How to Prepare Yourself for Outpatient Addiction Treatment in Delray Beach

So you’ve finally had enough – of drugs and alcohol, that is. You’ve come to realize that you have a problem, and that addiction is tearing apart your family, your career and your life. You’re ready to seek help. You’ve even chosen a program – our facility for outpatient addiction treatment in Delray Beach.

How you prepare yourself for this next crucial chapter of your life will make all the difference. Let’s take a look at what you can do to ready yourself to start your outpatient treatment program for addiction.

Understand What You’re About to Do

Our outpatient addiction treatment Delray Beach program is very effective, but it isn’t magic. It’s not going to change you unless you want to change. And change is hard – you have to overall your whole lifestyle, change your fundamental beliefs and perspectives, and keep moving forward even when it seems impossible.

Addiction relapse rates are high and it could happen to you. You’ll have to commit to putting a plan in place for that eventuality. If you suffer relapse, you’ll have to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and start all over again. You could wind up back in outpatient drug rehab, or even in an inpatient drug rehab.

There are no short cuts to recovery, no magic tricks that will put you on the straight and narrow and keep you there. You have to work for it. It won’t be easy, or fun, and it will at times feel frightening, degrading and painful.

In order to successfully get clean in our program for outpatient addiction treatment in Delray Beach, you have to give up drugs and alcohol forever. You can’t get clean for a little bit and then go back to using. You can’t have just one drink. This isn’t a fad diet. It’s your life now – or it will be, soon.

The Program You Choose Matters

There’s a reason why so many people choose our program for outpatient addiction treatment in Delray Beach. It’s one of the best outpatient drug and alcohol rehabs in the country and it’s located in sunny South Florida, in Delray Beach, the Recovery Capital of the World. We’ve saved thousands of lives as people from all walks of life and all over the country have come here, hoping against hope for a recovery they haven’t found anywhere else. Many have stayed; the recovery community of Delray Beach provides a supportive atmosphere you just can’t get anywhere else.

Know Where You’re Going to Live

If you’re going to outpatient drug treatment, you’ll need a place to live. Unlike inpatient rehab programs, outpatient programs don’t provide lodging. You’ll need a stable, supportive and substance-free home environment.

If you don’t know where you’re going to stay while you attend our program for outpatient addiction treatment in Delray Beach, don’t worry. Delray Beach is home to more than 200 sober living homes and halfway houses for people in outpatient rehab programs like ours. You can live in a close and supportive family atmosphere while you’re attending our rehab program.

Get Help at Home with Outpatient Addiction Treatment in Delray Beach

One of the biggest advantages of outpatient addiction treatment Delray Beach programs like ours is that you can still hold down a job and spend time with your family while you’re in the program. You don’t have to disappear for weeks or months on end when you attend our program for outpatient addiction treatment in Delray Beach.

But you’ll still need to find time to attend group and individual therapy sessions and 12-Step support group meetings. If you don’t have good time management skills, you’re going to need to get some in a hurry, especially if you have kids at home. If you have a spouse or partner, maybe they can pick up some of the slack while you’re at meetings and therapy – but it might be a good idea to consider calling a parent or other relative to come and stay with you for a while, or hiring a nanny, or even finding out if friends or neighbors might be willing to lend a hand.

If you’re ready to get treatment for your substance abuse issues, our program for outpatient treatment in Delray Beach can help. Call us today at 888-699-5679 to learn more.

Heroin Deaths Are Avoidable with Suboxone Addiction Treatment

The recent death of Philip Seymour Hoffman due to a heroin overdose has highlighted the heroin epidemic that is raging across this great nation. Law enforcement crackdowns on prescription painkiller abuse have only served to make the cheaper, more plentiful heroin more appealing to addicts who lack access to heroin addiction treatment. Potent heroin and heroin mixed with fentanyl have been to blame for a rash of overdose deaths that have claimed the lives of dozens in recent weeks.

But there’s a way to avoid all of these heroin-related overdose deaths – Suboxone addiction treatment.

Heroin Use Rates Have Doubled in Recent Years

Federal reports indicate that heroin abuse rates have doubled since 2007. 669,000 Americans are now using heroin. More than 100 people die from drug overdoses in this country every day.

Middle-class young people – adults in their 20s and 30s – are at the forefront of this addiction crisis. These are former prescription painkiller addicts who have moved on to heroin abuse now that prescription opiates are expensive and difficult to find.

