Category: Addiction

Is Internet Addiction a Mental Disorder?

There is no recognition of internet addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). However, the DSM-5 does include internet gaming disorder, which is similar, as a condition for further study. Internet addiction, in the manual, is highlighted as a developing area of specialty.

While pathological internet use is still being studied as far as setting diagnostic criteria, we know a fair amount about behavioral addictions. Behavioral addictions can include internet, gaming, and social media addiction. Other behavioral addictions are compulsive shopping, gambling addiction, and sex addiction.

Just because researchers need to learn more about addictive behaviors to include them in the DSM-5 doesn’t mean these behaviors don’t cause you distress.

Behavioral addictions affect your brain in many of the same ways as different types of addictions to substances like drugs and alcohol. As a result, they often require professional treatment.

What is a Behavioral Addiction?

If we talk about addiction relating to online activities, it will fall into the larger category of behavioral addiction.

For people with internet addiction or other behavioral addictions, it can take over their lives.
You may seek out increasing opportunities to engage in the behavior.
The compulsive behavior that you’re addicted to is your top priority.
Other things in your life suffer, including your career and relationships.
You can also go through withdrawal symptoms.
Gambling addiction is the only behavioral addiction officially recognized in the DSM-5.

Behavioral addiction is also known as a process addiction. A process addiction follows the same patterns as an addiction to substances. The problems stemming from process addictions affect your life in many ways, similar to being addicted to drugs or alcohol.

Signs of a Behavioral Addiction

Signs and criteria for internet addiction and behavioral addictions include:

Spending most of your time doing the behavior or thinking about it. You may also spend significant amounts of time planning to do the behavior.
You’re depending on engaging in the behavior as a coping mechanism for emotions and to feel normal.
You continue to engage in the behavior even though it causes negative consequences.
Someone with a behavioral addiction may want to stop or cut back, but they can’t.
You neglect other priorities in your life.
You can go through withdrawal symptoms such as irritability and depression if you try to stop the behavior.
Often someone with a behavioral or process addiction will minimize or hide the problem.

We’ve touched on a few, but some of the most common behavioral addictions and impulse control disorders treatment providers see include:

Exercise addiction
Pathological gambling, including online gambling
Food addiction
Compulsive internet use
Porn addiction
Food addiction
Shopping addiction
Video game addiction/online gaming addiction
Work addiction
Tattoo addiction

Even if we don’t call compulsive behavior an addiction, it can lead to significant problems and distress.

Symptoms of Internet Addictive Disorders

Getting a diagnosis for internet addiction can be tricky since it isn’t formally recognized. However behavioral health experts tend to see some common elements in people with internet addiction.

Symptoms of internet addiction may include:

Excessive or problematic internet use: If you’re concerned about your excessive internet use, there are a few things to think about. Do you stay online for longer than you mean to, or are other people often complaining about the time you spend online? You might think to yourself that you’re just going to be a few more minutes when you’re online, or you could hide your usage. You might also try and ultimately fail to reduce your online time.
Withdrawal: We most frequently talk about withdrawal from drugs or alcohol, but the symptoms can occur in behavioral addictions too. You may feel tense, angry, or depressed when you can’t go online because of internet dependency.
Tolerance: One of the defining symptoms of drug or alcohol addiction is tolerance. Your brain becomes used to the stimulus of whatever it is you’re doing. Then, you need more of it to keep getting that high you’re chasing. You could see this play out in an internet addiction as you spend more and more time online. Eventually, you could find yourself centering your entire day around using the internet.
Adverse effects: If there weren’t harm stemming from addiction to anything, we wouldn’t see it as a problem. There is though and the internet isn’t an exception. Your performance at school or work could begin to suffer. Internet addicts might not have the energy to devote to other things in their life. Your finances and quality of relationships can suffer. You can also have adverse health effects like carpal tunnel syndrome, insomnia, neck pain, and weight gain.

Types of Internet Addiction

Internet addiction can become a catch-all term, and there are subtypes of this compulsive behavior.

For example, one subtype is compulsive information seeking. You might seek information online to the point that it becomes obsessive-compulsive. When you’re amid compulsive information seeking, it can impact your work productivity and performance.

Pornography and cybersex addictions can arise. These compulsive behaviors can impact your ability to form meaningful relationships in your own life.

We’re seeing a rise in internet gaming addicts currently.

Social media addiction is also a big one getting a lot of attention. You might get addicted to the dopamine you feel when someone likes your post. This creates a feedback loop, and it can be damaging to multiple areas of your life, including your self-esteem and sense of self-worth.

Internet Addictions and Co-Occurring Disorders

As with other types of addiction, when you compulsively use the internet, it can co-occur with other psychiatric disorders when you compulsively use the internet.

Which clinical disorder comes first can vary. For example, you could be more pre-disposed to internet addiction if you have other psychiatric disorders like anxiety or depression, you could be more pre-disposed to internet addiction. Your use of the internet could be a coping mechanism or a way to self-medicate and deal with your psychiatric symptoms.

In another situation, internet use behaviors could contribute to developing a mental health disorder.

Treatment for Internet Addiction

While a mental health professional might not have a set of criteria to diagnose an internet addiction from the DSM-5, that doesn’t mean they can’t help you.

If you’re struggling with online use, including gaming, social media, or anything else involving the internet, a therapist can help you work through what’s going on.

There isn’t one specific treatment for internet addiction. The treatment can depend on a variety of individual factors. For example, how severe are your behaviors, and how do they affect your life?

Therapy is one of the most common types of interventions for internet addiction. Treatment should also address co-occurring disorders such as anxiety, depression, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In some instances, medication may be part of treatment, especially if there’s an underlying mental health disorder.

To learn more about aftercare treatment for an addictive disorder, please call 866-600-7709 and reach out to the team at Anchored Tides Recovery.

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What are the Different Types of Addiction?

What we often don’t think about is the fact that along with substance use disorders, there are other types of addiction as well. Addiction is a dysfunction of your brain’s reward system. When you have an addiction, it also affects your memory and motivation.

These adverse effects on your brain function that occur with an addiction can lead your body to crave a behavior or substance. You may obsessively try and pursue whatever it is you’re addicted to. Even when negative consequences stem from the addiction, you continue anyway. Your addiction is your ultimate priority, above anything else.

Broadly, we can divide the different types of addiction into two categories—chemical and behavioral.

Chemical addiction is the misuse of substances like illicit drugs. Behavioral addictions are those compulsive behaviors that you carry out even when they aren’t beneficial and are harmful. Sometimes you’ll hear references to a shopping addiction or internet addiction, for example.

Addictive behavior often co-occurs with other mental disorders.

Understanding Addiction

Addiction interferes with your brain’s reward system and other elements of its function. When you’re doing enjoyable things, your reward system releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter. Dopamine doesn’t necessarily cause feelings of pleasure. Instead, it reinforces the association your brain makes between certain activities and feelings of pleasure you experience.

That reinforcement leads you to want to continue to seek those things out.

If you use drugs or engage in a certain behavior, you may want to experience the feelings of euphoria they create again. This can lead to cravings for behavior or substance like prescription medications, illegal drugs, or alcohol. Cravings can be one of the first symptoms of addiction.

When you continue to use the substance or do the behavior, your brain keeps triggering a high release of dopamine. Then, eventually, your brain starts to produce lower amounts of dopamine naturally in response to triggers that would ordinarily bring you pleasure.

As this goes on, you need more stimulus to make up for the dopamine your brain isn’t producing anymore, which is tolerance or physical dependence.

When an addiction develops, you might lose interest in things you previously enjoyed since you aren’t making dopamine in response to these activities.

