Xanax And Benzodiazepines

When people have trouble going to sleep, or if they simply cannot relax, they will often visit their family physician in order to get something to help them. Many times, they will receive help from medications called benzodiazepines, something that is commonly prescribed under the label of Valium, Xanax, or Ativan. These drugs are regarded as helpful for those that suffer from anxiety attacks as well, are not just for going to sleep. Let's take a look at how these drugs work and why they could be helpful for you.

Understanding Benzodiazepines

Also referred to as Benzo, this is a type of drug that can affect the GABA receptors in your brain. By doing so, they act as a sedative, and in higher doses, can be hypnotic. They can also give a euphoric experience, and also act as a muscle relaxants. They are often prescribed for those that have muscle spasms, seizures, insomnia and anxiety. The combination of all of these positive results motivates many doctors to use these drugs to help people with these symptoms.

Addiction To Sleeping Pills

One of the reasons that these types of drugs become so addicting is because it increases the GABA levels in our brain. Our brain and body become accustomed to this level of GABA, and then we must continue to perpetuate these levels to fall asleep. As long as we have the sleeping pills, we will be able to have a good nights rest. When they are gone, we are unable to sleep as well, thus leading to the addiction.

The way to avoid an addiction is to ensure that you only take them every other day. You could take them every day, but then only for a month, giving your brain a break for a month in order to go back to normal levels of GABA. This information should help you understand which pills will help you sleep, or relax, plus how to avoid becoming addicted to them at the same time.

Why Functioning Alcoholics Are a Myth

 

For most people, the term "alcoholic" brings up images of a homeless, unemployed person who is no longer able to function in normal society. When they think of an alcoholic, they think of someone who has lost everything that they hold dear, or someone who is on the verge of doing so.

The term "functioning alcoholic" refers to  someone who has not lost everything, but that does suffer from alcoholism. These individuals still show up to work on a daily basis, and on the surface look "normal". They do not attract attention and their alcoholism is not noticeable to acquaintances, but those who are close to them will have noticed something is wrong. A functioning alcoholic, in the broadest usage of the term, is often a high achiever who holds a position of respect - even clergy, doctors and judges or teachers can be alcoholics.

Functioning alcoholics can often do a good job of hiding their problem during the day. To those who only see them when they must "perform" they are charismatic, intelligent, engaging and attentive.

Those who know these supposedly functioning alcoholics more closely will tell a different story, however. At home, at the end of a long day, when no-one is looking, the functioning alcoholic drinks and allows the facade to fall away. This is where the myth starts to break down, because this kind of drinking is a serious problem.

Functioning alcoholics may fool their bosses, customers and casual friends, but they cannot fool their loved ones and they cannot fool their bodies. Regular, excessive alcohol consumption can do a lot of damage to your liver and your brain cells.  If the drinking habit continues for too long, this damage becomes impossible to reverse. In addition, drinking is expensive, and the way that alcoholics behave when drunk can damage their family relationships. This is why alcoholism must be taken seriously.

There is no such thing as a functioning alcoholic. If you drink a lot, and are unable to control that drinking, you are an alcoholic. Even if you can wake up the next morning and go to work without a hangover, you are still damaging your body. The alcoholics who hit rock bottom and are forced to wake up and recover are lucky in some respects, because they get a wake-up call before they do permanent damage to their bodies. Those who function on the surface may end up killing themselves through alcohol consumption before they realise how serious their habit really is.

Outpatient Treatment Doesn't Mean Less Personalized Addiction Treatment

 

"The Myth That Outpatient Addiction Treatment is Less Personalized than Residential Rehab"

This myth grew out of many years of less personalized treatment programs in the past. In the past, drug treatment fell into 1 of 2 categories: Inpatient Treatment, and Outpatient Treatment. These outpatient treatment options in the past were usually made up of group drug counseling sessions, group therapies, and regular meetings to help recovering addicts continue their sobriety and stay away from drugs and alcohol. 

The problem with these outpatient groups was that those participating were not kept to any strict schedule in the meetings and therapies they attended (not like in a residential inpatient treatment program, where the participant must attend, or get kicked out of the program), many of those simply stopped attending and never tried outpatient treatment again.

Today's Outpatient Addiction Treatment Programs are much more structured, and follow many of the models of a traditional inpatient residential rehab. Intensive Outpatient Treatment Programs especially involve all of the aspects of inpatient rehab, but with the convenience of allowing a participant to still live at their own home, attend school, or work your normal schedule. Convenience is the only thing different between modern inpatient and outpatient treatment plans.

So before you give-in to the myth that your addiction treatment program will be less successful with an outpatient treatment program, look closer at the options between inpatient and outpatient programs, and depending on your home life situation, outpatient treatment may be the best option for your addiction recovery plan.

