Author: Jim Sugel

How Do I Stay Clean and Sober Through Surgery?

How Do I Stay Clean and Sober Through Surgery?

If you’re in recovery, staying off of drugs and alcohol can seem critical for staying in recovery. But, if you’re heading for a major surgery, it might be impossible to avoid pain pills. For any recovering addict, those pills are a massive risk because they’re mostly opioids. That can trigger a relapse, or a major addiction to pain pills – and that’s the last thing you want.

Unfortunately, you can’t always skip pain medication when you go through surgery. Managing pain allows you to recover by keeping stress, inflammation, and shock to a minimum. In addition, pills aren’t the only risks for relapse during surgery. You’ll have to plan around several factors like your habits, coping mechanisms, and quality of life.

Talk To Your Doctor

If you have a history of substance abuse, it’s important to talk to your doctor. Even the nurse at your clinic can help you to make choices that are best for you. Here, you can share concerns, share your history, and ask for advice and help.

For example, you might be offered an alternative pain management schedule. This introduces more risk management to your pain medication schedule, meaning you get more checkups, more tests, and more questions to ensure you get on and off the drugs as quickly as possible. Having someone around to constantly monitor what you’re taking and why can also help you to avoid abusing opioids. In addition, your nurse or doctor will be able to better understand when you can switch to prescription-strength Tylenol after the surgery. Depending on your reaction, that could be anywhere from 2-14 days after surgery – which means that having consistent monitoring could mean getting off opioids much sooner.

Depending on how high your risk is, your doctor could actually opt to keep you in the hospital until you can switch to Tylenol. That means you’ll never take opioids home, minimizing your total risk.

Maintain Good Habits

Your lifestyle has a large impact on how you’re able to cope with emotions, cravings, and to avoid drugs. Most of us are aware that moderate exercise, healthy eating, and doing social things with friends and family boosts our mood, so we don’t feel the need for drugs and alcohol as much. However, surgery can get in the way. For example, if you’re in debilitating pain, you can’t exercise. And, if you have stitches, you shouldn’t. But it is important to maintain your social life, to stay engaged, and to get outside where you can. You’ll also want to know when you can start exercising again. For example, many people need to go into physical therapy after surgery, if that’s the case, when can you start going and how much you do? The faster you get back into it, the faster things will improve.

You’ll also want to pay attention to food and drink. If you eat well and avoid sugary drinks, you’re less likely to crash than if you do the opposite. So, managing your diet will improve your ability to stay clean and sober.

In addition, the sooner you start physical therapy and light exercise, the less pain you’ll be in. That means you’ll probably need less medication, meaning you can go back to full sobriety more quickly.

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Go to Therapy

Most people don’t think of therapy as a pain management technique, but it can be. In addition, therapy can help you to improve mental health and maintain emotional regulation and mood during surgery recovery. Recovering from surgery can be traumatizing. You might find that you’re basically helpless, you’re in pain, and you’ll experience significant mood swings and depression. This is a normal part of major surgery and pain. Yet, if you’re in recovery from addiction, you’re especially at risk for relapse. This means getting therapy and counseling over the period may be essential to staying in recovery.

You can do that for pain, for your mood, or for both. But, you should ask for and plan for it before your surgery starts.

Therapy can also help you with stress management so that you don’t need as much of an outlet. For example, if you’re stressed because you can’t do as much, you might find that having therapy reduces your drive to lean on alcohol or painkillers to relive that stress. Of course, therapy won’t cure stress, but it can help and it can give you validation and more effective tools to do something with it.

What to Do If You’re Struggling

The ideal is that you discuss risks upfront with your medical care provider, that you have measures put in place ahead of time, and that you get support as an ongoing thing. However, if you’ve been through surgery and are now using pain pills and are struggling, it’s important that you take steps as quickly as possible. The first is to talk to your doctor.

