Drug Addiction Cures
Drug Addiction Info and Cures
Some drugs release the tension, and anxiety fades away.
Feelings of inadequacy are replaced by relaxed contentment.
One young addict reported that after experiencing
his first heroin high he had exclaimed to himself:
"Why didn't they tell me such wonderful feelings existed?"
A significant number of heroin addicts have stated
that unless the world could provide them with a
feeling to compensate for the loss
of the high, they would never be able to give up heroin.
The Effects of Opioids
The term opioid refers to any natural or synthetic
Substance that acts on the body in a way that is
similar to the action of derivatives of the opium pop.
Opioids are both sedative and have a pain relieving
effects. The opioids are sometimes called narcotic,
but because this term is used differently by those
who study drugs and by the legal system, it does not
always have the same meaning to law enforcement personnel,
laypeople, physicians, and scientists.
The opioids cause mood changes, sleepiness, mental
clouding, constipation, and slowing of the activity of
the brain's respiratory center. An overdose may cause
death due to cessation of breathing. The withdrawal reaction
can be severe and is manifested by sweating, muscle
pains, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and other symptoms
that may last for 2 or 3 days; less severe symptoms
may persist for 4 to 6 months. Heroin use is likely to
be associated with serious deterioration of the individual's
social life and family relations.
Many American service personnel in Vietnam became
users of opium products, especially heroin. But
only a relatively small number of
these individuals continued to use the drugs after they
returned to the United States. This was true whether
they had become physically dependent on the drugs or
not; whether they had injected, smoked, or "snorted"
them; and whether they had been in a detoxification
program or nor. The amount of heroin they had used
in Vietnam, their ethnic background, and their social
class had little bearing on whether they continued to
use drugs after returning to the United States.
Behavior before entering the military was the best predictor
of continued drug use after discharge. Veterans who continued
to use drugs had not finished high school, had a criminal
record, or had used a combination of addictive
drugs while in Vietnam.
Causes of Opioid Addiction
The finding that many veterans who used opiates in
Vietnam were able to abstain upon returning home
stimulated interest in the idea that controlled use of at
least some addictive substances is possible for some people.
Additional support for this view was provided by
reports of people who have used opioids in a controlled
manner for long periods.
Story:
A GI in Vietnam holds an empty vial of heroin against his nose. In
1970, more than 11,000 service personnel in Vietnam were
apprehended for drug use. For each individual caught, it is
estimated that five escaped detection.
Drugs in increasingly large dosages every day, other
daily users are able to limit the intake. Perhaps the
reason that controlled use of opioids has received relatively
little attention is that people who are able to
achieve such use do not come to the attention of clinicians.
In any case, a better understanding of the process
of opioid addiction is necessary so that effective social
policies: for example, drug use laws and treatment procedures-
can be formulated.
Competing views of opioid addiction:
The exposure orientation and the adaptive orientation.
For the exposure orientation, the cause of addiction
is simply exposure to opioids. When a person experiences stress,
endorphins are secreted and produce a stress-induced analgesia increased
tolerance for pain. Some researchers have suggested
that use of heroin and other opioids may cause a
long-term breakdown in the biochemical system that
synthesizes the endorphins (Jaffee). According to
this view, addicts continues to use opioids because
drug use has broken down the body's normal pain-relief
system. It is also thought that opioid drugs are
reinforcing cause they postpone painful withdrawal symptoms.
This view does not explain the Vietnam experience,
nor does it explain why some addicts have severe
withdrawal symptoms while others do not. Moreover,
some people become seriously addicted to drugs that do
not produce withdrawal symptoms, such as nicotine
and coffee.
The adaptive orientation is an interactional one
in which both the person and the situation are considered
to be important factors in the development of addiction:
People's characteristics (their expectations, worries,
etc.) and the situations they face in life, particularly
those that create stress, jointly influence their need for
and reactions to drugs. The available evidence is consistent
with this interpretation. This view can explain why
some military personnel could so easily leave heavy drug
use behind when they returned to the United States. In
Vietnam, they were faced with strange people and
places, boredom, danger, feelings of helplessness, and
other emotions and situations that made their coping
mechanisms appear inadequate. Once they had returned
home, the situational cues that were related to a craving
for drugs were absent.
Some experiments also support the interactional
view. I n one such experiment rats were individually
housed in translucent cages. Each cage was kept in an
unlighted drawer of a filing cabinet with air supplied by
a relatively noisy ventilating fan. For one group the
drawer was opened in a lighted room and the fan turned
off. This procedure was the conditioned stimulus (CS).
