Addiction Recovery: Overcoming Your Alcohol or Drug Problem

Going through detox is a crucial step in recovery, and it’s these first few weeks that are arguably most critical because they are when the risk of relapse is highest. This article discusses how drug addiction is treated and offers suggestions for overcoming drug addiction. When this happens, it can be useful to stay with the urge until it passes. Imagine yourself as a surfer who will ride the wave of your drug craving, staying on top of it until it crests, breaks, and turns into less powerful, foamy surf. When you ride out the craving, without trying to battle, judge, or ignore it, you’ll see that it passes more quickly than you’d think.

A person will want to consider actions they can take such as committing to change, seeking support, and eliminating triggers. Depending on the addiction, medications https://ecosoberhouse.com/ may also be available to help. The severity of addiction and drug or drugs being used will play a role in which treatment plan is likely to work the best.

Behavior therapy

However, other factors beyond the pandemic itself, such as proliferation of illicit, potent fentanyl in the drug supply, also occurred during the pandemic years, making it difficult to determine the exact cause of the increase. However, according to the Monitoring the Future survey, which measures drug and alcohol use among adolescents and young adults, the percentage of adolescents reporting substance use decreased significantly in 2021. The findings represent the largest one-year decrease in overall illicit drug use reported since the survey began in 1975. Kaiser Permanente primary care physicians are trained to screen for possible alcohol misuse at every appointment and connect members who need support to addiction medicine specialists. You can talk to anyone on your care team about your drug or alcohol use — there’s no wrong door.

At the very least, self-care should include sleep hygiene, good nutrition, and physical activity. Sleep is essential for shoring up impulse control and fostering good decision-making. Another vital element of care during recovery is relapse prevention—learning specific strategies for dealing with cravings, stress, setbacks, difficult situations, and other predictable challenges.

Don’t lose hope, and stick to your recovery plan

For diagnosis of a substance use disorder, most mental health professionals use criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), published by the American Psychiatric Association. Triggers can be any person, place, or thing that sparks the craving for using. Common triggers include places you’ve done drugs, friends you’ve used with, and anything else that brings up memories of your drug use. Support groups or self-help groups can be part of in-patient programs or available for free use in the community.

They practice strength-based therapy, helping patients use their natural skills and talents to overcome issues and improve overall functioning. Counseling can help members with SUD explore the reasons behind their drug or alcohol use and come up with new, healthy coping strategies. It can be especially effective for members who also have a mental health condition, or who started using to deal with distressing emotions, trauma, or excessive stress. We offer inpatient and outpatient treatment programs for members with more severe problems with alcohol or drugs. Specific details can vary, but programs typically involve a combination of individual and group therapy, educational sessions, and self-help and peer support meetings.

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Call your local mental health or addiction medicine department or reach out to your personal doctor. Hogue’s HEAL-funded research aims to create tools for providers, youth, and their families to find lasting recovery by targeting three concrete principles. Various barriers have made family involvement in services for substance use disorders the exception rather than the rule.

Once you’re sober, the negative feelings that you dampened with drugs will resurface. For treatment to be successful, you’ll first need to resolve your underlying issues. Usually the first step is to purge your body of drugs and manage withdrawal symptoms. Yet one more acronym captures the skills people actually deploy to successfully navigate the tricky terrain of early recovery. It’s DEADS, for delay, escape, avoid, distract, and substitute. When, for example, cravings hit, a helpful strategy is to self-negotiate a delay of use.

Deal With Cravings

Enlisting positive support can help hold you accountable to goals. SAMHSA explains that family and friends who are supportive of recovery can help someone change because they can reinforce new behaviors and provide positive incentives to continue with treatment. If you were addicted to a prescription drug, such as an opioid painkiller, you may need to talk to your doctor about finding alternate ways to manage pain. Regardless of the drug you experienced problems with, it’s important to stay away from prescription drugs with the potential for abuse or use only when necessary and with extreme caution. Drugs with a high abuse potential include painkillers, sleeping pills, and anti-anxiety medication.

• Read, see friends, go to a movie, immerse yourself in a hobby, hike, or exercise.
• After discussion with you, your health care provider may recommend medicine as part of your treatment for opioid addiction.
• In addition to addressing a person’s drinking habits, thoughts, and behaviors, professionals promote exercise, proper nutrition, and healthy relationships.
• Overcoming an SUD is not as simple as resisting the temptation to take drugs.
• Gaining the skills to avoid relapse is a necessary part of the recovery process.

Recovery community centers have emerged around the country, and through the employment linkages they offer, they can facilitate future orientation and new enthusiasm for life. The principle of equifinality states that there can be many different pathways https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/steps-to-successful-drug-addiction-recovery/ to a common developmental endpoint. While our cultural psyche tends to default to a clinical recovery pathway involving some kind of mix of rehab and/or AA—which can be lifesaving—in fact, many recover without using any external services.

Surround Yourself With Support

Self-help support groups, such as Narcotics Anonymous, help people who are addicted to drugs. In an opioid overdose, a medicine called naloxone can be given by emergency responders, or in some states, by anyone who witnesses an overdose. Withdrawal from different categories of drugs — such as depressants, stimulants or opioids — produces different side effects and requires different approaches. Detox may involve gradually reducing the dose of the drug or temporarily substituting other substances, such as methadone, buprenorphine, or a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone.

For certain drug types, some symptoms are less prominent, and in some cases, not all symptoms apply. For example, withdrawal symptoms are not specified for inhalant use. Millions of Americans have a substance use disorder (SUD)1, and it remains an important health issue in our country.