Explain your medical history and your history of substance abuse
Discuss any cravings, abuse, or overuse of the drugs you have that you’ve been experiencing
Ask for extra checkups – in most areas this will be easy to arrange, although your insurance may not oblige
Practice care with your pain pills. For example, waiting until you’re in pain to take pills. You’ll also want to talk to your doctor about switching to prescription strength Tylenol as quickly as possible. Depending on the surgery, they might be able to offer you NSAIDs immediately instead of opioids.
Ask for a hotline to reach out to for help. If you’re living alone, don’t have support, or don’t have home motivation to stay on track with your recovery, having someone you can call and talk to can help.

The most important part of staying clean and sober through surgery is to talk to your doctor upfront. You’ll also want to ensure that you have social support and friends and family over to visit and give you support and help while you’re recovering. And, you’ll want to take steps to minimize the amount of stuff you’ll struggle with. For example if you know you’ll be in a wheelchair for several weeks, you’ll want to ensure your home is wheelchair accessible to reduce frustration. Taking steps to care for yourself after surgery will reduce the amount that you feel down.

However, you’ll also need emotional, mental, and physical support. Going to therapy, going to physical therapy, and talking to your doctor will help. No surgery is without risk for someone who’s in recovery, however, you can reduce risks and help yourself to stay clean and sober.

If you or your loved-one struggles from alcoholism or other substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. 10 Acre Ranch also has specialty tracks like our pet friendly drug rehab and couples substance abuse treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.

Can Cocaine Kill You? Yes, and Here’s How

cocaine or other drugs cut with razor blade on mirror. hand dividing white powder narcotic

Can Cocaine Kill You? Yes, and Here’s How

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, some 478,000 new people try using cocaine each year. Most of those go on to be occasional users, turning to cocaine for social use and parties.

Cocaine is often seen as relatively safe, because of its light addiction profile and the fact that millions of people use it. But, this drug is listed as a Schedule II Drug under the Controlled Substances Act because it can be dangerous. Yet, about 5 million Americans, or 2% of the population, use cocaine.

Those dangers include addiction, health risks, and mental health risks – each of which can vary significantly depending on the individual, their genetics, their metabolism, and their existing health. Cocaine’s euphoric effects on the body can quickly turn to paranoia, anxiety, insomnia, sleeplessness, and heart problems – but few people talk about that when initiating use. Cocaine can kill you, and it will always be dangerous to use.

How Can Cocaine Kill You

Cocaine is a powerful stimulant that takes just a few seconds to affect your brain. The drug also affects nearly every part of your body, from dopamine production to the amount of air in the cellular walls of the heart. This can result in significant side-effects to the body.

Heart Attack

Cocaine usage elevates the heart rate and blood pressure, which puts stress on the heart. If you have a weak heart, even a small amount of cocaine can elevate your heart to the point of causing too much stress. Long-term cocaine usage can also cause the heart problems that result in having a heart attack after a small amount of cocaine usage. In addition, cocaine usage patterns result in continuing and ongoing stress to the heart. For example, short-term effects of cocaine mean that people are very likely to keep using throughout the night. This means the heart is under a large amount of stress for a longer amount of time, with continuous spikes of stress – rather than a single spike and then a plateau. This means you’re more likely to experience heart abnormalities with cocaine than with a stimulant that you only take once. In addition, because cocaine has a half life of about 60 minutes, people typically increase the amount of cocaine in their system with each follow-up dose, even if they don’t intend to.

Stroke

Cocaine is a significant contributor to stroke, although the mechanism of how is poorly understood. However, it causes increased blood pressure and stimulates the central nervous system. This can result in a stroke which may result in partial paralysis or even death.

Overdose

Cocaine was involved in 1 in 5 overdose deaths in 2019. While it pales in comparison to heavier drugs like fentanyl, cocaine can be significantly dangerous. In fact, some 16,000 Americans died in 2019 with cocaine in their system. Often, those cocaine-related overdoses included either very large amounts of cocaine or a mixture of cocaine and another drug. Of these, cocaine and alcohol is the most common, as both of these drugs are common. However, mixing cocaine with another drug can increase the potency and the bad side effects of each, meaning it’s much more likely to suffer an overdose.