While the drawer was open the rats were injected with
morphine (the unconditioned stimulus or UCS). In the
other group the CS and uses were not paired. The
morphine was injected while the drawer was opened
quickly in a dimly lit room with the fan still on . Then
four hours later the drawer was opened in a lighted
room with the fan turned off. After 15 of these daily
trials all the rats were given three test sessions. They
were injected with morphine (the UCS) paired with the
CS; 45 minutes later they were tested for response to
pain. The measure was the length of time a rat remained
on a hot surface before licking its paw.
Both groups of rats showed increasingly short response
times over the three test sessions. This indicated
that the injection was having less effect (they were becoming
drug tolerant). However, tolerance developed at
different rates in the two groups. The rats that were in
new situations (that is, had not previously had the CS
and the UCS paired) were slower to develop a tolerance
(Siegel). This experiment demonstrates that,
regardless of the physical effects of a drug, experiences
with the drug itself and with an environment related to
its administration are important factors in the
effectiveness of the drug .
The results support an interactive view of addiction.
Clinicians do not agree on how opioid addiction should
be treated. Since the nineteenth century treatment
has consisted primarily of hospitalization for withdrawal
from the drug. Aside from being expensive, hospitalization
generally seems to be ineffective, although
positive findings have been reported in a 20-year follow up
study of hospitalized addicts (Vaillant). Although
23 percent had died (mostly from unnatural
causes) and 25 percent were still known to be using
drugs, somewhat more than one-third had achieved stable
abstinence, mainly as a result of strict supervision
after discharge from the hospital.
The recurring finding of research on opioid addicts
is that they frequently have severe personality
problems (Kosten and Rounsaville) . They suffer
particularly from a high their suicide rate
thought to be five times the average. Depression often
even becomes worse.
Some authorities believe that the drugs cause depression,
and others think that more often depression-or
at least a vulnerability to depressive symptoms under
stress- leads to opioid abuse when the drugs are available.
Depression in addicts may have been overestimated,
since there is some evidence that the ones who
seek treatment are more depressed than those who
do not.
For the Treatment I recommend click this link:
http://theliberatormethod.com
Some drugs release the tension, and anxiety fades away.
Feelings of inadequacy are replaced by relaxed contentment.
One young addict reported that after experiencing
his first heroin high he had exclaimed to himself:
"Why didn't they tell me such wonderful feelings existed?"
A significant number of heroin addicts have stated
that unless the world could provide them with a
feeling to compensate for the loss
of the high, they would never be able to give up heroin.
The Effects of Opioids
The term opioid refers to any natural or synthetic
Substance that acts on the body in a way that is
similar to the action of derivatives of the opium pop.
Opioids are both sedative and have a pain relieving
effects. The opioids are sometimes called narcotic,
but because this term is used differently by those
who study drugs and by the legal system, it does not
always have the same meaning to law enforcement personnel,
laypeople, physicians, and scientists.
The opioids cause mood changes, sleepiness, mental
clouding, constipation, and slowing of the activity of
the brain's respiratory center. An overdose may cause
death due to cessation of breathing. The withdrawal reaction
can be severe and is manifested by sweating, muscle
pains, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and other symptoms
that may last for 2 or 3 days; less severe symptoms
may persist for 4 to 6 months. Heroin use is likely to
be associated with serious deterioration of the individual's
social life and family relations.
Many American service personnel in Vietnam became
users of opium products, especially heroin. But
only a relatively small number of
these individuals continued to use the drugs after they
returned to the United States. This was true whether
they had become physically dependent on the drugs or
not; whether they had injected, smoked, or "snorted"
them; and whether they had been in a detoxification
program or nor. The amount of heroin they had used
in Vietnam, their ethnic background, and their social
class had little bearing on whether they continued to
use drugs after returning to the United States.
Behavior before entering the military was the best predictor
of continued drug use after discharge. Veterans who continued
to use drugs had not finished high school, had a criminal
record, or had used a combination of addictive
drugs while in Vietnam.
Causes of Opioid Addiction
The finding that many veterans who used opiates in
Vietnam were able to abstain upon returning home
stimulated interest in the idea that controlled use of at
least some addictive substances is possible for some people.
Additional support for this view was provided by
reports of people who have used opioids in a controlled
manner for long periods.
