The 5 Important Aspects of your Life and How Substance Abuse Affects Them

Every action a person performs in his life has an effect on him. Repetitive and constant actions have an even bigger and deeper impact on how his life is. Of course, the facets of his life cannot be contained into only four or five aspects. It is more complex and diverse in actuality. Generally speaking however and in common experiences for most substance abusers, the next 5 departments in one’s precious existence are immensely affected by drug and alcohol abuse, which imminently require affordable drug rehab. Watch out for the signs below because these could serve as red flags as to when to resort for affordable drug rehab.

Physical Capability and Beauty

The appearance of a person is influenced by what he takes in his body thus the saying what you eat is what you are. Healthy and nutritious food apparently makes a glowing and strong physique while alcohol and drugs does otherwise. Some common effects of consistent substance use on people are:

• Heart problems
• Respiratory problems, lung cancer, emphysema and difficulty breathing
• Abdominal pain, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, nausea
• Kidney and liver damage
• Changes in appetite – sudden lose weight or gain weight
• Changes in body temperature
• Changes in sleeping patterns – insomnia or oversleeping
• Bloodshot eyes
• Halitosis and body odors
• Slurred speech
• Impaired coordination
• Dry skin and discoloration
• Poor grooming

Drug and alcohol use does not only affect one’s internal organs and mental ability but it does influence one’s looks and capacity to function.

Mental Health and Prowess

Probably the most affected faculty in one’s life in drug and alcohol use is one’s psychological well being. Especially that the different kinds of drugs and alcohol have different effects on the brain, the varied chemical reactions messes up with the brain’s function. Some are depressants while the others are stimulants. Excessive intake of the same kind or the large consistent dosage of various kinds induces extreme consequences as well. Besides low inhibition and impaired judgment, drugs and alcohol affects one’s mind in more ways such as:

• Mood Swings
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Confusion
• Paranoia
• Hallucinations
• Violence towards self and others
• Detachment and disinterest in daily things
• Symptoms of mental illness
• Tolerance and eventually dependence on the substance
• Reckless desires and behavior

Social Adaptability and Love

When one is physically incapable to fully function due to drugs, has poor grooming, and has poor judgment, his social adaptability becomes impaired as well. His relationships with everyone including his elderly, siblings, children, relatives, friends, and romantic partner become damaged. He is most likely to misunderstand friends and family’s intention to bring him to drug detox centers. He is most likely to verbally and physically harass others. He is most likely to steal things and money from others. He is most likely to get involved in more intricate and bigger illegal activities because of his substance addiction. Because of this, his interaction with the society becomes changed and altered. His freedom is lessen, and his life becomes a risky routine. In order to relieve this stressful situation, one must seek help from drug detox centers.

Career and Dreams

Alcohol and drug abuse occurs to all age groups including those that are still under formal education, those that are working, and those that have already retired. Either one is a student, an employee, business person, or retired, he has these aspirations and goals he has to fulfill in life. Drugs and alcohol however gets in the way. Students drop out because of uncontrolled substance usage – they would wallow in debts or get into drug related conflicts. Career people loses balance over when to work and when not to work, when to stand up against the boss and coworkers, and when not to. Businessmen may lose control over expenditures directed by their unsatisfied substance craving. Retired individuals may get distracted of their aim once they get the free time they longed for. Drug and alcohol are destroyers of career and aspirations.

Life and Spirituality

One does not necessarily have to be religious to be spiritual. Life itself is a spiritual journey – a series of motivations towards goals and falling out of track. The effects of drugs and alcohol on a person are not limited to physical, mental, social, and career because these things occupy a large portion of one’s life. When these parts are damaged, the whole life is imbalanced as well. So get a grip of everything. Like how addiction slowly crept into your system, remove it step by step as well.

Through the best drug rehab you can bit by bit reverse the effects that substance abuse has brought to your life. You can regain control over your life again through the power of the strong motivation that’s already in you and the science of detoxification. The best drug rehab will kick drug and alcohol out of your life and reinstate you as the master of yourself.

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Mission Viejo Inpatient – Drug Rehab

Founded in 2007 in Mission Viejo, CA our staff has helped hundreds of alcoholics and users begin the road to recovery.

Let us help you or family member with the hopelessness, embarrassment, anxiety, fear and shame that has overtaken your life. Our beautiful alcohol rehabilitation center is located in a quiet residential neighborhood which is private, safe and serene.

