Drug and alcohol addiction

Drug-Rehab.ca will assist you in finding effective help for your addiction by giving you a better understanding of the different types of addiction treatment available and helping you choose the best rehab, based on your specific needs.

Drug-Rehab.ca provides information and counseling that can reduce the severity of one’s addiction by providing accurate data leading to a drug-free life without the need for other medications or drugs to function normally.  Drug Rehab Services refers to programs that are exclusively drug free and do not substitute one drug for another.  We are interested in your long-term success, free of drug impairment and free of addiction!

For immediate assistance to find a drug rehabilitation treatment in Canada

What is addiction?

By definition, addiction is a state of being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically and/or physically habit-forming.

You may ask yourself : “is my loved one actually addicted or am I over reacting?”  There are methods that can help you distinguish the difference between “use”, “abuse” and “addiction”.  Most drug use can be seen as abuse and most abuse soon leads to addiction, therefore, it is important that you become aware of the indicators of addiction.  If the drug use/abuse hasn’t progressed to an addiction, than you can take the measures needed to keep this from occurring.

Addiction is usually defined as the compulsive use of a substance, regardless of the potentially negative social, psychological and physical consequences.

Addiction preoccupies one’s life and causes a person to neglect those behaviors and actions that help one survive and thrive.  Addicts continually promise themselves and others that they will use in moderation, but break those promises and feel guilty and remorseful about their inability to control their destructive behaviors.

Generally speaking, addicts are using alcohol or other drugs to find happiness and relief from failures in unsuccessfully handling life challenges.  Escaping from these failures through alcohol and other drug use are their only moments of feeling normal.  They believe that life’s problems are insurmountable and they have a history of failed attempts at trying to win in life.

When a person is unable to handle different aspects of life and feels hopeless in his efforts, he will many times find relief from his disappointments with alcohol and other drugs.

Sometimes it is a simple as an inability to have fun or join in group activities, or the common idea that a person must have a couple of beers at night to unwind from the stress of work.

Naturally, someone that has a few beers in the evenings isn’t a candidate for residential treatment, but people with this profile may find themselves resorting to larger amounts of alcohol or drugs when they are confronted with an overwhelming life problem.  They have taught themselves that mind altering drugs are a solution and they will resort to larger amounts of alcohol and drugs in an attempt to better confront these situations.

The moment that a person finds release from his worries with alcohol and drugs, he is very likely to become dependant on these substances to “handle” emotional challenges.

So, what indicators to you look for in determining whether someone needs alcohol and other drug treatment?

A common scenario would be a young adult, (we will call him Johnny), that is shy and any communications with peers or  asking for a date, causes him a problem since he wants to be liked and be part of his community of friends, but his inability to communicate his feelings causes him to retreat from social interaction.  However, Johnny finds that when he has a beer or more, or smokes some marijuana, he becomes talkative and friendly and others obviously like his interactions.  He feels wrong about only being able to communicate after he is high on alcohol or other drugs, but when he attempts to be part of his group without his drugs, he stumbles and is ridiculed.

Ultimately Johnny falls in love and gets married and he tells himself that he must slow down on his use of alcohol and drugs, but whenever he does he finds himself in conflicts with his new family and he resigns himself to “needing” these substances to survive.  Since Johnny’s judgment is impaired from his continual substance abuse, he creates more problems that require more able communications to handle, but he hasn’t the skills to do so.  His solution has become his problem, and these actions bring on more and more problems to the point that he feels afraid of losing everything and his only moments of peace are when he is exterior to his life by being high enough to no longer care about the important issues that need his attention.

Johnny decides to seek help from his family physician, who seems to understand and prescribes him medications such as anti-anxiety drugs, like Zanax, or anti-depressants.  Johnny seems better and is happier for a while, but he soon finds that these drugs work better when combined with his other drugs-of-choice and his life continues to rapidly unwind.  Johnny’s wife and family can’t understand him, nor he them, so he finds friends at the bar and elsewhere who also cannot be understood by the sober and sane society.

At this point, professional help is the only way to help him understand how these substances are his problem and to help him rebuild his life free of mind altering drugs of any kind.

Now, whether or not this rebuilding of his life will be successful is predicated on the ability of the treatment modality to repair addicted lives.

Mental health and alcohol and drug treatment do not have a history of predictable successes with patients like Johnny.  Everyone has heard someone say that “treatment doesn’t work”, and certainly this is true in too many cases.  Johnny’s first treatment from his family doctor only hastened his decline and it is certainly true that this treatment didn’t work.

As often happens in the medical community, when treatment continues to fail, the patient or the problems get classified as incurable.  This is the origin of addiction being a chronic and progressive disease, which means that it will continue throughout one’s life and will progressively get worse with time, even if a person quits alcohol or other drugs.

So, Johnny’s family does an intervention to wake him up to the fact that he is going to spend his life in jail or be dead if he doesn’t handle his addiction.  If Johnny goes to one of these treatment modalities where addiction is seen as a disease, then he will be told that only one in ten of you will change your lives, that “once an addict, always an addict”.  Johnny hasn’t been able to confront anything of consequence in his life and now he is given this sour pill to swallow!  Most people, like Johnny, just resign themselves to the idea that they will continue to fail in life and that they are a burden to themselves and to their loved ones.