Story:
A GI in Vietnam holds an empty vial of heroin against his nose. In
1970, more than 11,000 service personnel in Vietnam were
apprehended for drug use. For each individual caught, it is
estimated that five escaped detection.
Drugs in increasingly large dosages every day, other
daily users are able to limit the intake. Perhaps the
reason that controlled use of opioids has received relatively
little attention is that people who are able to
achieve such use do not come to the attention of clinicians.
In any case, a better understanding of the process
of opioid addiction is necessary so that effective social
policies: for example, drug use laws and treatment procedures-
can be formulated.
Competing views of opioid addiction:
The exposure orientation and the adaptive orientation.
For the exposure orientation, the cause of addiction
is simply exposure to opioids. When a person experiences stress,
endorphins are secreted and produce a stress-induced analgesia increased
tolerance for pain. Some researchers have suggested
that use of heroin and other opioids may cause a
long-term breakdown in the biochemical system that
synthesizes the endorphins (Jaffee). According to
this view, addicts continues to use opioids because
drug use has broken down the body's normal pain-relief
system. It is also thought that opioid drugs are
reinforcing cause they postpone painful withdrawal symptoms.
This view does not explain the Vietnam experience,
nor does it explain why some addicts have severe
withdrawal symptoms while others do not. Moreover,
some people become seriously addicted to drugs that do
not produce withdrawal symptoms, such as nicotine
and coffee.
The adaptive orientation is an interactional one
in which both the person and the situation are considered
to be important factors in the development of addiction:
People's characteristics (their expectations, worries,
etc.) and the situations they face in life, particularly
those that create stress, jointly influence their need for
and reactions to drugs. The available evidence is consistent
with this interpretation. This view can explain why
some military personnel could so easily leave heavy drug
use behind when they returned to the United States. In
Vietnam, they were faced with strange people and
places, boredom, danger, feelings of helplessness, and
other emotions and situations that made their coping
mechanisms appear inadequate. Once they had returned
home, the situational cues that were related to a craving
for drugs were absent.
Some experiments also support the interactional
view. I n one such experiment rats were individually
housed in translucent cages. Each cage was kept in an
unlighted drawer of a filing cabinet with air supplied by
a relatively noisy ventilating fan. For one group the
drawer was opened in a lighted room and the fan turned
off. This procedure was the conditioned stimulus (CS).
While the drawer was open the rats were injected with
morphine (the unconditioned stimulus or UCS). In the
other group the CS and uses were not paired. The
morphine was injected while the drawer was opened
quickly in a dimly lit room with the fan still on . Then
four hours later the drawer was opened in a lighted
room with the fan turned off. After 15 of these daily
trials all the rats were given three test sessions. They
were injected with morphine (the UCS) paired with the
CS; 45 minutes later they were tested for response to
pain. The measure was the length of time a rat remained
on a hot surface before licking its paw.
Both groups of rats showed increasingly short response
times over the three test sessions. This indicated
that the injection was having less effect (they were becoming
drug tolerant). However, tolerance developed at
different rates in the two groups. The rats that were in
new situations (that is, had not previously had the CS
and the UCS paired) were slower to develop a tolerance
(Siegel). This experiment demonstrates that,
regardless of the physical effects of a drug, experiences
with the drug itself and with an environment related to
its administration are important factors in the
effectiveness of the drug .
The results support an interactive view of addiction.
Clinicians do not agree on how opioid addiction should
be treated. Since the nineteenth century treatment
has consisted primarily of hospitalization for withdrawal
from the drug. Aside from being expensive, hospitalization
generally seems to be ineffective, although
positive findings have been reported in a 20-year follow up
study of hospitalized addicts (Vaillant). Although
23 percent had died (mostly from unnatural
causes) and 25 percent were still known to be using
drugs, somewhat more than one-third had achieved stable
abstinence, mainly as a result of strict supervision
after discharge from the hospital.
The recurring finding of research on opioid addicts
is that they frequently have severe personality
problems (Kosten and Rounsaville) . They suffer
particularly from a high their suicide rate
thought to be five times the average. Depression often
even becomes worse.
Some authorities believe that the drugs cause depression,
and others think that more often depression-or
at least a vulnerability to depressive symptoms under
stress- leads to opioid abuse when the drugs are available.
Depression in addicts may have been overestimated,
since there is some evidence that the ones who
seek treatment are more depressed than those who
do not.
For the Treatment I recommend click this link:
http://theliberatormethod.com