Our luxurious 3700 sq foot residential five bedroom home offers well appointed rooms, peaceful grounds (including a waterfall, gazebo and meditation garden) and unexpected amenities like flat screen TVs and computers with broadband Internet access. We pride ourselves in having created a relaxing, home like setting – an institutional setting but a suitable environment for Orange County addiction treatment. This, we believe, further increases the chances of an individual being able to focus on their addiction treatment and overall well being. Our Drug Treatment Programs Include: Inpatient Treatment Intensive Outpatient Program Psychiatric Evaluations Dual Diagnosis Disorders Psychotherapeutic Medications

Addiction Treatment for Couples

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Over four decades, an ‘inexorable’ epidemic of drug overdoses reveals its inner secrets

Americans have long construed drugs of abuse as choices. Poor choices that can cost users their lives, to be sure, but choices nonetheless.

But what if drugs of abuse are more like predators atop a nationwide ecosystem of potential prey? Or like shape-shifting viruses that seek defenseless people to infect? If public health experts could detect a recognizable pattern, perhaps they could find ways to immunize the uninfected, or protect those most vulnerable to the whims of predators’ appetites.

In a war against drugs that has yielded few victories and spawned plenty of unintended consequences, these are radical ideas. But a comprehensive new study of drug-overdose deaths aims to give researchers the data they need to discern previously unrecognized patterns in the widening epidemic of drug abuse — and, maybe, to devise policies that really work.

The new research makes clear that over close to four decades, the collective toll of drugs on Americans has followed an upward trajectory that looks less like a steady rise and more like the chain reaction that builds to a nuclear explosion.

The drugs that exact this toll have changed: Methamphetamine, cocaine, prescription narcotics and heroin have all dominated the killing fields of American drug use at some particular time and place.

Put those disparate trend lines together, though, and the curve representing fatal overdoses grows sharply steeper between 1979 and 2016. The death toll from drugs has doubled every eight years, according to the report published Thursday in the journal Science.

“Inexorable,” Dr. Donald Burke, the study’s senior author, called the trend. And frightening, too, since it appears that drug overdose deaths will continue unabated.

From the LATimes.com. Read the complete article here.

Nearly half of Americans have a family member or close friend who’s been addicted to drugs

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Bring your Pet to Rehab

The idea of leaving your pet behind to find treatment. can seem difficult to entertain But what if you didn’t have to? Animal ownership provides immeasurable therapeutic value to addiction recovery patients.

Your pet is your loving and trusted companion who will love you unconditionally if you love them. When you feel despondent and without hope, your pet will be there to keep you going. When you feel a sense of rejection from everyone else, your pet will be steadfast in its loyalty and will show no dilution in its love for you.

When you are struggling with addiction, you may have tough time trying to fit in social settings and prefer to be alone. This is the time when the unconditional love of your pet will be your best bet to get you through that difficult phase. Extensive research studies have shown how pets have a salubrious effect on our body, mind, and soul.

Companionship with your pet can help you get through periods of anxiety, stress, and depression. These are typical concerns that individuals in their early stages of recovery are faced with. It is hard to be angry or dejected when you have pet is affectionately wagging its tail and licking your face. Even for life threatening illnesses such as heart disease, medical experts often recommend the patients to keep the company of their pet, which could help them recuperate well and improve their physical and mental state of being.

How a Pet Friendly Rehab Facility Can Help?

The decision to get your admitted to a rehab facility can be psychologically and emotionally draining. Several types of roadblocks may deter you from seeking this courageous path to try and get rid of your struggling situation and find an opportunity to re-start a healthy and sober life. A rehab center that is 100% pet friendly, and is ready to extend a warm welcome to you and your pet, can make your decision and your process to enter rehab much easier.

Orange County Pet Friendly Drug Rehab

Addiction Treatment for Couples

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‘Sober September’ is here

People who indulged this summer or are just looking for a fresh start this month are putting away the booze and joining sober September. The 30-day challenge is a month-long hiatus from drinking, where the rosé and Coronas of summer are replaced with sparkling water and other non-alcoholic beverages.

Sober September joins its counterpart, dry January, in offering a chance to get back on track with health at a time of new beginnings. In January, it is the start of the new year, while September marks the start of the school year and a return to routines and schedules after the lazy days of summer.

“These months are good and healthy to do, if not only for the reason that they bring back into the forefront of our consciousness how we consume alcohol and force us to take stock of this,” said ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton, who completed dry January this year. “What I found personally is that it was incredibly easy to go dry for a month.”

She added, “If people do not find it easy, it can be an indication that there may be a dependence or overuse or abuse problem.”

The current U.S. dietary guidelines defines moderate drinking as up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men.

Nearly 30 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they engaged in binge drinking in the past month, according to the most recent data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

What can taking a month off of alcohol do for your body?

Dr. Mariam Alam, a former resident in ABC News’ medical unit, analyzed the research to see if a month of no booze for a limited amount of time produces any results.

What can no-booze do for you?
There has been limited research on how quitting alcohol for a month affects your body, but a few studies have shown psychological and health benefits.