Loss of control is a defining feature of addiction, which can lead to problems in relationships, health, and your career. Many people also experience other adverse consequences of compulsive behavior patterns or substance use, like financial issues.

When you’re in active addiction, you no longer get the pleasurable feeling from the drug or behavior, but you can’t stop doing it without therapy, addiction treatment, or behavior modification.

What is Chemical Addiction?

Chemical addiction is a catch-all term used to refer to substance abuse, addiction, and physical and psychological dependence.

Because of that, it’s often known as a substance use disorder. A substance use disorder or actual addiction is diagnosable and can fall into one of three categories—mild, moderate, and severe.

Symptoms of substance use disorder are:

Intense cravings that make it hard to think about anything else daily
Needing to use larger doses of the substance to get the same effects
Feeling uncomfortable if you can’t get the substance
Risky use, like driving under the influence
Problems managing your daily responsibilities
Relationship issues stemming from substance use
Not spending as much time doing the activities you once enjoyed
Unsuccessful efforts to stop using the substance
Withdrawal symptoms if you cut down your usage or stop cold turkey

Some of the most common substance addictions and addictive substances include:

Alcohol use disorder
Nicotine
Opioids, including prescription drug addictions and heroin
Cannabis
Amphetamine drug addiction
Methamphetamine addiction disorder
Cocaine

Behavioral Addictions

Behavioral addictions can be a little harder to spot and diagnose. There are fewer evidence-based criteria for the diagnosis and treatment of behavioral addictions compared to something like alcohol addiction.

Currently, the DSM-5 does have two behavioral addictions it recognizes.

The first is gambling addiction (compulsive gambling), and the second is internet gaming disorder which is similar to video game addiction.

There’s disagreement among medical experts about when behaviors can potentially become addictions and the particular behaviors that have a predisposition to lead to addiction.
Currently, the American Psychological Association doesn’t include behavior patterns linked to things like exercise, shopping, and sexual behavior in the DSM, because it says there isn’t enough peer-reviewed evidence available to develop diagnostic criteria.
That doesn’t mean that behaviors can’t lead to symptoms of addiction. It just means that as it stands right now, more research is needed to standardize how we diagnose and understand these addictions compared to other types of addiction.

General signs of a possible behavioral addiction include:

Spending an excessive period of time engaging in the behavior
Having urges to keep engaging in the behavior despite its negative effects on your life, responsibilities like school or work, or your relationships
Using behaviors to manage uncomfortable emotions
Hiding what you’re doing or how much time you spend on a behavior
Trouble avoiding the behavior
Experience symptoms of withdrawal if you don’t engage in the behavior like anxiety, depression, restlessness, or irritability
Continuing to engage in the behavior even when it creates distress
Unsuccessful efforts to stop doing whatever the behavior is

Common types of behavioral addiction that often lead people to get professional treatment include:

Exercise
Compulsive shopping
Food addiction
Sex addiction
Social media
TV

Treatment for Substance Addiction

With a substance use disorder, most people need professional treatment. There are complex physical and mental factors and potentially co-occurring disorders that play a role in addiction. If you’re dependent on a substance, you may need a supervised detox first.

During detox, you can receive medical treatment for the physical symptoms of chemical dependence.
Then, you could go to residential or outpatient treatment.
During residential treatment, you stay at a treatment facility, receiving specialized care and support.
Residential rehab can last for a few weeks to several months on average.
An outpatient program is more flexible, and you continue to live at home.

Regardless of the specific type of addiction treatment program you participate in, psychotherapy and counseling will likely be part of it.

Working with a therapist or counselor can help you understand why you started using substances and develop new coping mechanisms.
An FDA-approved medication can also be used for substance addiction.
There are medication-assisted treatments for alcohol, opioid and nicotine addictions in particular.
Medications reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms.
Support groups like a 12-step program can help people get sober or stay in addiction recovery. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are two of the more well-known 12-step programs.

Treatment for Behavioral Addiction

The most common approach to treating different types of addiction involving a behavior is therapy, as with other mental health disorders. For example, cognitive behavioral therapy is an evidence-based way to treat behavioral addictions.

When you participate in CBT, you’re focused on paying attention to your distressing thoughts and emotions. You work with a therapist to learn how to reframe those thoughts. You can work on the goal of developing better-coping skills.

Depending on your symptoms, an SSRI antidepressant might be part of the treatment. Participation in self-help groups can be valuable for behavioral addictions.

Often, as is the case with treating chemical addictions, behavioral addiction treatment requires a combination of approaches.

Get Help to Avoid Complications

Different types of addiction can vary, but the one underlying concept is that they are treatable. Without treatment, both substance addictions and behavioral addictions can worsen and complications can develop.

Over time without treatment, the effects on your life become more damaging. Reach out to us to learn more about getting the treatment you need for mental health issues or substance abuse disorder.

Addiction Treatment addiction treatment for women types of addiction

Outpatient Drug Rehab for Women

When you’re a woman struggling with drugs or alcohol, there may be barriers to you getting treatment.

One barrier to drug rehab for women is family responsibilities. You may feel like you can’t leave your role as a mother or caretaker. What’s important to realize is that getting help for an addiction to drugs or alcohol is the most important thing you can do for your family and yourself.

Meeting Your Treatment Needs

You shouldn’t let family responsibilities be a barrier to getting drug treatment.

Instead, you might look for a drug rehab for women that centers around meeting your needs. Outpatient rehab programs can be a way to continue maintaining your responsibilities at home or work and work toward recovery.

Outpatient rehab has a lot of benefits for women, as does gender-specific treatment. When you participate in an outpatient program, you can also maintain your job, families are often incorporated as part of treatment, and they’re more affordable than residential treatment.

Whether you’re dealing with alcohol abuse or drug addiction, outpatient substance abuse treatment programs can be a valuable part of your recovery process to work toward a sober life.

You can also get help for co-occurring mental health disorders and mental health issues to promote sustainable long-term recovery.

What Is Outpatient Rehab?

Outpatient rehab can be the best recovery for women in some circumstances. These programs and addiction treatment centers allow you to attend programs during the day. Then, when your treatment ends for the day, you return home in the evening; you will participate in structured treatment sessions. You might also attend support groups throughout the week.

By contrast, during inpatient rehab, also known as residential treatment, you live at the facility for a period.

There are many differences in outpatient programs, including the format and intensity. In general, the shared features of outpatient rehab include a focus on counseling and education and a support network.

Types of Outpatient Programs

There are three general types of outpatient programs, which include:

Day Programs

An outpatient day rehab program is somewhat like residential rehab because there’s a high level of a structured care, and it’s a safe space. The only difference between a day program and residential rehab is that you return home in the evenings versus sleeping at the treatment facility.

During day treatment for addiction issues, you will usually attend meetings and treatment sessions anywhere from five to seven days a week. Your sessions will last for multiple hours. Types of sessions you participate in could include individual therapy, group counseling, and other types of treatment like music or art therapy.

You would then return home after your sessions, or maybe to a sober living home.

This type of outpatient program doesn’t provide as much flexibility. There’s a significant time commitment, limiting whether you can continue working or keep up with your other responsibilities.

Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP)

During an intensive outpatient program, you have a formal treatment plan. A treatment plan in an IOP will usually include set milestones to track progress. As you meet pre-defined milestones, the time commitment each week goes down.

An IOP is a good drug rehab for women who need fairly intensive treatment for substance abuse issues and have other responsibilities to keep up with their daily lives.

There are different types of treatment you could participate in during an IOP for alcohol or drug abuse. For example, you might do individual and group counseling, relapse prevention, and you could also participate in a recovery support group like a 12-step program.