This shouldn’t be the outcome of treatment, but it many times is.  Therefore, it is very important that you find treatment that works!

Call our counselors and ask them about the different types of treatment and learn what programs will give you or your loved one the help to rehabilitate themselves.  Give your Johnny a chance to learn to confront life on its on terms and to communicate with others to find solutions and to live well and be in command of his future.

Addiction signs

The following are a few signs for someone who needs treatment:

• Increase or decrease in appetite;
• Changes in eating habits,
• Unexplained weight loss or gain.
• Smell of alcohol or drugs on breath, body or clothes.
• Extreme hyperactivity;
• Excessive talkativeness.
• Needle marks or bruises on lower arm, legs or feet.
• Change in overall attitude / personality with no other identifiable cause.
• Changes in friends: new hangouts, avoidance of old crowd, new friends are drug users.
• Change in activities; loss of interest in things that had previously been important.
• Decline in school or work performance; skips or is late to school or work.
• Changes in habits at home; loss of interest in family and family activities.
• Difficulty in paying attention; forgetfulness.
• Lack of motivation, energy, self-esteem, discipline, bored, "I don't care" attitude.
• Defensiveness, temper-tantrums, resentful behaviors (everything's a hassle).
• Unexplained moodiness, irritability, or nervousness.
• Violent temper or bizarre behavior.
• Unexplained silliness or giddiness.
• Paranoia -- suspiciousness.
• Excessive need for privacy; keeps door locked or closed, won't let people in.
• Secretive or suspicious behavior.
• Car accidents, fender benders, household accidents.
• Chronic dishonesty; trouble with police.
• Unexplained need for money; can't explain where money goes; stealing.
• Unusual effort to cover arms, legs, change in personal grooming habits.
• Possession of drug paraphernalia.

The above of indicators of addiction is fairly comprehensive, but there may be other signs that are unique to you or your loved one. All of these signs are indicators of someone having trouble and most of the time that involves alcohol, drugs and addiction.  If you have seen these signs in yourself or someone you care about, call our counselors and let them help you discern what you need to do to help.

Also you can refer to adolescent signs for addiction .

10 Warning Signs of Prescription Painkiller Dependency

Hundreds of thousands of North Americans are dependant on prescription painkillers for the relief of pain from ailments, all the way from headaches, and menstrual cramps to surgery recovery or chronic lingering pain from an injury. Unfortunately this reliance on medication can readily, and sometimes unknowingly, turns into physical and/or psychological dependence.

The alarming fact is that the most frequently prescribed opiates, such as OxyContin, Vicodin, Methadone, Darvocet, Lortab, Lorcet and Percocet, while offering relief from pain, also cause physical addiction, expressed as a need for these drugs to feel normal, and the result is that many are now challenged with chemical dependency. Here are ten warning signs to look for if you think that you or someone you know may be experiencing a dependency on these drugs.

1. Usage Increase – Everyone gains a tolerance to these pain medications, which means that larger and larger doses are required to get the same result.  If somebody you know seems to be increasing his/her dose over time, this is an indication that the quantity they were taking is no longer providing them relief.

2. Change in Personality - Changes in an individual’s normal behavior can be an indicator of dependency. Shifts in energy, mood, and concentration may happen as everyday responsibilities become secondary to the urge for the relief the prescription drugs provides.

3. Social Withdrawal - Someone experiencing a dependency issue may withdraw from family, friends and other social interaction.

4. Ongoing Use - Recurring use after a medical condition has improved will result in the person needing to continue their prescriptions. The individual might talk of how they are "still feeling pain" and are still needing to be on these analgesics. They might also complain about the physicians who refused to write the prescription for one reason or another.

5. Time Spent on Obtaining Prescriptions - A dependant individual will spend increasing amounts of time in driving great distances and visiting multiple doctors to obtain their medicine. Look for indicators that they seem preoccupied with a quest for medication, demonstrating that the drug has become their top priority.

6. Change in Daily Habits and Appearance - Personal hygiene may diminish as a consequence of a drug addiction. Sleeping and eating habits vary, and an individual may have a constant cough, runny nose and/or red and glazed eyes.

7. Neglects Responsibilities - A dependent individual may call in sick to work more frequently, and neglect household chores and bills.

8. Increased Sensitivity - Usual sights, sounds and emotions might become overly stimulating, even to the extent that they may experience hallucinations.

9. Blackouts and Forgetfulness – You may find that appointments are frequently forgotten or they may even experience blackouts, where they have no memory of obvious events.

10. Defensiveness - When trying to hide a drug dependency, abusers can become very defensive if they think their secret is being discovered. They lash out at simple requests or questions about their drug use.

Prescriptions to pain medication can be necessary, but you should be very cautious of signs of physical dependence and communicate these changes to your prescribing physician.  It should be noted that many doctors are insensitive to the negative side effects of these medicines since it conflicts with their prescribing regime. Anyone who is prescribed pain medications should take extra precautions to avoid the debilitating effects that dependency can have and look for these warning signs.

^{This information has been provided with the kind permission of Clifford Bernstein M.D., of The Waismann Institute.}