Most of the studies have focused on Dry January, which was started by a British organization, Alcohol Concern.

In 2013, 14 staff members at the magazine New Scientist teamed up with researchers at the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health at the University College London Medical School to investigate the benefits of Dry January.

The staff members, who all considered themselves “normal” drinkers, underwent baseline testing with blood samples, liver ultrasound scans and questionnaires. For the next five weeks, 10 of them stopped drinking and four drank their normal amounts.

Read the complete article at GMA

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‘It Starts With Mindset’: What Portugal’s Drug Policy Experts Taught Me About Addiction Treatment

“Change the mindset.” Goulao recognized early in the drug reform battle that society’s perception about drugs and people who use them needed to change. Everyday Portuguese people were dying, and they demanded change. People in positions of power needed education: policymakers, judges, prosecutors, doctors, etc. Not unlike this country. We all have gaps in our knowledge. I’m no different: I knew very little about addiction (and absolutely nothing about harm reduction) after medical training. My “mindset” changed when I learned that addiction is a chronic medical disease of the brain, and that most people with addiction–once connected to the appropriate treatment and care–GET BETTER.

In “How to Win a War on Drugs,” published in the NY Times September 2017, Nicholas Kristof describes the impact of Portugal’s decriminalization. Heroin is still illegal, just like it is in the U.S. and Canada. However, unlike in North America, a person possessing and using heroin in Portugal will not be arrested and incarcerated. Individuals possessing a 10-day supply or less of an illicit drug–a threshold set by the government–are referred to the Dissuasion Commission. “Setting a threshold reduces discretionary power from the police officer,” points out Dr. Goulao, now the General Director of the Service for Intervention on Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies (SICAD). Dealers and traffickers still face legal and criminal consequences.

Lifesaving medications need to be widely available. Methadone is highly effective at reducing cravings for opioids like heroin (and was persistently advocated by addiction leader, Dr. Newman). In Lisbon, methadone is distributed in vans (it can also be given as take-home doses, described later). Psychologist Hugo Faria coordinates one of two Low Threshold Mobile Units which not only administer lifesaving methadone, but also provide a wide range of services: blood testing (TB, HIV, syphilis, etc.), syringe exchange, condoms, other medications (e.g. antibiotics) and education. Luis, who last used heroin 8 years ago, says “the van changed my life. I would be dead without it.”

Read the complete article at Forbes.com here .. 

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There’s “no safe level of alcohol,” major new study concludes

While some medical studies — and a great deal of media attention — have focused on possible health benefits of drinking alcohol in moderation, a large new report warns that the harms of alcohol greatly outweigh any potential beneficial effects. The authors of the study, which looks at data on 28 million people worldwide, determined that considering the risks, there is “no safe level of alcohol.”

Alcohol is associated with 2.8 million deaths worldwide each year, the researchers found in the study, which is published in the journal The Lancet. Just over 2 percent of women and nearly 7 percent of men worldwide die from alcohol-related health problems each year.

Regular alcohol consumption can have negative impacts on the body’s organs and tissues, while binge drinking can lead to injuries or alcohol poisoning. Alcohol dependence can lead to self-harm or violence.

“Previous studies have found a protective effect of alcohol on some conditions, but we found that the combined health risks associated with alcohol increase with any amount of alcohol,” lead author Dr. Max Griswold, of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said in a statement. “In particular, the strong association between alcohol consumption and the risk of cancer, injuries, and infectious diseases offset the protective effects for ischemic heart disease in women in our study.”

• Drinking alcohol can lead to 7 kinds of cancer, study finds

He added, “Although the health risks associated with alcohol starts off being small with one drink a day, they then rise rapidly as people drink more.”

Across the globe, one in three people drink alcohol, equivalent to 2.4 billion people, according to the report.

Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism Drug Treatment

Make The Choice To Help Your Friends Stand Up Against Their Alcohol Addictions

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What Is the Best Way to Discontinue Benzodiazepines?

To examine this question, a team of investigators from Glostrup, Denmark, conducted a systematic review using standard Cochrane methods.[1] Data from 2295 patients were extracted from 35 trials. Of 18 comparison interventions, no single intervention was assessed in more than four trials. Furthermore, the authors found that, partly because of the very low quality of evidence for the reported outcomes, it was not possible to draw firm conclusions regarding pharmacologic interventions for facilitating benzodiazepine discontinuation in chronic benzodiazepine users.

So where does this leave us? In short, we have a huge clinical problem. All we know is that weaning patients from benzodiazepines is best done very slowly and is often painful for our patients. In my own practice, I often manage very slow tapers that last between 6 months and a year. It seems that most patients can manage this, but I have no evidence beyond my clinical impression to back up my opinion.