As prescription painkiller abusers build tolerance for the drug, they need to use more and more to feel the same effects. Since these pills are harder to get on the black market than ever – and since Florida’s pill mills are a thing of the past and doctors are increasingly aware of the dangers of writing these prescriptions – heroin is the next best thing.

The jump from prescription painkiller use to heroin addiction can happen in a flash. Many addicts are hooked on opiates from the moment they first use them.

Heroin has the same effect on the brain as prescription painkillers. Both substances are opiate drugs; they work on the brain’s opiate receptors to stimulate euphoric feelings of pleasure and reward. Suboxone addiction treatment has been proven to be an effective treatment for opiate addictions across the board, whether they involve heroin or prescription painkillers.

Addicts Most Vulnerable to Overdose During Relapse, Experts Say

One reason why Suboxone addiction treatment is such a valuable tool to fight heroin addiction and prevent overdose deaths is that addicts are most likely to suffer a fatal overdose when they relapse after a period of abstinence. That’s because a recovering addict, who had been accustomed to using relatively high doses of heroin, will relapse after a period of abstinence and attempt to reprise the last dose he or she was accustomed to using.

After a few weeks or months of sobriety, however, the recovering addict no longer has the same high tolerance for the drug. The dose will invariably be too much. Overdose follows.

How does Suboxone addiction treatment help? Suboxone for opiate maintenance blocks the brain’s opioid receptors. It relieves opiate withdrawal symptoms, and prevents heroin or prescription painkillers from stimulating the receptors. Simply put, Suboxone stops heroin or other opiate drugs from working. The recovering addict can’t overdose – he or she can’t even get high.

For many recovering addicts, relapse is almost unavoidable. For an addict using Suboxone treatment, a slip fails to offer the same old familiar reward. That’s why recovering addicts using Suboxone for opiate rehab have fewer slip-ups and are more likely to maintain their recovery over the long term. Suboxone removes the motivation to use opiate drugs.

Suboxone Addiction Treatment Is the Best Option for Addicts

Suboxone treatment for opiate addiction protects recovering addicts from the risks of relapse, giving them a chance to truly recover and live full lives. For an addict who wants to get clean, Suboxone addiction treatment offers immediate relief from withdrawal symptoms and allows the addict to return to a normal lifestyle from the very first day of treatment. It’s a truly remarkable pharmaceutical intervention for opiate addiction.

Of course, Suboxone opiate maintenance is no substitute for addiction counseling. All addicts need substance abuse counseling to get to the root of their substance abuse issues and learn the coping skills necessary to bring about real long-term change. Opiate addicts are no exception; in fact, for them, counseling may be even more necessary because psychological cravings for opiate drugs can linger for years, even decades, after sobriety is achieved.

Heroin addiction is a deadly affliction, but Suboxone addiction treatment saves lives. If you or someone you love is using heroin or other opiate drugs, don’t wait any longer to seek help. Addiction kills without warning; don’t become another statistic. Call 888-699-5679 today.

Suboxone Treatment Delray Beach Programs Report Rise in Cases of Heroin Addiction

Heroin use – and overdose deaths – has been skyrocketing around the country and South Florida is no exception. Our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program has seen an increase in the numbers of heroin addicts coming in for treatment. Similar drug treatment programs in Broward County have seen an 87 percent spike in heroin admissions in 2012 alone.

Heroin overdoses in Delray Beach alone have shot up from three in 2012 to 27 in 2013. Now, authorities are finding bags of heroin laced with the powerful synthetic opiate drug fentanyl. Fentanyl is five times more potent than heroin, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

The Fentanyl-laced bags of heroin present a real overdose danger to people in need of our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program, because many of the people who buy these bags of heroin don’t know what they’re getting. Dr. Rodriguez, the physician in charge of our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program, would like heroin users to remember that there’s no regulatory body overseeing the quality, purity or potency of illegal drugs.

Why Do Addicts Overdose?

Addicts overdose because they take more drugs than they can handle. Sometimes the people in need of our Suboxone treatment program aren’t aware of the potency of a particular batch of heroin, and use too much.

Over time, addicts build up a tolerance to their drug of choice – we see it all the time in people who come in to our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program for treatment. As they build a higher tolerance, they must take ever-higher doses of the drug to get the same effect.

