Telltale Signs That You’re Abusing Drugs as a Means to Cope

No one begins to use addictive substances and thinks that they’re going to develop an addiction. Addiction is a disease that takes form over time and for a number of reasons. But, many people find that they’ve developed addiction as a result of abusing drugs in order to numb emotional pain or cope with unwanted emotions or thoughts. So, if you’re in active addiction and wondering if using drugs to cope is something that has led to your struggle with addiction, there are some signs to look for.

There are some telltale signs that you’re abusing drugs as a way to cope with negative emotions and thoughts including:

You Feel Like You Have to Use Drugs in Order to Have Fun

Do you find that every time you’re out and about with friends you have to use drugs or drink alcohol? Social events are synonymous with drinking and even using party drugs. But, if you feel that you need to drink alcohol or use drugs just to have a good time during social outings, this may be a sign that you’re using these substances to cope. This can include avoiding events that won’t include drinking or drug use and feeling like you need drugs or alcohol to feel self-assured during social gatherings as well.

Craving Drugs or Alcohol During the Day

Do you find yourself daydreaming about getting off of work and having a cold beer, rolling a joint, or breaking out a bag of cocaine? If you’re having cravings to use when you’re not using, like during work or school hours, this may mean that you’re dependent on these substances and have become dependent on them due to the fact that they’re helping you cope with unwanted thoughts or emotions.

Finding it Hard to Sleep Without Using or Drinking

Using addictive substances can change the body’s sleep patterns. So, if you find that it’s hard to fall asleep without first getting inebriated or using your drug of choice, this may mean that your body has changed due to addiction. Sleep issues are common in people who have developed a dependency on addictive substances, whether it means sleeping too much or sleeping too little.

Needing Drugs or Alcohol to Feel Uplifted

Do you reach for your drug of choice in order to lift your spirits? Do you find yourself acting out against loved ones if you’re not high or intoxicated? Addiction can lead to mood swings and affect mood regulation. So, if you find that one of the only things that improve your mood is using your drug of choice, this can signify a dependence on a drug and using drugs or alcohol to cope.

Getting Addiction Help Through Outpatient Treatment

Using drugs or alcohol to cope is a common reason that addiction forms. But, fortunately, there is help available in order to assist you with finding better ways to cope with unwanted emotions and thoughts. Outpatient addiction treatment allows people to get the addiction help they need while not having to give up social responsibilities, work, or school. Delray Center for Recovery offers outpatient addiction treatment services and a number of other therapy services to help people who have developed addictions due to using drugs or alcohol to cope. Find out more about our addiction treatment services from our website.

Loving an Addict: How to Stop Using Enabling Behavior

If you love an addict or alcoholic, of course, you want to help them to reach sobriety. Undoubtedly, you’ve seen first-hand how addiction can negatively impact your loved one’s life. And, certainly, you want them to be a healthier and happier version of themselves. But, what many loved ones of addicts don’t know is that sometimes enabling can feel like helping. However, in reality, enabling behavior does more harm than good. That’s why it’s crucial for the loved ones of people in recovery for addiction to be aware of enabling and also things they can do to avoid enabling and assist their loved one with the recovery process in healthy and supportive ways.

What is Enabling Behavior?

It’s completely understandable that you can identify that a loved one going through addiction is struggling and you want to help as a person who’s supportive and loving. However, sometimes, helping is confused with enabling in these situations. So, what is the difference between helping and enabling?

Enabling is when a person provides care, monetary support, or other help to an addict when they could and should otherwise provide for themselves. Essentially, enabling is when a person provides ‘help’ to an addicted loved one that prevents them from experiencing the consequences of their own actions. For example, enabling can look like:

  • giving money
  • providing transportation
  • offering a place to live/stay
  • bailing a loved one out of jail
  • paying for legal fees
  • making excuses for an addicted loved one’s actions
  • assisting with an addicted loved one’s personal responsibilities (calling out of work for them, taking care of their household chores, paying bills, etc.)

Basically, while it may seem like you’re helping a loved one that’s struggling with addiction through enabling behaviors, all you’re really doing is delaying the consequences of their behavior. And, as a result, delaying them from getting the help they really need through treatment.

What is Helping?

It can be difficult for a loved one of someone struggling with addiction to not only identify their own enabling behaviors but stop doing them in general. In contrast to enabling, helping is much more difficult. Stopping enabling behavior is one way you can truly help your loved one that’s living in a cycle of addiction. It forces them to not lean on you in order to delay the consequences of their drug abuse. You can also help in a number of other ways including encouraging treatment, providing a listening ear, setting healthy boundaries, and being a supportive friend/loved one for recovery. Help is when someone provides the support they could otherwise not provide for themselves. It is not protecting a loved one from negative consequences.