Given the millions of people worldwide who take benzodiazepines long-term, we are desperately short of data and high-quality randomized trials aimed at developing evidence-based withdrawal protocols. These need to occur.

Watch the Video here ..

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New Wave of Complex Street Drugs Puzzles Emergency Doctors

At a time when drug overdoses are becoming more prevalent and lethal, a new report provides a snapshot of regional illicit drug use and, for the first time, highlights the complexity of detecting and treating patients at hospital emergency departments for a severe drug-related event.

The objective of the study, which began in 2016, was to identify illicit drugs that caused overdoses in patients at two hospital emergency departments in Maryland.

Emergency physicians were battling a spike in accidental drug overdoses and related deaths, thought to be linked to a group of designer drugs called synthetic cannabinoids that mimic the chemicals in marijuana, known on the street as Spice or K2. One doctor described “atypical overdoses,” patients with breathing difficulties and constricted pupils who responded well to the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and then required sedation for acute agitation, violence and hyperactivity, all unrelated to opiate withdrawal.

The physicians believed that knowing which drugs were in use might help tailor patient treatment.

At the same time, researchers at the Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) at the University of Maryland, College Park, with the support of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, were generating a number of reports detailing illicit drug use patterns in criminal justice settings. The researchers used sophisticated analyses of de-identified urine samples to detect drugs.

The substance abuse researchers decided to expand their urine testing technique for the first time to hospital settings, and link the test results to de-identified patient medical records. Hospitals typically use urine tests to detect just a handful of drugs and medical conditions.

The CESAR researchers enlisted the participation of emergency physicians at the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus (UMMC Midtown) in Baltimore, and the University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center in Cheverly, a suburb of Washington, DC.

Test Results

The urine specimens, 106 from Prince George’s and 69 from UMMC Midtown, were sent to the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System laboratory in Delaware where they were tested for 26 synthetic cannabinoids, 59 designer drugs and 84 other illicit and prescription drugs.

With the results, the researchers realized the substances used by these emergency department overdose patients were much more complex than anticipated.

“We were thoroughly amazed that in a study where we thought everyone was having a synthetic cannabinoid-related problem, only one specimen tested positive for synthetic cannabinoids,” says principal investigator Eric Wish, PhD, Director of CESAR at the University of Maryland, College Park, College of Behavioral & Social Sciences.

It was clear the street drugs had been tweaked into new combinations that weren’t being detected. Still, about a year later, after the lab expanded their tests for synthetic cannabinoids from 26 to 46 metabolites, only a quarter of the samples tested positive for synthetic cannabinoids, much smaller than anticipated.

Also clear was the huge mismatch between the drugs patients said they had taken and physician suspicions of drug use, compared to the actual drugs detected. “We had cases where the doctors thought so, the patient thought so, but urinalysis showed no use of synthetic cannabinoids,” says Bradford Schwartz, MD, an emergency physician at the University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center and an adjunct assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Marijuana was the most common individual drug detected at both hospitals. Moreover, a fifth to a third of specimens at each hospital tested positive for a new psychoactive substance other than synthetic cannabinoids.

Most striking, two-thirds of patients at both hospitals tested positive for multiple substances, and some specimens contained as many as six substances, potentially complicating an overdose diagnosis.

Regional Drug Use Variations

In Baltimore, after marijuana, people tested positive primarily for fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid; in Prince George’s County, the drug detected was PCP, an illegal hallucinogenic drug that can trigger aggression and other behavior changes.

The Baltimore region has a long history of opioid-related problems, beginning with heroin, then more recently transitioning to fentanyl and its relatives. At UMMC Midtown, non-fentanyl opioids including morphine and codeine were found in 51 percent of urine samples, while 28 percent tested positive for fentanyl. Midtown emergency physician Zachary D.W. Dezman, MD, says the deaths of nearly 700 people in Baltimore were linked to opioids in 2017.

At UM Prince George’s, 47 percent of specimens had PCP and patients were three-to-four times more likely than those at Midtown to show “bizarre or aggressive behavior,” according to the physicians.

The study was not designed to determine differences in mortality, but emergency physicians at both hospitals say anecdotally that despite the constantly changing soup of drugs patients take, treating the patient based on their symptoms seemed to work. “These results suggest that supportive care is safe in patients suffering from acute intoxication from synthetic cannabinoids,” says Dr. Dezman, also an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The addition of fentanyl screening to the standard drug tests used in hospitals would be useful, Dr. Dezman says. While the results of the urine drug screen are not critical to the patient’s emergency care, “it is important to inform patients of the risks of their substance use once they are stabilized.” He says a number of patients have requested substance abuse treatment once they learned they had inadvertently used fentanyl. As well, he says hospital testing could illuminate the bigger fentanyl picture. “Policy makers and public health officials cannot make informed policy decisions about combating fentanyl if we do not know the prevalence of fentanyl use in the community.”