Then something happens to affect the addict’s tolerance. Maybe they come into our Suboxone treatment program for treatment, get clean for a while, and then relapse. Even if the addict doesn’t come in to our Delray Beach treatment program, there are other factors that can affect his or her tolerance level. The supply of drugs might dry up, for instance, or the addict might have trouble getting money to buy drugs, or the addict may simply end up using less potent heroin for at time. No matter what the cause, a drop in tolerance can mean one more addict who never lives to get help from our Suboxone treatment.

Where’s All This Heroin Coming From Anyway?

The heroin sending record numbers of people into programs like our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program is the purest and strongest heroin that’s been seen in the United States for years. The brown powder and black-tar heroin from Mexico that used to send people into our treatment programs has been supplanted by pure white powder heroin from South America.

“Hillbilly Heroin” Has Given Way to Actual Heroin

When we started our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program years ago, it was with the goal of helping prescription painkiller addicts. Prescription painkiller addiction quickly became a huge problem throughout the country after opiate painkillers like Oxycontin hit the market in the 1990s. Dr. Rodriguez was one of the first addiction specialists to address the problem when he established our Suboxone treatment program in Delray. Prescription painkillers became known as “hillbilly heroin” because rates of opiate addiction were highest in Appalachian states like West Virginia.

“Pill mill” doctors in Florida doled out these drugs indiscriminately, to both locals and “drug tourists.” Our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program helped those struggling with opiate addiction to get clean.

Law enforcement officers cracked down on pill mills, but that wasn’t enough to eliminate the need for programs like our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program. Here at our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach facility, we understand that taking away an addict’s drug of choice isn’t enough to end that person’s thrall to addiction – especially if a cheap, plentiful substitute drug is available. The pill mill crackdown saw most prescription painkiller addicts turn to heroin, instead of to programs like our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program.

If you or someone you know is using heroin, please call our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program right away. Don’t take even one more dose – just call our Suboxone treatment Delray Beach program now at 888-699-5679.

Six Things the Government Can Do to Get Heroin Addicts into Outpatient Detox Delray Beach Has to Offer

The United States is losing the battle against drug addiction, and has been for decades. Our nation is currently gripped by a heroin epidemic that is claiming lives in cities and towns across the country, from rural Vermont to Hollywood, California. Programs like our outpatient detox Delray Beach program exist to help people get off heroin with the latest opiate maintenance medications. But what can our government do to ensure that more of the people who need the help of programs like our outpatient detox Delray Beach program actually get it?

1) Make Heroin Addiction a Health Issue, Not a Legal Issue

The current practice of treating drug addiction like a criminal act and prosecuting drug addicts as criminals isn’t working, because once people get addicted to drugs, they no longer really have a choice in whether they use or not. Only medical intervention from specialized recovery programs like our outpatient detox can help.

Criminalizing drug addiction and punishing addicts only makes them more reluctant to seek the help of professionals in the drug and alcohol treatment industry. The government can help more people get access to outpatient programs, detox and other professional care by treating heroin addiction as a public health issue. The government should be shifting its resources to prevention and education by encouraging treatment through programs like our outpatient detox Delray Beach program.

2) Increase Availability to Recovery Programs

Many heroin addicts would love to enter recovery programs, but they can’t because this type of treatment isn’t accessible to them. Emergency rooms treat addicts for overdoses and then turn them back out onto the streets. Insurance companies refuse to cover drug treatment. Making services like our outpatient detox program accessible to anyone who needs them, on request, like any other medical service, would allow many more people struggling with heroin addiction to get the help they need.

3) Our Government Needs to Invest in Our Youth

Many young people find themselves in need of programs like outpatient detox programs because of a lack of initiatives that can effectively keep kids off drugs. Education and prevention, after school programs to keep kids off the streets, mentor programs for kids who don’t have good role models, job training and skills building and summer job programs can all keep kids out of recoery program to begin with. The Higher Education Opportunity Act, which strips students convicted of drug offenses of their right to financial aid, needs to be repealed so that those kids who do find their way into addiction treatment can still go on to build better lives for themselves.

4) Law Enforcement Should Focus on Violent Offenders

There’s no reason to keep expending government resources on street-level dealers and individual users. These people should be remanded to treatment programs like our outpatient detox Delray Beach program instead of given prison time. Law enforcement can focus its efforts and resources on stopping the smugglers and cartels responsible for making heroin available to the people in our outpatient detox Delray Beach program.