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Toxicity or Poisoning

Cocaine-induced cardiotoxicity happens when too much cocaine collects in the heart and cardiovascular system. The result is quite-often sudden death. This happens because cocaine permeates the membrane tissues of the cardiovascular system, forcing oxygen out. If you use too much, it can result in reduced oxygen in the heart and sudden death. Most importantly, there is not a way to actually predict that happening before it does.

However, cocaine can also cause more traditional toxicity and poisoning if it is cut with toxic material. For example, some dealers will cut cocaine with baby powder or talc. Consuming small quantities of this won’t really harm you. However, in larger doses these and other substances can cause significant toxicity, which can result in shock and even poisoning.

Other Dangers of Cocaine

Cocaine can be significantly dangerous, even when it doesn’t kill you. This means it’s important to be careful with cocaine even in small doses. In addition, cocaine can cause significant and lasting damage to your mental and physical health, which can decrease your quality of life.

Addiction

An estimated 1.4 million people or almost 30% of all cocaine users have a cocaine use disorder. This means that they are mentally and physically addicted to the substance, show signs of withdrawal, and show seeking behavior – where they prioritize cocaine over responsibilities, family, friends, and other things they care about. That behavioral addiction often requires significant therapy intervention to treat and if left alone, can mean years of spiraling substance abuse.

Paranoia and Anxiety

Cocaine usage affects dopamine reuptake in the brain. This often means that dopamine production raises significantly in the short term and the body responds to this by producing less dopamine. As a result, long-term users may start to experience side-effects of anxiety, paranoia, anxiety attacks, and even panic attacks. These symptoms are often a result of chemistry changes in the brain, meaning they can be persistent and can last for years or permanently, even if you quit using cocaine.

Cardiac Complications

Cocaine usage can result in long-term side-effects and damage to the heart. Here, common cardiac complications include arrhythmia, acute myocardial infarction, cardiomyopathy, and coronary artery disease. Each of these diseases is not fatal on its own. However, they do increase chance of early death, decrease quality of life, and increase need for medical care over your lifetime. In addition, they increase the risks of further cocaine usage, because they weaken your heart, meaning you’re more likely to have heart problems.

Getting Help

Cocaine is never safe to use recreationally. The drug causes short-term euphoria and can make you feel good, energetic, and even powerful. Yet, it causes physical harm to your body, increases your risk of death, increases your risk of mental and physical health problems, and decreases your quality of life. If you are using anyway, you are putting yourself at risk, and knowingly. That often means you can benefit from therapy and help getting off the drug, treating the underlying reasons behind substance abuse, so you can recover and get your life back.

What Does It Mean to Be Sober Curious

What Does It Mean to Be Sober Curious?

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to live without alcohol, you’re sober curious. Whether you’re questioning why alcohol is everywhere and at every event, why people drink so much, or why so many people, perhaps even yourself, seem to have an all-or-nothing approach to drinking, sober curious is an approach that might work for you.

The basic premise is that you don’t have to quit alcohol to improve your approach to it. As someone who is sober curious, you question your approach to alcohol, you decide if you want to be sober in the moment or not, and you use judgement based on the situation rather than social pressure to make the decision for you, in that moment. You don’t have to quit alcohol to be sober curious. Instead, you have to approach your usage of alcohol mindfully.

If that sounds like something that might be interesting, keep reading.

Everyone Drinks, So I Should Too?

Today, an estimated 65% of the U.S. population over the age of 21 drinks. If you drop the age to 18, that drops to just 64%. Most people drink. And, if you raise it to people who sometimes drink socially, that number goes up to 85%. Often you show up at parties or social events and there’s nothing to do but drink. Sure, there are the occasional party games, but most rely on drunken camaraderie to even be fun. And, drinks for anyone not looking for alcohol can be as simplistic as an option of coke or diet coke. Everyone drinks, so you should too? Right? Questioning that premise is a large part of what being sober curious is about.