“This report underscores one of the benefits of cross-campus collaboration to harness research and clinical synergies that translate to improved patient care,” says E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, executive vice president for medical affairs at the University of Maryland, the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Read more here – Drug Early Warning from Re-Testing Biological Samples: Maryland Hospital Study

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Coroner sent letters to doctors whose patients died of opioid overdoses. Doctors’ habits quickly changed

Addressed directly to the doctor, the letter arrived in a plain business envelope with a return address of the San Diego County medical examiner’s office. Its contents were intended, ever so carefully, to focus the physician on a national epidemic of opioid abuse — and his or her possible role in it.

“This is a courtesy communication to inform you that your patient [name, date of birth inserted here] died on [date inserted here]. Prescription drug overdose was either the primary cause of death or contributed to the death,” the letter read.

In the blandest of clinical language, the “courtesy communication” went on to inform the doctor of how many medication-related deaths the San Diego County medical examiner sees each year (between 250 and 270). It offered five prescribing tips (or “evidence-based interventions”) proven to help lower overdose death rates. And it steered the doctor to an online program designed to help medical professionals who are “dedicated to avoiding prescribing controlled substances when they are likely to do more harm than good.”

The letters — signed by San Diego County’s chief deputy medical examiner, Dr. Jonathan Lucas, who has since become Los Angeles County’s chief medical examiner — were part of an experiment to gauge how to reduce the prescribing of drugs implicated in fatal overdoses.

At a time when legally prescribed opioids and other medications are claiming 174 lives a day in the United States, the research aimed to test a new way to get physicians to rethink their prescribing habits.

Medical societies, state boards and the federal government have sought for several years to educate doctors and dentists about the risks of prescribing opioids, with limited results. The new research is among the first to take a different tack: Get physicians, who are inclined to view the opioid crisis as stemming from other doctors’ poor management, to understand how their own decisions may contribute in small ways to a national epidemic. And then give them tools to guide a change in behavior.

Read the complete article at LATimes.com 

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Alcohol, Opioid Addiction Meds Reduce Crime, Suicidality

Medications currently used to treat alcohol and opioid use disorders also appear to reduce suicidality and crime, results from a large population-based study suggest.  “While it has been established that these medications are effective in reducing alcohol and opioid use, this is the first time that real-world improvements in these key health and social outcomes have been demonstrated,” lead author Seena Fazel, MD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, said in a statement.

Reduction in Suicidal Behavior

The researchers analyzed data for more than 21,000 people who received treatment with at least one of four medications used to treat alcohol and opioid use disorders. These included acamprosate (Campral, Forest Laboratories), naltrexone (multiple brands), methadone (multiple brands), and buprenorphine (multiple brands).

They compared rates of suicidal behavior, accidental overdose, and crime for the same individuals during the period when they were receiving one of these medications with rates during the period when they were not.

No significant associations with any of the primary outcomes were found for acamprosate.

Originally posted in the American Journal of Psychiatry

The more opioids doctors prescribe, the more money they make

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‘No Doubt’ Kratom Is an Opioid With High Abuse Potential

One of the two major psychoactive constituents in kratom has high abuse potential and may also increase the intake of other opiates, new research shows.

The finding contradicts claims by kratom makers that the substance has no abuse potential and supports the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) view that kratom is an opioid.

Derived from the plant Mitragyna speciosa, kratom is receiving increased attention as an alternative to traditional opiates and as a replacement therapy for opiate dependence. Mitragynine (MG) and 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-HMG) are the two major psychoactive constituents of kratom. Although MG and 7-HMG share behavioral and analgesic effects with morphine, their reinforcing effects have not been fully established.

Results of a series of experiments with rats show that MG does not have abuse or addiction potential and reduces morphine intake, “desired characteristics of candidate pharmacotherapies for opiate addiction and withdrawal,” Scott Hemby, PhD, Department of Basic Pharmacological Sciences, High Point University, High Point, North Carolina, and colleagues report.

In contrast, 7-HMG should be considered a kratom constituent with “high abuse potential that may also increase the intake of other opiates,” the investigators note.

The study was published online June 27 in Addiction Biology.

Addiction Treatment Options – Clinical Options

Experts Warn of Emerging ‘Stimulant Epidemic’

 

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Got the ‘drunchies’? New study shows how heavy drinking affects diet

They’re called the “drunchies,” or drunk munchies. It’s the desire one has to eat salty, fatty, unhealthy foods during or after a night of heavy drinking.