Continuing Care

A continuing-care plan most often includes participation in a 12-step support group like Alcoholics Anonymous. Continuing care groups may also be specified for one gender or have separations based on age.

You can participate in an outpatient program at a rehab center, mental health clinic, or you might simply meet with a behavioral health counselor regularly.

There are also outpatient programs that offer weekend or evening sessions. These programs are ideal if you balance your treatment with personal, family, or professional obligations.

Some of the many specific elements of outpatient treatment you may experience include:

Family therapy
Group counseling
Individual therapy
Education sessions
Recreational or occupational therapy
Talk therapy
Family therapy
Medication-assisted treatment

The therapeutic techniques utilized in outpatient rehab may include:

Cognitive-behavioral therapy, focusing on changing harmful ways of thinking and behaviors. CBT also helps you learn coping skills, avoid triggers and deal with high-risk situations that could otherwise lead to relapse.
Contingency management, providing small rewards as a way of reinforcing desirable behaviors.
Motivational enhancement therapy helps increase your confidence and motivation to make positive changes in your life.
Twelve-step facilitation therapy, which uses principles from Alcoholics Anonymous and mutual-help support groups. You might continue with 12-step meetings after your treatment program ends.
Family behavior therapy can address issues in the home environment that occur along with substance use.

What are the Benefits of Outpatient Treatment?

Some of the benefits of outpatient drug rehab for women or alcohol addiction treatment programs include:

There’s flexibility. When you participate in an outpatient treatment program, you can come and go as you need but still receive holistic treatments and, if necessary, dual diagnosis treatment. If you have children at home, for example, you may not have the option to spend time in a residential facility. You can work out a plan with your treatment provider that will work with the other responsibilities in your life you need to balance. You’ll have the flexibility to maintain other important things in your life.
When you go to outpatient treatment, you can stay connected with your family and loved ones rather than leaving them. Many people find this family support element helps them a lot as they go through treatment.
With inpatient rehab, the environment is very structured and secure. That can be great in some ways, but it doesn’t always reflect the world waiting for you. When you do outpatient treatment, you’re putting your new skills and coping mechanisms to use right away.
You get more privacy and one-on-one treatment in outpatient rehab a lot of times. Outpatient rehab is more individually focused, while in residential rehab, it’s about the group as a whole in addition to you as an individual.
Outpatient rehab tends to be more affordable than an inpatient program, so this helps break down yet more barriers to receiving treatment. Many insurance programs will also cover some or all of your inpatient treatment.
If you have a mild or short-term addiction to drugs or an alcohol use disorder, you may not need inpatient rehab. Outpatient treatment programs can adequately meet your needs.

You might begin your treatment journey in an outpatient program. For some people, it’s more appropriate to start with inpatient rehab and then, when you’re ready, move into the lower level of care offered by outpatient rehab.

Whether you participate in an outpatient program as a woman with a substance use disorder or another type of treatment, what’s most important is that you get the help you deserve. Call 866-600-7709 and reach out to the Anchored Tides Recovery team to learn more about the best recovery for women and specific options that work in terms of drug rehab.

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Relationship PTSD Symptoms in Women

The term post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is one you may be familiar with in a general sense without understanding its implications.

For example, we often think only military veterans can have PTSD. In reality, anyone can experience the symptoms.

Traumatic events can be one-offs like a terrorist attack, sexual assault, or natural disaster.
Trauma can also occur over time, as is the case with childhood abuse.
Another scenario where PTSD may occur is following a toxic relationship. Relationship PTSD can make it challenging to form genuine bonds in the future. Even if your past relationships didn’t involve domestic violence or physical assault, relationship PTSD could still occur.

Relationships that are distressing and cause you pain can have long-lasting effects on your mental and emotional well-being. These stressful events and painful memories can contribute to a wide range of mood symptoms.

When you trust and love someone, and they criticize you or put you down or try to control and manipulate you, it’s not just painful at the moment it’s occurring. When you experience toxic or emotionally abusive relationships, it can influence your feelings of safety, self-worth, and self-confidence.

Once you end a toxic relationship, you may feel like its effects still trap you. You may experience constant reminders of the relationship, and that’s because you can’t just walk away from trauma.

What Is Relationship PTSD?

Generally, posttraumatic stress disorder can lead to lingering feelings of distress and fear after an event. Symptoms include flashbacks and avoidance and other similar symptoms that persist after the traumatic event ends.

When you experience an abusive relationship, you may end the abuse, but not the effects.
Mental health experts describe this situation as post-traumatic relationship syndrome or PTRS. A relatively new term, PTRS, occurs following the experience of trauma in an intimate relationship.
PTRS includes the arousal and intrusive signs of PTSD, but it doesn’t have the avoidance symptoms that are part of a PTSD diagnosis.
PTRS is also described as an anxiety disorder occurring after the experience of abuse, physically, emotionally, or psychologically within the context of an intimate partner relationship.

When someone has PTSD, they might try to block out or avoid memories. The big difference with PTRS is that you continue to revisit and experience memories over and over again. With traumatization, it’s challenging to move forward and build healthy relationships with partners in the future.

When you have PTRS, you’re fully aware of everything that happened since you can’t avoid memories and reminders of the relationship. You may try to deal with your emotional response since you can’t numb the distress.

You can experience PTRS without having any threat of physical harm. Symptoms can include horror, rage, and fear.

Causes of PTRS

Direct causes of post-traumatic relationship stress can include physical abuse, sexual abuse, including sexual coercion, or emotional abuse. Emotional abuse includes manipulation, gaslighting, and control.

Indicators of a toxic dynamic can cause PTRS, such as silent treatment or ignoring you. When a partner is unfaithful, this can also lead to PTRS. Cheating is known as betrayal trauma, although it’s not on its abuse.

What Are the Long-Term Effects of Relationship PTSD?

When you don’t receive help, relationship PTSD tends to be progressive, getting worse over time.

You may feel isolated because you feel you cannot share what you went through with other people.
You may have an ongoing fear of more trauma, making it difficult to relax or practice self-care.
When you’re constantly feeling stressed and aren’t engaging in self-care, you may experience burnout and physical symptoms.
After you experience PTSD from a romantic relationship, you might feel unsafe in the world in general, and you can’t feel safe with anyone around you.
Some people also blame themselves for what they went through, leading to feelings of unworthiness and guilt.
You could avoid relationships altogether, including ones that are healthy and nurturing.

PTSD Symptoms in Women

PTSD symptoms in women are similar to PTRS symptoms, with a few exceptions. In general, PTSD symptoms in women can include:

Avoidance of reminders of the trauma. Avoidance in PTSD tends to be more common in women than men. Avoidance includes emotional avoidance and behavioral avoidance. Behavioral avoidance means avoiding the people, places, things, or other environmental triggers that remind you of trauma. In women, avoidance is one of the most common PTSD symptoms.
Hyperarousal is a term that refers to having a heightened state of anxiety. Hyperarousal symptoms include excessive startle reflex, problems with concentration, irritability, panic attacks, and hypervigilance.
Re-experiencing the trauma is a common symptom in trauma survivors. You might have intrusive, unwanted thoughts and memories related to the trauma, nightmares, or flashbacks. Women tend to experience this more than men.
Emotional numbness is the symptom of PTSD that tends to be much less common in PTRS. Emotional numbness means you lack emotion, lose interest, and feel detached from other people. You may also experience social isolation as a result.

Why Do Women Experience Symptoms of PTSD Differently Than Men?

One theory why women might experience PTSD differently than men is that women are more likely to internalize things, meaning more internalizing disorders like depression and anxiety.