Summit Behavioral Health Offers Our Proven Addiction Treatment Programs for Both Outpatient and Inpatient Guests:

 

How Morphine And Methadone Can Become Addicting

If you have ever been in a major accident, one that was causing excruciating amounts of pain, your physician more than likely prescribed some type of painkiller to help you with the agony you were in. Depending upon how long you are actually on the drug, you might develop a slight addiction. It is possible to become addicted to opiate based drugs, as well as methadone and fentany, which can start you on a spiral descent. Here are some ways to avoid addiction to pain meds, especially opioids and morphine derivatives which can cause you to ruin your life.

Why Opioids Are Addicting

If you have ever taken codeine, Vicodin, or any other opiate-based drug, you have probably enjoyed the euphoria that comes with taking these medications. They become addicting because your brain, specifically mu receptors, become accustomed to getting stimulated. If you only take them once in a while, there is no way that you can become addicted. However, if you are suffering from chronic pain, your physician may recommend opiates as the only way to control or manage the pain you are in. If you have been taking them for several months, or years, it will be very difficult to stop using them. You will go through withdrawals for several weeks, which can be excruciating. Here are a couple tips on how to avoid addiction to opiate based drugs that you can start using today.

Avoiding Addiction To Opiates

When you get a prescription for these drugs, make sure that you avoid taking them everyday. If you have to take them every day, when you come to the end of your prescription, request something else. Although they may not manage your pain in the same way, it is possible to try other things including visualization techniques, regular pain meds, or cutting your dosage in half. All of these tips will help you stay away from addiction to opiate based drugs.

Choosing Between Fentany And Methadone

Do you currently suffer from chronic pain? Would you like to find relief from this condition? There are many drugs that you can try that are very good at helping people that suffer from chronic pain conditions, yet it's hard to know which one works best. In this article, we will do a quick overview of three of the more popular drugs used today for pain relief, and help you decide which one will be best for you.

Fentany

If you are looking for significant pain relief, Fentany or Fentanyl is a great place to start. It is a synthetic opioid analgesic that is a strong agonist when it comes to mu opioid receptors. It has been used in combinations with benzo drugs and is about 100 times more powerful than morphine. This is probably not the best choice for individuals that would like to control their pain, and also retain full clarity and cognitive abilities.

Methadone

Methadone is also a synthetic opioid which is not addictive according to most studies. It is used to help people that have opioid addictions, and works on the same opioid receptors that morphine and heroin interact with. It's great for managing chronic pain, and is relatively low in cost. If you would like to get off of opioids, this is the best drug to choose, especially if you still need to control your pain everyday when looking at opioids and morphine derivatives were even using morphine itself.

Although pain management can be very difficult to assess, especially from a doctor's point of view, they will likely do a series of tests to help determine which medication will be best for you. Hopefully one of these drugs will allow you to lead a more comfortable life, allowing you to have the clarity and pain free existence that you deserve every day.

Have An Alcohol And Drug Abuse Issue You Need Help With?

 

If you're dealing with an alcohol and drug abuse problem, there are a few things you need to learn about this first. That's what this guide was put together to help you with. Here are some tips to get you started.

Alcohol is a substance that can actually kill you if you quit drinking after drinking heavily for quite some time. This is why you need to check yourself into a detox facility when you quit if you start to notice any dangerous withdrawal symptoms like seizures or hallucinations. If you can't get into a detox facility then you may want to try checking into the hospital to get more help. This way, you can be sure that your vitals are stable and they can give you the medication you need to get through all of this.

You're going to want to work with a professional that you get along with when it comes to getting some kind of counseling for the problems that you have. When you check into a rehab facility, you will just be able to work with whoever they set you up with at first. If you're out of rehab and aren't sure of who to work with, then just give a couple of people a try until you find someone you enjoy working with. During this time you're going to want to like your counselors and things of that nature so they will help you to stay off of drugs an alcohol.

After reading this it should be clear to you that you can get help when you have an alcohol and drug abuse issue. It's not going to be simple at first, but when you're done with it all you will feel so much better. Take it from us and work on getting clean soon!

Ecstacy Addiction And Getting Help With It

 

Ecstasy, otherwise known as X, is something that a lot of people have had a problem with and need to know what to do to get help. Take a look at this article and get the information you need today so you can beat this kind of an addiction.

You can really feel addicted to X and it will take you more and more to get the feeling you got when you first tried it. Basically it will create a way for your brain to produce all of the feel good chemicals it has stored up for a limited amount of time. When you come down from this, you will start to get depressed and will feel generally just lethargic for a long time. This is why people keep using more, because they don't want to feel the comedown, but they don't realize that the longer they use the more terrible that comedown is going to be.

You need to get help with the physical addiction to this kind of a drug. You may have problems with depression after using this for a long time, or perhaps you were using this drug to help you with your depression that you already have. There are drugs out there that are a lot safer that can get you to feeling like you're normally happy again. Don't be afraid to get help from a doctor of some kind because it's better to not base your life around a drug that's illegal and not good for you or your mind.

Now it's easy to see that you can take on an addiction to X if you just take your time to use the advice you were given above. It's going to be tough at first, but when you're done with it you'll feel so much better.