With obesity continuing to rise in America, researchers decided to look at a sample of college students to better understand how drinking affects what they eat, both that night and for their first meal the next day when, most likely, they’re hungover. It should come as no surprise that they’re not eating kale smoothies and fresh oranges at 4 a.m.

“Given the obesity epidemic and the rates of alcohol consumption on college campuses, we need to be aware of not only the negative effect of alcohol consumption, but also the impact it has on what people are eating while they are drinking,” says Jessica Kruger, clinical assistant professor of community health and health behavior in the University at Buffalo’s School of Public Health and Health Professions.

Kruger, PhD, is the lead author on a newly published paper that examines heavy episodic drinking and dietary choices while drinking and on the following day.

Kruger and her colleagues from the University of Michigan, University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University, conducted their study on a sample of 286 students at a large public university in the Midwest. (The study, published in the Californian Journal of Health Promotion,Download pdfdid not receive any federal funding.)

Research on the effects of drinking and diet is scarce, Kruger said, adding that eating more unhealthy foods following alcohol consumption is an often overlooked behavior in traditional addiction research.

Read the complete article here .. 

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Demi Lovato experiencing ‘complications’ from apparent overdose

Demi Lovato is experiencing “complications” and remains hospitalized following her apparent drug overdose, two sources close to the singer tell CNN.

Those complications include “nausea, vomiting and a high fever,” the sources say.
Although she’s expected to “make a full recovery,” there is “no estimate” as to when she will be released from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
“[We are] taking it day by day,” one of the sources said.
No information has been released regarding what led to her hospitalization.

There had been reports Lovato overdosed on heroin, but a source close to the singer denied that.
Last week, a source with knowledge of the matter told CNN that Lovato plans to seek drug abuse treatment following her release from hospital care.
CNN previously reported that Lovato’s family and her former boyfriend, Wilmer Valderrama, have been by her side since her hospitalization one week ago.

Lovato has been open about her struggles with an addiction to cocaine and alcohol, as well as mental health issues and an eating disorder. She also sought professional help for substance abuse and entered rehab in 2010.
“You just have to take it one day at a time; some days are easier than others and some days you forget about drinking and using, but for me, I work on my physical health, which is important, but my mental health as well,” Lovato said, adding that she was seeing her therapist twice a week. “I make sure I stay on my medications. I go to AA meetings. I do what I can physically in the gym. I make it a priority.”
In the hours after news of her hospitalization broke, fans of the singer took to social media with the hashtag, #HowDemiHasHelpedMe to talk about how she and her music have helped them with their own struggles.

Read the complete article at CNN.com 

Co-Occurring Disorders: Addiction & Mental Health

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Intensive Outpatient Program

Information about Intensive Outpatient Program

Please use this free resource to better understand our Intensive Outpatient Program. If you have additional questions you would like addressed, please contact us using the easy Contact Us form. To schedule an appointment or arrange for an individual assessment, please call us.

Q: WHAT IS AN INTENSIVE OUTPATIENT PROGRAM?

Intensive Outpatient Treatment (also known as IOP for “Intensive Outpatient Program”) is a primary treatment program recommended in some circumstances by a clinical and medical assessment.  IOP might be suggested for the individuals who don’t require therapeutically regulated detox. IOP can likewise empower individuals in recuperation to proceed with their recuperation treatments following effective detox, on low maintenance yet escalated plan, intended to oblige work and family life.

Begin reconstructing your own life and patching your critical family ties immediately, when you inhabit home and partake in concentrated outpatient treatment. With the Intensive Outpatient Treatment program you can set up an establishment for long haul recuperation bolster in your neighborhood network ideal from the beginning of your treatment, rather than holding up until the point when you come back from living without end in a recovery focus.

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Drug users on probation can be required to remain drug-free, court rules

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that it was not cruel and unusual punishment to put a person who is on probation in jail after one positive test for drugs.  Experts have been watching the case closely, as thousands of people who struggle with substance use disorder find themselves caught up in the nation’s judicial system amid the country’s opioid epidemic.

“The decision is a massive blow, and I believe, on the wrong side of history,” Lisa Newman-Polk, the attorney who represented the defendant in the case, said on Monday.

Substance use disorder occurs when a person’s use of drugs or alcohol leads to health issues or problems at work, school or home, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the guide mental health professionals use to label patient behavior. Relapse is often a part of the recovery process, studies show.

As a lawyer and a certified social worker with clinical experience treating addiction and other mental health disorders, Newman-Polk said before the decision she was “so frustrated, in effect, by what I saw was a misunderstanding by the judges that I was going before, who have this mistaken idea about the nature of substance use disorder and what actually helped someone get into recovery.

Read the complete article here .. 

Pet Friendly Drug Rehab

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Deaths from liver disease are surging, and drinking is to blame

It doesn’t take many years of drinking to permanently damage the liver, doctors say.