On the other hand, men are more likely to develop externalizing disorders, like substance abuse or have angry outbursts.

Many women may wait longer to get treatment or not get it at all.

Relationship PTSD Symptoms

While there is some overlap, some of the most common signs of PTSD stemming from a relationship include:

Constantly feeling on-edge: We talked about this above, but in the particular context of a relationship, you may constantly worry about a future romantic partner ridiculing you or starting a fight with you. You may be overly aware of triggers that could lead to situations similar to your past trauma.
Overreaction: If you experienced past trauma in a relationship or always felt like you were walking on eggshells, that could make you hypercritical of your current partner. If you notice yourself overreacting to little or unimportant things, you might reflect on why that’s happening. These can also be known as reactivity symptoms.
Problems with communication: Following a relationship leading to trauma, you might be less willing to talk to a future partner about what you’re feeling. You may have a hard time letting your guard down or making decisions together.
Turning off your emotions: You might not let yourself feel positive emotions after you’ve gone through a relationship filled with negative ones.

So what can you do if you notice the signs of PTSD or, more specifically, relationship PTSD in yourself?

The best option is to seek help as soon as you can. PTSD, when left untreated, can not just negatively affect current and future relationships. Untreated PTSD or PTRS can lead to complications like substance use disorders and other mental disorders.

Contact the team at Anchored Tides Recovery by calling 866-600-7709 to learn more about treatment options, such as cognitive processing therapy and exposure therapy.

PTSD in women Relationship PTSD

5 Drug Detox Withdrawal Symptoms

Drug addiction and drug dependence are two separate things. They’re often confused as being the same. While they often occur together, they’re different as far as the symptoms and the treatments.

Drug dependence is a physiological response to longer-term substance use. We’ll detail more about drug dependence and how this leads to drug detox withdrawal symptoms. We’ll also cover some of the common withdrawal symptoms people often experience.

What is Substance Dependence?

When you use certain substances like alcohol, opioids, or other psychoactive drugs, they affect your brain’s chemicals. Over time, substance use changes the function and structure of the brain. Your central nervous system also changes in response to the effects of the drugs.

For example, your body, when you first take certain substances, your body releases a tremendous amount of dopamine.
That dopamine is responsible for the euphoric high you can feel.
The dopamine flood triggers a reward response in your brains’ circuits.
Then, you might compulsively start to use the substance repeatedly because of the reward cycle.

There’s something else happening too. Your brain and central nervous system start to rely on the effects of a substance.

The amount of dopamine, for example, that you naturally produce goes down because your body depends on the artificial creation the substance facilitates.
As your brain and body gradually adjust to the presence of substances, the high you once felt dissipates.
You might take more and more of the drug to try and chase that feeling. You’re no longer using drugs because of the high at that point.
You’re using them because you’re addicted and physically dependent.

With physical dependence, stopping using the substance, whether alcohol or illegal drugs, can suddenly lead to withdrawal symptoms; withdrawal symptoms result from your body trying to normalize itself. Your body is going through a period of imbalance when you suddenly remove the substances it now depends on.

We can compare this to caffeine. If you’re a regular coffee drinker and skip it one morning, you may get a headache. This is a mild form of withdrawal following a lack of caffeine intake.

What Affects Withdrawal Symptoms?

While withdrawal can have similar features, the detox process is also a variable experience.

Some of the factors that can influence withdrawal symptoms and the withdrawal process include:

The type of drug you use
The amount of time you use drugs
How much of the substance do you frequently use
Whether or not you combine multiple substances
Your overall physical health and any medical conditions you may have
Underlying mental health conditions and your medical history

If you use drugs that are pain relievers and central nervous system depressants, like opioids, you may experience withdrawal symptoms like pain hypersensitivity. If you’re going through withdrawal from benzodiazepines, which are for anxiety, you may have intense anxiety during withdrawal.

Typically when you’re going through withdrawal, there’s a paradoxical effect. A paradoxical effect means that the symptoms during that period are the opposite of the effects of the drug. They’re often more severe versions of the symptoms you might have started using the drug to treat or cope with.

Can You Die from Drug Detox Withdrawal Symptoms?

While it’s rare, certain substances with withdrawal symptoms can be deadly if you don’t get medical supervision. When drug detox and alcohol withdrawal symptoms are severe, some medications can help manage them.

Alcohol and benzodiazepine withdrawal are typically the two that can be most severe.

For example, severe alcohol withdrawal can lead to delirium tremens. Delirium tremens can lead to severe seizures and be deadly without medical management, but it’s rare.

Opioid withdrawal isn’t usually life-threatening, but it can be very uncomfortable and challenging. There are medications specifically to help with opioid overdose symptoms.

5 Common Withdrawal Symptoms

The most common drug detox and alcohol withdrawal symptoms can be divided into five general categories. While the specifics vary depending on the person and the substance, these categories do give a general idea of what to expect.

Physical Withdrawal Symptoms

Physical symptoms include:

Fatigue
Lethargy
Sweating
Shaking
Clammy skin
Tingles
Feeling cold
Flu-like symptoms
Changes in appetite
Muscle pain and muscle aches
Tremors
Changes in blood pressure
Dilated pupils
Rapid heart rate or changes in heart rate

Behavioral

Behavioral symptoms are the ones that influence how you interact with other people. You may feel frustrated, aggressive, or depressed, and these feelings can affect your reactions to others. Specific common withdrawal symptoms that are behavioral include:

Depression
Anxiety
Irritability
Agitation
Frustration

Gastrointestinal

Gastrointestinal symptoms are among the most common whether you’re withdrawing from drugs or alcohol. Your digestive system is complex and related to your central nervous system. When you have GI symptoms of withdrawal, it’s because of the response of this system to the lack of substances.

Your appetite is likely affected. Other GI symptoms include:

Nausea
Vomiting
Abdominal cramping
Diarrhea

Psychological Symptoms

When you’re going through withdrawal, it’s going to affect your mood, mental health, and sense of well-being for some time. Common symptoms that are psychological include:

Nervousness
Hallucinations including visual or auditory hallucinations
Paranoia
Delirium
Brain fog and poor concentration
Problems with thinking and cognition

Sleep Disturbances

Finally, another category of withdrawal symptoms is sleep disturbance. You might sleep more or less than usual as your body is trying to regulate itself. Particular sleep symptoms include:

Insomnia
Sleeplessness
Nightmares
Interrupted sleep patterns

The following are some more specific substances that lead to withdrawal and the length of time you might expect symptoms to last:

Alcohol: You won’t automatically have alcohol withdrawal symptoms if you stop drinking. If you have an alcohol dependence, alcohol withdrawal syndrome symptoms can last for days or weeks. If you have symptoms on the severe spectrum of alcohol use disorders, the effects of withdrawal could continue for months after your initial alcohol detox.
Heroin: Heroin is an opioid. Withdrawal symptoms can be intense but not usually deadly. These symptoms for most people last five to seven days and then start to get better. Medication-assisted treatment can be beneficial for physical dependency on heroin in treating unpleasant symptoms of withdrawal and opioid use disorder.
Stimulants: Stimulants are drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine. Mental symptoms of stimulant withdrawal can include dysphoria, which means a low, unhappy mood and dulled senses. Loss of interest, slow movements, and slow heart rate are also stimulant withdrawal symptoms. These symptoms usually peak within a week after the last dose of a stimulant.

Rarely, post-acute withdrawal (PAWS) symptoms may occur. PAWSs are symptoms that last for longer than two weeks. These symptoms include anxiety, depression, fatigue, mood swings, and poor sleep. PAWS is manageable, usually with a combination of medication and therapy.