5) Individual States Should Be Allowed to Try Their Own Approaches

The federal government often opposes state-level reforms in drug policy that could help drug addicts, like increasing the availability of programs like our outpatient detox Delray Beach program. State initiatives could make it easier for the people who need our outpatient detox Delray Beach program to get access to it, as long as the federal government respects states’ rights to try new approaches to the growing drug problem. Factors that influence the need for programs like our outpatient detox Delray Beach program could vary drastically on a state-by-state level.

6) Expand Needle Exchange and Syringe Deregulation

Blood-borne diseases like HIV/AIDs and Hepatitis C are real threats to the people who end up needing outpatient detox and other treatment programs. Not only do needle exchange and syringe deregulation programs help stop the spread of these diseases, they can also help get more people into programs like ours.

If you or someone you love is struggling with heroin addiction, our outpatient detox Delray Beach program can help. Call 888-699-5679 today.

Study Finds You Can Quit Smoking During Addiction Treatment Delray Offers

It’s not uncommon for people in our addiction treatment Delray Beach program, or in any addiction treatment program for that matter, to be heavy smokers. Recovering addicts and alcoholics are well-known for their propensity to smoke – and smoke a lot. Traditionally, programs like our addiction treatment Delray Beach program have discouraged concurrent treatment for drug addiction and tobacco addiction. The concern we’ve had is that attempting to treat both addictions at once could drive people out of addiction treatment altogether.

But the results of a new study suggest that treatment for nicotine addiction can be a successful part of programs like our addiction treatment Delray Beach program. Incorporating nicotine addiction treatment into programs like our addiction treatment Delray Beach program can reduce recovering addicts’ risk of smoking-related diseases, and could even improve their chances of overall success in our recovery.

Smoking Death Rate Highest in Substance Abusers

Smoking causes one in five deaths each year in the U.S., but substance abuse patients have the dubious distinction of dying from smoking-related causes at a much higher rate than any other segment of the population. As of 2008, 63 percent of people with a substance abuse disorder said that they used tobacco. Rates of tobacco use in the general population were about 28 percent.

Despite the high rate of tobacco use among substance abuse patients, most programs like our addiction treatment Delray Beach program do not include smoking cessation therapy in treatment.

Researchers Study Effectiveness of Smoking Cessation in

Addiction Treatment Programs

Researchers from the National Institute of Drug Abuse conducted a study on the effectiveness of smoking cessation treatment for methamphetamine and cocaine addicts in programs like our addiction treatment Delray Beach program. Cocaine and methamphetamine addicts were randomly chosen from programs like our addiction treatment Delray Beach program and assigned to a 10-week smoking cessation therapy program. The program involved weekly counseling sessions, antidepressant medication, nicotine inhalers and contingency management. Contingency management is a technique used in programs like our addiction treatment Delray Beach program where recovering addicts are rewarded for their abstinence.

The participants received drug and carbon monoxide testing during the study to measure the success of both the drug and smoking cessation treatment they were receiving, but during the 10 weeks and at three and six month follow-ups. Just as in our addiction treatment Delray Beach program, study participants also self-reported treatment outcomes.

Smoking Cessation Helps Patients in Programs Like Our Addiction Treatment Delray Beach Program

The study, which was published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, found that patients in programs like our addiction treatment Delray Beach program enjoyed a great deal of success from nicotine cessation therapy during drug addiction treatment. Not only did the smoking cessation therapy not interfere with the effectiveness of the drug addiction treatment, it actually improved drug addiction treatment outcomes for patients in programs like our addiction treatment Delray Beach program.

Make Smoking Cessation a Part of Your Addiction Treatment Delray Beach Program

If you need drug addiction treatment, our addiction treatment Delray Beach program offers a range of evidence based, alternative and holistic treatments to help you overcome addiction and get your life back. With the results of this study, it’s now clear that smoking cessation therapy can and should be a part of addiction treatment for anyone who needs and wants it. Our addiction treatment Delray Beach program offers a comprehensive, all-natural smoking cessation treatment involving auricular (ear) acupuncture. Ear acupuncture has been proven to help treat nicotine and heroin addiction.

When you receive smoking cessation therapy from our addiction treatment Delray Beach facility, you’ll receive six 75-minute sessions of auricular acupuncture. You can receive your smoking cessation treatment in a group or individual setting. Self-massage, breathing techniques, visualization, and mind-body exercises form a part of our comprehensive smoking cessation therapy. The smoking cessation treatment we offer at our addiction treatment Delray Beach is painless.

If you’re struggling with drug and nicotine addiction, our addiction treatment Delray Beach facility can help. Call us today at 888-699-5679 to learn more.