Deaths from liver disease have risen sharply in the U.S., and doctors say the biggest factor is drinking —especially among young adults.

A study published Wednesday found a 65 percent increase in deaths from cirrhosis of the liver since 1999. The biggest increase is among millennials: the team found that deaths from cirrhosis are rising 10 percent a year among people aged 25 to 34.

People so young might not even realize that they can drink themselves to death so quickly, but they can, said liver specialist Dr. Haripriya Maddur of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

“Surprisingly, it only takes about 10 years of heavy drinking to actually lead to cirrhosis,” said Maddur, who was not involved in the study.

“So when people start drinking in college and they start binge drinking, that can actually lead to end-stage liver disease at a much earlier age,” Maddur told NBC News.

For the study, Dr. Elliot Tapper and Dr. Neehar Parikh at the University of Michigan and the Veterans Affairs hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, looked at federal data taken from death certificates and the U.S. Census Bureau.

“From 1999 to 2016 in the U.S., annual deaths from cirrhosis increased by 65 percent, to 34,174, while annual deaths from hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) doubled to 11,073,” they wrote in their report, published in the British Medical Journal.

Earlier this week, the National Center for Health Statistics reported a 43 percent increase in death rates from liver cancer between 2000 and 2015. The increase made liver cancer the sixth-leading cause of cancer death in 2016, up from the ninth-leading cause in 2000.

Read the complete article here at NBCNews.com

How Many Drinks Are In Common Containers ?

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Opioid addiction is keeping a high percentage of people out of the workforce

America’s opioid epidemic is exacting a massive human tool that also is impacting the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday. One of the Fed’s primary goals is achieving maximum employment, or making sure every potential worker who wants a job has one. Lost somewhere in that mix, though, is the portion of the working-age population that can’t work because of their addictions.

Speaking to the issue during an appearance before a Senate committee, Powell called the crisis “a terrible human tragedy” that is having a direct impact on how labor progress is measured.

“From an economic standpoint, some high percentage of prime-age people who are not in the labor force, particularly prime-age males who are not in the labor force, are taking painkillers of some kind,” he said.

Powell cited research from Princeton economist Alan Krueger, who conducted a survey and found that 44 percent of men reported that they had taken some form of pain medication the previous day.

“It’s a big number,” Powell said. “It’s having a terrible human toll on our communities and also it matters a lot for the labor force participation rate and economic activity in our country.”

The labor force participation rate plays a significant role in calculating the government’s headline unemployment rate. Those not considered in the workforce are not counted in the jobless rate, holding the number down and potentially presenting a skewed picture of the employment situation.

Read the full article at CNBC.com here .. 

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A Restaurant Takes On the Opioid Crisis, One Worker at a Time

A Kentucky couple realized that restaurants have an unusual power to help addicted people recover, and created DV8 Kitchen to hire, train and encourage them.

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Five years ago, Rob and Diane Perez found a spoon and a ramekin in the trash at a branch of their Saul Good Restaurant & Pub, and realized that their top server was doing heroin in the bathroom.

They had already lost the first manager to join their staff; she died in jail after trying to obtain prescription pills illegally. But they didn’t put the pieces together until last year, when they got a call that a cook would not be coming into work because he had overdosed on opioids and died.

They realized that they had lost 13 employees to addiction over 10 years, and that half the cases were related to opioid drugs. “They were not fired,” Mr. Perez said. “They were dead.”

So Mr. Perez, 53, and Ms. Perez, 51, decided to take a nationwide crisis into their own hands. Last September, they opened DV8 Kitchen, a restaurant that not only hires people in treatment for addiction to opioids or other substances, but also focuses its entire business model on recovery, using the restaurant setting as a tool for rehabilitation.

Read the complete article at NYTimes.com here … 

Optimism Is The Key To Your Recovery

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New federal drug rehab bill inspired by “Florida Shuffle”

Senator Marco Rubio posted on Twitter how he hopes a bill he’s sponsoring will put an end to fraud in the residential drug treatment industry.

He and Senator Bill Nelson are jointly sponsoring the “Sober Home Fraud Detection Act”, allowing the federal government to regulate residential drug treatment for the first time.

The problem of insurance fraud and patient abuse is so bad in the Sunshine State that it’s been nicknamed “the Florida Shuffle”, where patients are lured here for treatment, then going from one treatment center to another until their insurance benefits run out. Experts say this is creating a perpetual rehab industry. “I’ve never been in one of those situations before. I’d never been to a half-way house,” said Machaon Stevens. He traveled from his home in Maine to a sober home in South St. Petersburg, hoping to get his life back on track. But once there, he says he lived in a bedbug-infested house with little support and no rules. “We were drinking. If I wasn’t, somebody was. There was alcohol in the bedrooms,” he said.