Getting Help as a Unit for Substance Use Disorder

One of the most effective and helpful things you can do to help a loved one who is in recovery from substance use disorder is to be an active part of their recovery. This means providing support by learning about their disorder, how to set healthy boundaries within your relationship, and how to steer clear of enabling. All of these things are touched upon in family therapy sessions, which are typically available from substance abuse treatment facilities like Delray Center for Recovery.

Here, we provide support for both individuals struggling with addiction, their families, and their loved ones on an outpatient basis. Learn more about how we can help you and your family to learn more about enabling and assistive ways of helping a loved one who’s dealing with active addiction.

5 Important Things to Know Before Starting Drug Rehab

Drug rehabilitation programs have the power to change lives. Drug rehab can take people who have been lost and give them a compass so that they can find their way back to being part of regular society. Making the decision to seek drug addiction treatment is not an easy decision. It can be one of the hardest decisions you will ever make. The idea of leaving behind a very comfortable, while still harmful, part of your life can feel very threatening. Once you have made the decision to participate in treatment, it is important to be prepared.

Drug Rehab Logo

 

Here are a few things that you should know if you are considering drug rehab for yourself or a family member:

1. There is a difference between inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation.

Inpatient and outpatient rehab are the two major types of rehab available to people who have made the decision to seek treatment. Outpatient treatment programs are best for people who have moderate addictions and obligations that make it inadvisable for them to participate in a residential program. Outpatient programs allow drug users to continue to be a part of their regular lives while still seeking addiction treatment. Inpatient treatment programs are best for people with more severe addiction problems who need to be kept away from the outside influences that they have been experiencing. Inpatient programs require that patients live within the treatment facility and abide by the rules that the program sets forth.

2. Attitude makes a difference.

If you are not ready to seek treatment or you believe that it will not work, you are probably better off not getting started at all. If you go into treatment with a positive outlook and a healthy mental attitude, then you are likely to be successful. If you want to seek treatment, but you are not sure it is going to work, fake it. Even if you do not believe it, tell yourself and anyone else that you will be successful in treatment and that you are going to come out the other side a more amazing you.

3. Your loved ones are telling you the truth.

It is possible that you are making the steps to go to treatment because of an intervention staged for you by the people who care the most about you. An intervention means two very important things – that there are people who love and care about you who do not want to see you continue to harm yourself, and that you are in denial about what you have been doing to yourself. In rehab, you will be asked to take responsibility for your actions and for your drug use. You are the only person who can make the decision to take that responsibility and it is a sure sign of healing when you can take ownership of your own behaviors.

4. Group counseling is not so scary.

For people who are naturally introverts or have trouble with public speaking, the idea of group therapy can be terrifying. It can sound very intimidating for almost anyone. Many participants are hesitant to share at first because it is a group of strangers, but eventually, everyone loosens up a bit and realizes that you are all there with a common purpose. You all have things that you can learn from one another. As participants begin to feel less isolated and more a part of this bigger support structure, some of the biggest breakthroughs can occur during group therapy.

5. Rehab does not end when the program ends.

One of the most important parts of rehabilitation happens after your formal rehab treatment is finished. Aftercare is one of the best things that you can do for yourself once your program ends. There are both formal and informal aftercare options. Some facilities offer aftercare programs that include 12-step groups, continued therapy session, sober living activities, and potentially more training in how to live a drug free life. You can also find most of these options on your own. Narc-Anon groups have regular meetings all over the country. You can make and keep maintenance and follow-up appointments on your own. You can also seek out a sober living group that fits into your schedule and participates in activities that are right for you.

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.

Addiction Treatment Delray Beach is not Simple but Worth the Effort

Addiction treatment Delray Beach is successful and offers a better way of life at The Delray Center for Healing.  However addiction treatment is not simple and requires much work and determination. Although drug addiction is a complex illness, it is treatable for many people and treatment has saved many lives. Drug addiction is characterized by intense and uncontrollable drug cravings along with the compulsion to seek out the drug even though one is fully aware of the devastating consequences associated with it to them and their family.

Addiction is a disease that affects the whole brain including; reward and motivation, learning, memory, and control over behavior. Addiction treatment Delray Beach programs are effective however and typically incorporate many components, each directed to a particular aspect of the illness as well as its consequences due to continued drug use. Those affected by addiction simply cannot stop using the drugs for a day or a week and be cured. Many people require inpatient treatment care to achieve the ultimate goal of stay off the drug and living a drug free lifestyle.
Once they exit inpatient care they are urged to go into a halfway house to become slowly reintegrated back into society. It is best to stay away from old people, places, and things as long as possible and be in a comfortable safe atmosphere. If you or a loved one is currently struggling with an addiction you need to be aware that addiction treatment Delray Beach is successful and promising at The Delray Center for Healing. The moment you decide to help yourself is the moment you will be able to fully understand and appreciate the help that others will give you with addiction treatment. So call us now at (866)-699-5679 for more confidential information.