Treating Drug Detox Withdrawal Symptoms

While it can be scary to think about withdrawal and especially severe symptoms, treatments are available.

During a medically supervised detox program, health care providers can monitor you and provide you with different medications if you experience severe withdrawal symptoms. For example, there are medications help to treat particular symptoms of withdrawal. There are also FDA-approved medications specifically for withdrawal from opioids and alcohol.

You might simultaneously receive treatment for underlying mental disorders, including behavioral therapies, reducing the likelihood that you have PAWS.

Getting through detox isn’t easy, but medical care, it increases the chances that you do so successfully to be on the path to recovery. If you’d like to learn more about program options after you’ve completed detox, call 866-600-7709 and reach out to the Anchored Tides Recovery team.

Addiction Treatment

Let’s Quit Abusing Drug Users

One of our biggest goals as addiction treatment specialists is to help women who come to us understand that they aren’t a failure because they struggle with drugs or alcohol. Women, in particular, tend to feel such a sense of shame surrounding their addiction. Addiction isn’t a moral failure, but if you let yourself get caught up in feelings of Abusing Drug Users, it’s only going to impede your recovery.

As a society, we should all learn more about addiction, its implications, and what it means for individuals who struggle with it. While there are wonderful, effective, evidence-based treatment options available, they aren’t taken advantage of as they should be.

Stigma and shame are two critical reasons for that.

How Shame Feeds Addiction

There are terms used to label people who struggle with addiction. Those terms and labels are a way to show negative judgment toward people. Using derogatory language when we talk about addiction dates back to when we didn’t know what we do now about the realities of addiction.

Addiction was a moral failure in the past.
Being addicted was driven by a lack of willpower, or so people thought.
Punishment was the primary means of rehabilitating people, which, as you can imagine, didn’t turn out to be a practical approach.
There was significant prejudice toward not only addiction but also mental health issues.

Now, based on decades of research and clinical studies, we see addiction for what it truly is—a chronic disease.

You wouldn’t shame someone for having heart disease or diabetes, yet some still feel all-too-comfortable shaming someone with a chronic brain disease, which is addiction.

Shame seems to be especially part of the addiction for women.

You may feel like you hate yourself or are not worthy of love or the good things in life.
You could feel embarrassed or like your flaws are on display to the world.
Then, that leads you to separate yourself more and more from other people and the world.
This all becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, which is too prevalent in addiction.

You’re stuck in a cycle of shame and self-loathing, worsening and deepening your addiction.

Your loved ones may think shame can help push you into recovery. The reality is that shame is destructive in recovery.

When all of us take the time to learn more about addiction, we can combat barriers that prevent people from getting help.

Homelessness and Addiction

When we talk about judgment and derogatory language directed at people, we often see this in homeless populations. Homelessness is highly visible, yet people experiencing it feel like invisible outsiders. Isolation, vulnerability, and stigma are all elements of homelessness, much as is the case with addiction.

When you’re dealing with homelessness, it may prevent you from seeking help.
You may feel too ashamed to enroll in services that could help you find housing or support.
You could feel like if you go to public spaces, you’ll be ridiculed.

So what does homelessness have to do with addiction?

Aside from similar underlying factors contributing to both, there’s also a significant overlap between homelessness and Abusing Drug Users.

Homelessness often leads to substance abuse, but substance abuse can also contribute to homelessness.
An estimated 38% of homeless people are dependent on alcohol, and 26% are dependent on other substances.
Being homeless creates conditions that lead to extreme, severe trauma and stress.
Homeless people can experience violence, a lack of shelter, and starvation.
At least 33% of people who are homeless also have a mental illness. Mental health disorders are a significant contributor to substance abuse as well.

Homeless women experience distinctive gender-based trauma. The rate of mental illness is significantly higher in women than men.

From 50% to 60% of homeless women suffer from mental health disorders, often before their homelessness.
Many women become homeless after suffering trauma like violence or sexual abuse.
Some homeless women fled sex trafficking.
Around one-third of homeless women reportedly abuse drugs like crack cocaine and heroin.

Dealing with the Stigma of Addiction

Currently, the stigma of addiction is the number one barrier to effective addiction treatment and recovery. When people do receive evidence-based treatment, the symptoms associated with the stigma of addiction tend to dissipate Abusing Drug Users.

Stigma can impact people in their families and social groups, and it’s also something we see at the community level.

In families, while there may be an understanding that someone has an addiction, it could be whispered about or avoided altogether.
At the community or societal level, the stigma of addiction leads to under-diagnosis and under-treatment.
There’s a lack of understanding often even in the medical community compared to other chronic health conditions.

This lack of understanding is unfortunate, considering addiction is one of the biggest public health problems we face in the United States.

Despite our many advances in understanding the science of addiction, the medical community isn’t well-educated on topics surrounding it.

What Are We Doing?

At our treatment center, in addition, to helping women on an individual level without shame but with compassion and scientific understanding, we’re also working on other ways of crushing the stigma of addiction.

We want to bring attention to the people in recovery and show that hope exists. You can recover from these chronic illnesses. You can be a productive part of your family and society. You can have an outstanding quality of life and be a great parent.

Our treatment specialists also want to think about how we diagnose substance use disorders and other mental health conditions. We don’t want to rely on old language or frameworks that could reinforce stigma of Abusing Drug Users.

For example, we often see that women dealing with trauma will quickly be labeled as having a borderline personality disorder. This diagnosis can have roots in the concept of hysteria, which was a label that women tended to receive much more so than men.

By delving into the history of the treatment of women, in particular, as far as addiction and mental health, we can start to take our steps to combat how that’s led to shame and abuse for marginalized people.

With so many resources available, both in terms of state and community support services and effective treatment like our own programs, we hope to move addiction treatment forward. We hope that we’re part of a movement that encourages us to help one another rather than judge.

The team at Anchored Tides Recovery also wants to help facilitate wider recognition that addiction brain changes are often out of the individuals’ control. Medical care, interventions, and a strong support system are all needed to overcome addiction and prevent complications like an overdose; for help, call 866-600-7709.

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Is Drug Addiction a Moral Failing?

Is drug addiction a moral failing? Researchers have been looking at addiction and the underlying causes since the 1930s. In that time, we have learned so much about what addiction is and what it isn’t.

First and foremost, no, addiction is not a moral failing. Shame is often so much intertwined with addiction, and you may have low self-esteem, guilt, and a sense of low self-worth. These feelings can all contribute to the ongoing cycle of addiction, making it harder to break.

By recognizing the reality that drug addiction is not a moral failing and is a disease, you can begin to see that you deserve treatment for your illness.

Addiction, also known as a substance use disorder, is an illness as characterized by The American Health Association, The National Institutes of Health, and the World Health Organization.

Evidence-based treatment also tends to be highly effective in treating substance use disorders based on your unique needs.

The Physical Effects of Addiction

Addiction relates a lot to your brain chemistry. Genetics and other underlying biological elements also raise your risk of developing an addiction. These differences are part of why addiction is a disease. The differences are also why someone might use recreational drugs and never become addicted, while others become addicted after using a substance only a few times.

When you use certain substances, they create big, artificially driven dopamine surges.
Those dopamine surges teach your brain to keep seeking out the experience making them, such as drugs or alcohol.
Your brain compels you to seek out the substance at the expense of other things in your life.
When you consistently use drugs or even alcohol, it impacts your ability to feel pleasure.
The reason is that your brain releases smaller amounts of dopamine on its own, without the drugs.
Your brain center is less receptive to healthy rewarding activities like exercise or a good meal. Your brain is wholly altered at this point.