Here’s a link to the bill

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Can we talk about alcoholism and Anthony Bourdain?

The FDA approved a drug that treats opioid addiction that isn’t addictive itself

This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave final approval for a drug shown to mitigate the symptoms associated with opioid withdrawal. It’s not the first treatment designed to help those with opioid addiction, but it has a distinguishing feature: It’s the first one that isn’t an opioid itself, and has no addictive component.

Medications exist now to assist those trying to break their addiction to pain medications, but all of those are opioids themselves, given in gradually lower doses to mitigate the symptoms associated with addiction and withdrawal. But the problem with this is that some patients remain addicted to and dependant on opioids in the long term, even if the drugs they’re receiving come under a doctor’s guidance and at a much lower dose. The idea behind the newly approved medication Lucemyra is to treat those same symptoms without including an addictive component.

The active ingredients in the pill bind to cell receptors in the body that lower the production of norepinephrine. This hormone works as part of your body’s fight-or-flight response, working in concert with adrenaline to increase your blood pressure, heart rate, and alertness when necessary.

Read more at Popular Science here .. 

Here’s How Prescription Pills Turn Chronic Pain Patients Into Heroin Addicts

Anti-Craving Therapy

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Make The Choice To Help Your Friends Stand Up Against Their Alcohol Addictions

Alcoholism is s familiar word to any of us. A distant relative or even someone very close to us can be a person extremely dependent on alcohol. A great deal of people in the whole country are regular drinkers, but some of them are alcoholics, which is not something they can simply control. This is because when someone is suffering from alcohol addiction, they need professional help. They simply cannot go through the process of getting better alone. For one thing, they could end up hurting themselves or drinking more and only making their condition worse.

Alcoholics, which is a term that specifically refers to people suffering from alcohol addiction, can be a danger to themselves and the people around them. When you are drunk, you have no control over your senses. You find yourself doing crazy things, some of which can even be unsafe. Moreover, it will eventually destroy your health. Too much intake of alcoholic beverages will lead your body to having a tolerance for it, which will result in the need for more alcohol. Because of that, you will become addicted. Anyone in the right mind can conclude that being dependent on alcohol is never a good thing. That is why you must choose to seek help from an alcohol rehabilitation center.

Alcohol Rehabilitation is the course of action you need to take if you are addicted to alcohol. If you know somebody who drinks every day and has become very used to it, you should really think about bringing him or her to an alcohol rehabilitation center. It is important that you remind yourself that you are doing this for their own good. This will incredibly benefit them in the future. Basically, you have to help them make the move to save their own lives because if they let themselves be, they will keep on drinking and in time lose all the good in their lives.

Alcohol rehabilitation centers are primarily needed by those whose addiction’s are out of control. These are the people who no longer have the right mind to function as normal people. Although, if your are on the brink of becoming addicted and you yourself are aware of it, it would be very wise to receive professional medical attention and check in at a rehabilitation center. This will relieve you from all of the terror and stress that you can face from severe addiction.

On top of that, you can be of great aid to others going through the same circumstances. You can inspire other people to receive help from alcohol rehabilitation centers and explain to them all that they need to know regarding treatment centers. Some people drive away from professional help because they are either afraid of what they will go through or they plainly do not accept that they are addicted. You could be the person who can make their lives different. These people need the proper treatment for their addictions but they also need the encouragement and influence to allow themselves to receive it.

In situations where someone is badly experiencing the effects of alcohol addiction, be the one to make the call for help, so that person can be rid of his or her difficulties. People need to accept that they require rehabilitation now more than ever. If they do not make the choice to undergo alcohol rehabilitation, things will only fall apart for them. As a witness to other people’s afflictions, you would not want them to suffer more, which is why you should help your friends. Especially, if they cannot help themselves.

When thinking of medical or treatment centers you can run to for conditions such as alcohol addiction, you can come straight to us. We, at the Turning Point Treatment Center are very dedicated to helping all of our patients and clients. We are given the task to assist you in your rehabilitation and we aim to do that successfully. Your lives are in our hands and you can trust that we will take great care of you or your loved one. Our responsibility is to bring you back your freedom and serenity. These are some of the things alcohol can take away from you. Our treatment establishment will do all that we can to provide you with the best services.

Before a dear friend or a family member of yours can become a serious alcoholic, you should convince them to get help. The Turning Point Treatment Center will guide them through their pains and discomfort, and assist them in their recovery. Our services and programs will accommodate all of their needs and give them the chance to change their lives for the better. If you have any questions or concerns, you may call us at 949-870-7730 or 877-281-5204. To add to that, please feel free to check out our website. We are on call 24 hours a day.

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