If you have struggled with addiction, you might have looked into different treatment options. Any type of therapy for substance abuse must start with detox. During detox, you’ll eliminate the toxic substances from your system so that you can work on properly healing your body and mind. The withdrawal process, however, is not easy to get through alone.
When Is Detox Necessary?
Anybody who needs help with substance abuse needs to get the drugs out of his or her body before continuing with treatment. If you have been using drugs for a significant amount of time, you might experience withdrawal symptoms as your body gets used to live without the chemicals. Some drugs are associated with more intense withdrawal symptoms than others.
Detox is necessary when your body has become so dependent on a drug that you don’t feel normal when you’re not under the influence. Substances that produce significant withdrawal symptoms as they’re eliminated from the body include:
- Alcohol
- Narcotics
- Pain medication
- Sleeping medication
- Benzodiazepines
What Does Detox Feel Like?
Detox feels different for everyone. The severity of the symptoms depends on the patient’s history with the drug, overall health and other factors. The substances mentioned above can produce powerful, debilitating symptoms. Some of these are:
- Nausea
- Fever
- Chills
- Tremors
- Muscle aches
- Irritability
- Paranoia
Can You Get Through Detox Alone?
It’s not impossible to navigate the process of detox alone. However, if you’re feeling terrible as the drugs leave your body, only three things can make you feel better: time, taking the drugs again or using other medications to soothe your symptoms. Without support, you might have trouble staying away from drugs when you know that they’ll reduce the symptoms of withdrawal.
Unsupervised Detox Can Be Dangerous
Although it’s healthier to quit using drugs than to continue a cycle of substance abuse, the process of detox can be dangerous. Medical supervision is required when you’re quitting certain drugs, such as alcohol or benzodiazepines.
When you use alcohol over a long period of time, your body becomes used to the sedative effects. Going through alcohol detox lets your body get back to normal. However, ordinary bodily functions may be overstimulating for someone who is used to being sedated by alcohol. As your blood pressure, respiration rate and heart rate picks up, you can experience life-threatening complications.
Benzodiazepines, such as Xanax and Klonopin, also depress the central nervous system. When you stop using them, the symptoms that you’ve been trying to suppress, like anxiety, seizures and muscle tension, can return. These feelings may be stronger than they ever were before. People who have been using benzodiazepines consistently may need to wean off of them instead of stopping altogether.
How Medical Detox Works
Whenever you’re detoxing from a drug, your body can go haywire. Simply having medical supervision can help you detox safely. Health professionals will monitor your vital signs as you go through the process to make sure that you’re not in danger.
In addition to constant supervision, a medical detox facility may prescribe drugs to make the process more comfortable. This is encouraging, especially for people who have avoided treatment because they fear the pain of withdrawal.
Our medical professionals set up a customized plan for every patient. We will help you determine whether it’s necessary to quit cold turkey or wean yourself off of a substance. We can also administer medication to help with anxiety, depression and other incapacitating symptoms.
We have access to medications that can help you sleep or curb your cravings for drugs during and after withdrawal. Some remedies block the effects of the drugs to decrease the likelihood of relapse. These may also be used to prevent an overdose if you do find yourself using drugs again.
Getting the right treatment for a substance abuse disorder is crucial to lasting recovery. Purging the drugs from your system is only the first step toward a life of wellness. Psychological, emotional and physical support is necessary during and after detox to help you learn how to develop the skills that you need to change your patterns and support long-term healing.
Contact us to learn how to stop the cycle of addiction and learn how drug and alcohol detox can give you hope for the future.