Because of the brain changes, you develop a tolerance. You need more of whatever the substance is just to keep yourself operating at a new “normal” baseline.

Brain Changes Cause Behavioral Changes

Researchers in past decades have begun looking at brain imaging studies of people with addictions. They find that areas of the brain affected by addiction include decision-making, learning and memory, judgment, and behavioral control.

The changes in these parts of the brain can alter the functionality of your brain, contributing to destructive, compulsive behavior.

Addiction creates cravings and physical symptoms as well, known as dependence.

Addiction As a Chronic Disease

Science tells us addiction is not just a disease but a chronic one. We can, in many ways, compare it to heart disease or diabetes.

The similarities between addiction and other chronic illnesses include:

Both conditions affect the functionality of critical organs. For addiction, it’s the brain, whereas it’s the heart in cardiovascular disease.
Chronic illnesses decrease quality of life and can, without proper treatment, shorten your life.
While both are diseases, there are preventable elements. For example, most chronic illnesses have contributing risk factors such as eating certain foods or not getting enough exercise. With addiction, the risk factor is initially using an addictive substance.
Chronic illnesses and addiction aren’t necessarily curable but are highly treatable. By getting treatment as early on as possible, you can reduce or eliminate the symptoms.
You can also prevent further damage because chronic disorders and addiction are both progressive.
The longer your addiction goes without treatment, the more significant the effects and consequences will be.

While drug addiction begins with an initial decision, we also know that people don’t willingly want to deal with the destruction addiction ultimately creates. If addiction were as easy as deciding to stop or having willpower, there wouldn’t be many overdose deaths each year or relapses.

Some of a person’s inability to stop using drugs or alcohol is because of problems in the function of the prefrontal cortex in the brain.
The prefrontal cortex controls executive function. Executive functions include monitoring your behavior and delaying reward.
People with substance use disorders often have an overly adverse reaction to stress because of deficits in their prefrontal cortex, putting them at risk for addiction.
When there’s an issue in the prefrontal cortex, a person often has a high threshold for regular types of pleasure. They need something “more” to cause them to feel joy, such as drugs or alcohol.

Substance Use Disorder Risk Factors

There isn’t one specific cause for developing a substance use disorder. Multiple factors often converge.

Around 40-60% of the risk of becoming addicted to a substance comes from biological factors. Biological factors include genes, gender, and ethnicity.
The developmental stage is also relevant. The younger you are when you start using addictive substances, the more likely you are to develop an addiction in adulthood.
The environment can be a risk factor. Environmental factors include family dynamics and relationships, your home environment, and your social group.

Specific addiction risk factors include a family history of addiction and mental illness, a history of abuse, and a chaotic home environment.

What Does This Mean for Overcoming a Substance Use Disorder?

When you have a substance use disorder, first, you need to let go of the shame and the guilt. Those are things you can begin to work through in treatment. When you learn more about the underlying contributors to addiction and the fact that it is a disease, it’ll help you with these feelings.

You also have to realize that you aren’t weak because you can’t simply stop using substances.

As is the case with other illnesses, you need the proper treatment plan to address all of your addiction’s complex components.

For example, talk therapy is a way to recognize your negative thought patterns leading to harmful behaviors. You can learn more about triggers in your life and start to build pathways in your brain that will help you deal with those in a healthy way. We can rewire our brains with time and patience.

Your drug addiction treatment plan might also include medication, and it should integrate aftercare planning.

Everyone is unique, and their treatment plan has to reflect that. People relapse after treatment because their counselor didn’t tailor their program to their needs.

Whether you’ve tried rehab before and relapsed, or you’re considering it for the first time, the only thing to know is that what you’re going through isn’t a personal or moral failure. You should also know that you’re making the best first step when you admit that you have a problem and seek help for it. Reach out to the team at Anchored Tides Recovery by calling 866-600-7709 to learn more.

Addiction Treatment addiction treatment ffor women drug addiction

Choosing An Aftercare Facility: Questions to Ask

When you’re a woman struggling with an addiction to drugs or alcohol, knowing you need help is such a critical, life-saving first step. That first step of searching online for “rehab near me” is probably the most important of your entire journey to recovery.

However, once you do get treatment, it’s essential to manage your expectations. A life in recovery requires comprehensive initial treatment that’s appropriate for your mental and physical health needs.

The treatment itself is usually a series of steps, and among those steps can be aftercare planning. For some people, aftercare may be as simple as checking in with a therapist regularly or managing your medication. For others, you may go to an aftercare facility following your time in an inpatient rehab facility.

Below, we’ll give you an overview of what to know about the treatment options and process and how an aftercare facility potentially fits into that. We’ll also cover what you should know to choose a suitable aftercare facility for you that will reduce your risk of relapse and support your life in long-term recovery.

Types of Treatment for Drug and Alcohol Addiction

When you receive a substance use disorder diagnosis, you may decide that addiction treatment is the right step for you. Addiction treatment is the best first step you can take to help maintain a life that’s free of drugs or alcohol.

There’s more to rehab than that, however.

During rehab, you learn strategies to deal with stress and avoid a relapse. You also learn coping skills and how to rebuild or have healthy relationships. The environment in addiction treatment centers supports your desire to stay sober with support from staff and peers.

Types of addiction treatment and levels of care include:

Detox: When you use drugs or alcohol, your body and brain may be dependent on them. During medical detox, which is often part of rehab programs, you undergo medically supervised withdrawal. Once you complete detox, you can begin rehab and treatment with a clean slate and a clear head.
Long-term residential treatment: These inpatient rehab center programs will provide around-the-clock care but outside a hospital setting. Many long-term treatment facilities follow a therapeutic community model. Someone in a long-term treatment program might live onsite for 6 to 12 months. These programs are generally suitable for someone who’s tried other programs and relapsed or with a severe, long-term substance abuse disorder and co-occurring mental health issues.
Short-term residential treatment: Much more common for most people is a short-term program. These residential treatment centers are still intensive, and they often follow the approach of a 12-step program, with some modifications, along with other evidence-based treatments.
Outpatient rehab: An outpatient treatment program may be something you can participate in first if your addiction is mild or shorter-term, on your road to recovery. You might also do an outpatient program after inpatient rehab as part of your aftercare plan. Outpatient rehab programs vary in intensity and services offered quite a bit. For example, an intensive outpatient program (IOP) is very similar to a residential program.
Counseling: Individual therapy and behavioral therapy is something that’ll be a pivotal part of your life in recovery. You’ll begin counseling in treatment, or they do counseling instead of a rehab program for some people. Then, you’ll likely continue that counseling over the long term to maintain your recovery in a group or individual setting.

What Is Aftercare?

Addiction is a chronic and sometimes relapsing disease, according to the Mental Health Services Administration. As with other chronic illnesses, management of the symptoms is a long-term process. You’ll continue working on your recovery and relapse prevention after leaving an addiction treatment program on an inpatient basis.

When you’re choosing a treatment program, aftercare should be part of your long-term recovery plan. Aftercare is a broad term, and it can refer to any ongoing care you receive after rehab. Types of aftercare include:

12-step meetings or other support groups
Counseling and therapy
Outpatient rehab or care
Sober living
Participation in an alumni program through a rehab center

When you have a solid aftercare plan in place, it helps you proactively prepare for what your life in recovery will look like. You’ll be more able to deal with challenges and common triggers that come your way in your recovery because you’ll already have solutions in mind.

Having an aftercare plan in place early in your recovery program is one of the most effective ways to prevent relapse and promote personal growth.

What Should Be In an Aftercare Plan?

