholic women were found. This leads researchers to believe that the insula could be implicated in female alcoholism. New treatments for alcoholism in women could someday target this region of the brain.

If you’re struggling with alcoholism, you don’t have to face it alone. Call us today @ 888-699-5679 to learn more about our alcohol detox Delray Beach program.

Outpatient Detox Delray Beach Programs Covered by Insurance

Many heroin addicts and their families don’t know where to turn to find help. But there’s no need to wait weeks or months to get opiate addiction treatment. Our outpatient detox Delray Beach program can provide effective opiate detox for a price most families can afford.

With heroin addiction ravaging the nation, and finding new victims among middle and upper-class youth, insurance companies are scaling back their coverage for opiate addiction treatment. Most insurance providers these days won’t pay for even seven to 10 days of inpatient care until an opiate addict has failed to improve in a lengthy outpatient program.

Demand for Opiate Detox Is Growing

Demand for heroin addiction treatment services if growing, in South Florida and around the nation. The numbers don’t lie; heroin use has almost doubled in recent years. In 2007, 373,000 Americans aged 12 and older said they’d used heroin in the previous year. By 2012, that number had ballooned to 669,000.

Experts blame the prescription painkiller epidemic. As Oxycontin, Vicodin and other prescription opiates get harder and harder to find on the black market, addicts turn to shooting heroin to get their fix.

Prescription painkillers make it frighteningly easy to become addicted to opiates, too. Few, if any, heroin addicts start out by shooting up. Swallowing a pill seems like a harmless, even normal, thing to do. Before he or she knows it, casual opiate abuse has evolved into addiction, and shooting up seems like a great way to avoid the symptoms of opiate withdrawal.

More than 80 people have died from heroin overdoses in the past several weeks, among them noteworthy actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. These tragic deaths could have been avoided with treatment regimens like our outpatient detox Delray Beach program.

Denials of insurance coverage make it unnecessarily difficult for many heroin addicts to get the help they need. Many insurance providers feel that opiate addiction and withdrawals aren’t a life-threatening medical condition. They argue that inpatient care isn’t necessary for addicts who have jobs, families, homes and social support networks.

Our Outpatient Detox Delray Beach Program Works

If you or someone you love is struggling with opiate addiction, our outpatient detox Delray Beach program could be the answer. We use the most effective opiate detox drug, Suboxone, to bring immediate relief of withdrawal symptoms.

Suboxone is an opiate maintenance drug, similar to methadone, but much less dangerous. Suboxone’s formulation makes it difficult to abuse, so an addict can take home a supply of the drug just as he or she would with any other prescription medication. You can’t get high off of Suboxone, and if you use heroin or other opiate drugs while taking Suboxone, you won’t feel their effects. That helps combat urges to use, as the addict learns that using heroin or other opiate drugs won’t bring the same euphoric effects.

Suboxone has been called the most effective drug available for opiate addiction treatment. By taking advantage of the use Suboxone, our outpatient detox Delray Beach program has helped thousands free themselves from opiate addiction using this remarkable drug.

You won’t have to worry about going through withdrawals when you enter our outpatient detox Delray Beach program. From the very first day you start our program, you’ll feel as normal as you did before you ever started using drugs. There will be no withdrawal symptoms, no roller coaster of getting high only to crash back down, no frantic hustling for the next fix. You’ll be free to stop thinking about heroin and start thinking about the rest of your life. Your dosage of Suboxone will be gradually lowered at a pace you’re comfortable with, so you can eventually free yourself of drugs altogether.

Our outpatient detox Delray Beach program combines Suboxone for opiate treatment with comprehensive counseling and holistic care to help you work through the issues that led to your opiate addiction in the first place. Most people who end up addicted to opiates or other drugs have underlying problems. Drugs and alcohol become a way to self-medicate and avoid facing personal demons.

If you or someone you love is battling heroin addiction, recovery is possible. Call 888-699-5679 to learn more about our effective outpatient detox Delray Beach programs. 

Epilepsy Drug Could Prove Useful for Outpatient Alcohol Treatment Florida Has to Offer

Our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program could soon benefit from the use of the drug Gabapentin, a generic pharmaceutical used to treat chronic pain and epilepsy. A double blind clinical trial conducted by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute has found that Gabapentin effectively reduces alcohol consumption in people who are quitting drinking. The drug also has benefits for improving sleep quality and mood in people giving up alcohol.

Depression, Insomnia, Cravings Huge for People in Outpatient Alcohol Treatment Florida Offers

Cravings, depressed mood and insomnia are some of the biggest problems clients face in outpatient alcohol treatment Florida has to offer. Gabapentin is a safe and well-tolerated drug that could help relieve all of these symptoms for people in alcohol treatment. Of the 8.5 million Americans who struggle with alcoholism, few receive any sort of pharmaceutical treatment for it. While there are FDA-approved pharmaceutical treatments for alcoholism, these drugs have serious limitations. Gabapentin could fill the gap for many people struggling to give up alcohol.

In the study, which was authored by Barbara J. Mason and appeared in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine on November 4, 2013, 150 alcoholics who had just given up drinking were treatment with either 900mg of gabapentin, 1,800 mg of gabapentin, or a placebo. Researchers found that, over a 12-week period, participants who received the highest dose of gabapentin refrained from heavy alcohol consumption twice as often as participants who received the placebo. They refrained from drinking at all four times as often as those who took the placebo.

In addition to reporting drinking fewer drinks overall, the participants who took the highest dose of gabapentin also reported significantly fewer alcohol cravings, insomnia and depression. They did not report any significant side effects.

Study participants who received the lower dose of Gabapentin also reported reduced alcohol consumption and cravings along with improved sleep quality and improved mood. Researchers say this stands as proof that the gabapentin did work as intended.

Gabapentin works by restoring normal levels of the neurotransmitter GABA in the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with emotion, anxiety and stress. A similar study has found that gabapentin may also work to reduce marijuana abuse in patients who are dependent on that drug.

Pharmaceuticals Already Have a Place in Alcohol Treatment

Pharmaceutical drugs for use in programs for outpatient alcohol treatment Florida has to offer have been around for years. Disulfiram, or Antabuse, discourages people from drinking by causing nausea and other unpleasant experiences if alcohol is consumed. Naltrexone, marketed under the brand names ReVia and Vivitrol, blocks the opioid receptors in the brain, which are the ones associated with feelings of reward and pleasure. If you use naltrexone while you’re in our program for outpatient alcohol treatment in Florida, you won’t feel any of alcohol’s customary pleasurable effects.

The idea behind these pharmaceuticals is to disrupt the pleasure-seeking process that motivates alcohol abuse and dependence. While they may be effective to help you stop drinking, they won’t do much good to ease the depression, anxiety, insomnia and other symptoms that can accompany alcohol withdrawals. These older drugs are also unpleasant to use by their very nature, which is why many people in our outpatient alcohol treatment Florida program fail to use them properly or at all.

Another drug approved for alcoholism, Acamprosate (also known as Campral), works in a way similar to that of Gabapentin to stabilize brain chemistry after acute alcohol withdrawals have passed. The results of the Scripps study indicate that Gabapentin may be for effective for people going through our program for outpatient alcohol treatment in Florida, especially when it comes improved mood and sleep quality. Acamprosate does not have any effect on insomnia or depressed mood.

The development of more effective pharmacological treatments for alcoholism may help many more people give up drinking and turn their lives around.

If you, or someone you care about, is addicted to alcohol, call our program for outpatient alcohol treatment in Florida today at 888-699-5679 to learn more about our treatment programs and what we can do to help you.