It’ll be up to your therapists, counselors, and case managers to help choosing an aftercare facility as part of individualized treatment plans.

Some of the things that are considered or should be included and talked about for your recovery process include:

Will you need continued residential treatment? In some cases, continuing into a more structured environment, like an aftercare facility or sober living home, could be optimal for you.
Will you need help with employment and reconnecting to society?
What’s your home and family life like? What kind of situation will you be returning to?
What are the resources available in your local community?

If you don’t have a safe home and a sober environment, for example, then your treatment team will work to help you find a sober living facility.

Aftercare can last for weeks after your treatment. It can also last for months or more than a year.

Sober Living Facilities

Sober living facilities and homes can be a valuable part of the recovery and treatment process to improve success rates. Suppose you were to leave inpatient rehab and return to an environment with drug or alcohol use present. In that case, it’s going to raise the likelihood of a relapse of your addictive behavior significantly.

A sober living or aftercare facility gives you a place to get comfortable with your new life in a drug and alcohol-free environment. The goal of an aftercare facility or sober living home is to make sure you have a supportive environment to serve as a transitional bridge to living independently.

When you’re in an aftercare facility or sober living home, you are required to avoid drugs and alcohol. You actively work on your recovery. There are facility or house rules to follow. For example, you may have to perform certain daily chores and follow a curfew.

The benefit of an aftercare facility that’s residential is that you can explore what it’s like to experience real-world challenges and stay sober, but you do have a safety net to fall back on.

Many individuals in recovery who participate in aftercare programs that are residential also work or volunteer.

Other Aftercare Support Programs

Even if you don’t live in an aftercare facility, choose a rehab center with specific aftercare programs available. Aftercare that takes place on an outpatient basis is also helpful for effective treatment.

The fundamental objective of aftercare is to help you stay on the path you created in drug addiction treatment or at an alcohol rehab center.

When you initially look for a treatment program, ask early on about how they approach aftercare. Learn more about the framework for aftercare and the resources that will be available to you.

We encourage you to contact the team at Anchored Tides Recovery by calling 866-600-7709 with any other questions you might have about choosing treatment centers or choosing an aftercare facility, finding a rehab near you, or life in recovery.

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Mothers with a Prescription Drug Addiction

Prescription drug addiction is relatively common but also devastating. Being addicted to prescriptions is destructive to individuals, families, and communities. Others who have an addiction to prescription substances, whether they have older children or are currently pregnant, may avoid getting the help they need and deserve. There’s an unfortunate stigma.

In treatment, it’s so important to find a program that speaks to your needs as a woman and mother or mother-to-be, breaking down those walls you may feel about getting help.

Below, we delve into what to know about prescription drug addiction in general and the health effects for babies born to mothers addicted to these substances.

Before doing so, we want to emphasize the message to any mother or soon-to-be mother that no matter where you are in your life, it’s never too late to get help in a drug addiction treatment program.

Understanding Prescription Drug Abuse

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in 2015, nearly 19 million Americans over the age of 12 reported prescription drug abuse over the previous year. That number is likely higher now in the United States.

There’s often an unfortunate misconception that it’s safe because something is available by prescription or a doctor gives it to you. However, many of these drugs, and opioids, in particular, are more deadly than illegal drugs or street drugs.

Addictive drugs of any kind, including prescriptions, affect your brain’s reward system. These effects can trigger an addictive response.
While you might start taking a prescription drug as prescribed initially for a medical condition, a substance use disorder can develop over time.
Then, the use of the drug is no longer in your control. Developing physical dependence is also common with the use of an addictive drug.

The most commonly abused prescription medications are central nervous system depressants. Central nervous system depressants include benzodiazepines like Xanax and opioid pain medications.

Taking a prescription or illicit opioid can slow your central nervous system down so much that you experience a drug overdose. Breathing and heart rate can slow to a dangerous or deadly level for drug users who take doses more than their bodies can handle.

Opioid Addiction and Abuse

While other prescriptions can lead to a substance use disorder, opioid painkillers are the most significant in terms of addiction and abuse. The use of opioids led to an epidemic in America, with hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths and other adverse effects.

Opioid prescription medicines are for severe pain, including chronic pain.
Symptoms of use may also include euphoria and relaxation.
Other adverse effects of opioid use are confusion, lethargy, drowsiness, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and constipation.
Oxycodone is one example of a prescription drug with high abuse potential. Available under the brand name OxyContin, oxycodone changes how the central nervous system responds to pain.
Codeine, fentanyl, and Demerol are also opioids with high abuse and addiction rates, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Opioid medications act on the brain and body the same way as heroin, which is also an opioid, although it’s not legal.

Opioid dependence can lead to withdrawal symptoms, which can be challenging to deal with. When you’re physically dependent and go through opioid withdrawal, you can experience anxiety, sweating, nausea, vomiting, and other problematic symptoms.

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS)

If you’re pregnant and addicted to prescriptions or have an opioid use disorder, we encourage you to contact us to learn about treatment programs geared specifically to your needs. Again, it’s never too late in your pregnancy or even your child’s life to get help.

An issue called neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, can occur when a baby is exposed to drugs in the womb before birth.
The drug that most often leads to NAS is a prescription opioid or illicit drugs like heroin.
NAS is a set of conditions that occur when a baby withdraws from drug exposure in the womb.
Along with opioids, benzodiazepines and antidepressants can cause symptoms of NAS.
Medications can pass through the placenta, creating problems for babies born to mothers addicted to prescription drugs.
Most of the symptoms of NAS happen within a few hours after birth, but some may not appear for a few weeks.
These symptoms can last up to six months after delivery.

NAS signs and severe withdrawal symptoms in a baby include

Body shakes and tremors
Seizures and convulsions
Twitching and overactive reflexes
Tight muscle tone
Excessive crying or fussiness
A high-pitched cry
Slow weight gain or poor sucking
Breathing problems
Fever or sweating
Yawning or sleep problems
Throwing up
Diarrhea
Sneezing

NAS’s particular signs and risk factors depend on how much of a drug you used and how long you took it. Individual factors play a role, like how your body metabolizes the substance and whether you have underlying conditions such as chronic pain requiring treatment.

Babies born with NAS may need specialized medical care in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) after birth as they experience withdrawal symptoms. Harmful effects and complications of NAS, especially from opioid medications, may include:

Low birth weight or premature birth, meaning the baby is born weighing less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces
Jaundice leads a baby’s skin and eyes to look yellow and is the result of liver issues
Seizures
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Long-term effects that can occur because of prescription drug misuse, including opioid abuse, during pregnancy include:

Delays in development milestones, such as walking, talking and sitting
Motor problems, which affect muscles and movements
Behavioral and learning issues
Difficulties with speech and language
Sleep disturbances
Ear infections
Vision problems

Prescription Drug Addiction Treatment

Whether you’re currently pregnant or already a mother, your treatment plan will probably begin with supervised detox if you have a drug addiction.

Supervised detox means a medical team will help you lower your dose of the substance in a safe and controlled way while managing any physical health conditions.
From there, you can begin treatment for your addiction to opioids or prescriptions, including behavioral therapy, and work with counselors.
If you’re pregnant or already a mother, looking for a treatment center specialized for women with children can be a valuable resource to minimize any potential risks and help you feel comfortable.
Along with the treatment for the addiction itself, a program geared toward women and mothers can provide parenting and pregnancy education, individual therapy and family therapy, and help with steps you may need after treatment, such as finding housing and childcare.
When you choose a substance use disorder treatment center that works with a female population, in particular, they’re going to help alleviate the anxiety you might be feeling.
They’re going to understand what it’s like to provide care for you and your unborn child and help you become the mother you want to be and improve neonatal outcomes.

What Can You Do If You’re Struggling with Substance Abuse?

If you are pregnant and dealing with prescription drug abuse, including an opioid use disorder, you can talk to a health care provider right away.

Tell your doctor about what you use, but don’t stop any substance without telling them. There are some prescriptions, including opioids, that can cause dangerous signs of withdrawal.

If you try to stop cold turkey when you have opioid dependence on prescription painkillers, your baby could die. Instead, it’s best to get professional, guided prescription drug addiction treatment so you can wean off of the substances safely and correctly, especially with long-term opioid use.

Medication-assisted treatment might help, such as buprenorphine and methadone for opioid addiction.

You shouldn’t take any medicine, including prescription pain relievers, without first talking to your doctor about your pregnancy. If you’d like to learn more about addiction treatment for women and mothers, call the Anchored Tides Recovery team at 866-600-7709; we’re available to provide you with information.

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Downgrading From Hard Drugs

If someone considers downgrading from hard drugs, it may be one specific approach to dealing with substance abuse that they feel will work for them. Unfortunately, as a society, we tend to view hard drugs as bad and so-called soft drugs as not so harmful. The reality is that a hard or a soft drug can lead to addiction, health problems, and many adverse effects.

The distinction between a hard and soft drug for many people is legality. Even this isn’t necessarily a good way to think about things.

For example, alcohol is legal if you’re 21 and older, yet it can be one of the deadliest substances. There are also states such as Oregon that are focusing efforts on decriminalized hard drugs. Under new legislation in Oregon for decriminalized hard drugs, you can’t be arrested for having small amounts of drugs like heroin or methamphetamine, both of which are dangerous, deadly drugs. The best option for most people who struggle with drug abuse is to be entirely drug-free rather than downgrading from hard drugs. Many in the recovery community don’t believe any drug use is conducive to a healthy lifestyle if you deal with addiction.

Below, we go into more about the differences between hard and soft drugs and what you should know about the concept of gateway drugs as well.

Hard vs. Soft Drugs

There are different ways you might view the differences between hard and soft drugs. For example, in some countries, there is a legal distinction made between the two, with soft drugs theoretically being less harmful to people’s health than harder ones. In the Netherlands, soft drugs are not considered harmless, but they have less severe effects. Sedatives, marijuana, and sleeping pills are soft drugs under this model.

Hard drugs in the Netherlands include heroin, amphetamine, and cocaine. The penalties for drug possession of a hard versus soft substance vary from one another. In the United States, we have controlled substance schedules that guide our federal drug laws and laws surrounding drug possession.

A controlled substance is one with a high potential for abuse or addiction. The Controlled Substances Act puts all substances regulated under federal law into one of five schedules. Along with the abuse and addiction potential, whether or not the substance has a medical use is also a consideration.

Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse, with no current, federally accepted medical applications in the United States. There is no safe use for these substances. Schedule I drugs include heroin, LSD, and GHB. Interestingly, marijuana is Schedule I in the U.S., yet it’s legal for medicinal and recreational use in many states across the country. We talk a little more about marijuana and its legality below.
Schedule II drugs have high abuse potential but with some accepted medical uses. These illegal drugs include cocaine, methadone, morphine, PCP, and methamphetamine.
Schedule III drugs have a lower potential for drug addiction than Schedule I or II substances, with medical uses in the U.S. Schedule III substances are hydrocodone, codeine, anabolic steroids, and barbiturates.
Schedule IV substances have a relatively low potential for abuse than Schedule III, with accepted medical uses. Schedule IV drugs include prescription medications like Valium and Xanax.
Schedule V substances have the lowest potential for dependence compared to substances on the other Schedules, and cough medicines with codeine are an example of these.

While drug Schedules are one way to distinguish the risks of substances, there’s not a particular scientific or legal distinction that we can point to when we talk about hard and soft drugs.

For some people, it’s not about the legality or the impact on criminal records for something like simple possession. Instead, it might be about how socially acceptable it is to use a substance.
For example, it can be more socially acceptable to use prescription pain medicines rather than heroin in some people’s eyes, even though both have similar effects and risks. Both prescription pain medicines and heroin cause dry mouth, slurred speech, and potentially deadly short-term effects, yet one category includes FDA-approved medications.
A list of hard drugs for a lot of people might include heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. For others, since cocaine isn’t as addictive as heroin, they might not have it on their list of hard drugs.

There are a lot of gray areas when making distinctions like these between substances.

America’s Deadliest Drugs Are Legal

Again, legality and the classification of drug crimes aren’t always an excellent way to separate a hard and soft drug. In the United States, the three deadliest drugs are all legal.

The first is tobacco. More Americans die from smoking-related health problems than drug overdoses, car accidents, and homicides combined.
Cigarette smoking may lead to one in five deaths in America every year.
The U.S. has seen tobacco use go down significantly in recent decades, but it’s still a top killer.

The next-deadliest drug is alcohol.

Alcohol-related health problems kill tens of thousands of people every year, which doesn’t factor in causes like homicide and drunk driving.
Alcohol-related deaths have been steadily going up in the U.S. over the past few years, and official death toll numbers may be significantly undercounting alcohol deaths.
There are so many ways that alcohol can be one of the deadliest drugs. The health effects of excessive drinking are just one type of risk. There are injuries, crime, and violence, for example, that make alcohol use particularly dangerous and deadly.

The third deadliest drug is opioid pain killers.

Since the 1990s, drug companies have been pushing opioid pain medicines on doctors who gave them to patients.
These substances were part of marketing campaigns, and patients got addicted, and many ultimately died as a result.
In the past decade, policymakers have been putting more restrictions on prescription opioid pain killers, but it remains a deadly problem in the U.S.

Hard drugs, while dangerous, are linked to far fewer deaths than the three legal substances above. You also have to consider things like bath salts, which can be a highly dissociative drug but are also a common household item.

Are There Gateway Drugs?

When talking about a hard or soft drug, the idea of gateway drugs also comes up. The theory is that so-called soft substances like marijuana might lead to harder drugs because the gateway drug affects the brain’s pathways.

In some cases, with the use of soft substances, the brain may be more vulnerable to the abuse of other substances, including illicit or harder drugs. These risks are more significant the younger someone is when they start experimenting with substances.

Marijuana is frequently, as was mentioned, what we think of like a gateway drug, and it’s also federally illegal on its own. Much of the prison population is serving time for a criminal offense related to marijuana possession, even as it becomes legal in many states around the country. The criminal justice system hasn’t yet caught up, and there are many drug convictions not yet overturned for the possession, use, or sale of marijuana.

Drug offenders who got jail time for marijuana and are still behind bars often question why they’re being treated differently by the legal system than legitimate businesses in states where recreational marijuana use is legal. Some are currently serving life sentences in prison for drug crimes related to marijuana and felony drug possession. All of this underscores the fact that legality doesn’t always dictate whether or not a drug is harmful.

Is Downgrading from Hard Drugs Possible?

Some people think they can downgrade from more problematic substances and only use soft substances like alcohol or marijuana. While everyone is different, this may not be a practical approach to addiction issues. You may find that you cannot use just one type of drug, and as we highlighted, soft substances have genuine adverse effects.

Sobriety is often the best option for someone with a history of substance misuse because casual substance use might not be something they can maintain. Drug treatment and treatment for any co-occurring mental illness can help you avoid facing a felony offense for using hard substances.

If you or someone you love is dealing with substance use, we encourage you to call Anchored Tides Recovery at 866-600-7709 to learn more about a treatment program that will work for you.

Addiction Treatment Downgrading from Hard Drugs