Do I want to drink right now?
Do I feel like having alcohol? Would I prefer a beverage without alcohol?
Do I have fun getting drunk? What if I just have one drink?
Are my friends fun when they are drunk? What if I’m sober at the same time?

Normally, people don’t ask any of these questions before drinking. They show up at an event, people are drinking, so they join in. But, you don’t have to. People might pressure you to drink if you’re not, but if they are, they’re not good friends.

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Taking a Break from Alcohol

Sober curious can also mean “trying out” sobriety, with the intention of it not being permanent. For example, many people use “Dry January” to experiment with sober curiosity. However, if you really want to try out being sober, you have to skip drinking for 3-6 months or even longer. Taking 6 months to a year to commit to not drinking will show you what you and your brain are like without alcohol. And, making the period that long will give you very good insight into how alcohol affects your judgement and whether or not you actually struggle with not drinking. If you don’t set a defined period and go for “I will stop drinking for a bit”, you’ll only get some of the insight.

Committing to staying sober for a period of 6-12 months means you’ll have to stay sober for that period and if you don’t, you’re likely struggling with alcohol use.
It takes 6+ months for most brains to recover from the effects of alcohol usage. This means you’ll be able to make the decision to continue staying sober or to start drinking again from a fresh slate of as recovered as you will be without spending 2 years sober.
Setting a defined period means you can check in with friends, you can join others in trying out sobriety, and you’ll have guidelines to your sobriety

Trying out being sober can be a great call if you find that you drink more or more often than you’d like. For example, if you drink every time you go out, drink to the point of blacking out, or frequently drink more than is recommended, trying out being sober may be a great call.

Intentionally Sober Outings

Sober curious is a concept that gives you the opportunity to experience events and meetups with a clear mind. For example, “Sober Curious” is a trend on Tinder because it allows people to experience a first date with a clear mind. Committing to not drinking for the first few days means you get to experience each other sober, to make sober judgement calls, and to experience each other without the euphoria caused by alcohol. That can be important for dating. But, it can also impact other types of social events. For example, you may want to intentionally decide to experience a work event with a clear mind. You may decide to do the same at a social event like a fundraiser or an auction or a wedding. Intentionally choosing to stay sober means you want to experience this event without alcohol, whether for the memories, the experience, or for your capability to contribute to that event.

Sober Curious is a term that comes from the 2018 book by Ruby Warrington, “Sober Curious: The Blissful Sleep, Greater Focus, Limitless Presence, and Deep Connection Awaiting Us All on the Other Side of Alcohol”. Her definition of sober curious was trying out sobriety with the intention of eventually being sober. That’s a very good approach. However, you don’t have to intend to or ever quit alcohol to be sober curious. You may simply want to know what it’s like, how it affects your life, how it changes your social outings, how it affects how you feel on the weekends, if it changes your sleep and your health, etc. Sober curious is about curiosity and wondering what being sober would be like.

And, once you’re curious, you should be able to try out being sober without pressure, without expectations, and while being able to set guidelines, goals, and expectations for yourself. And, even if you find out that life really is better sober, you don’t have to keep drinking completely. Cutting back to almost sobriety can be a great compromise. Drinking one or two drinks on the weekends is also a great approach. Plus, full sobriety can be as interesting as drinking – because there are plenty of interesting beverages you can try that don’t have alcohol.

If you’re sober curious, go ahead and try out what it’s like to not drink.

7 Things to Tell Yourself When You Want to Drink

7 Things to Tell Yourself When You Want to Drink

If you’re in early recovery, you’re likely battling with significant cravings. Unfortunately, those cravings won’t likely easily go away. You’ll probably face them for months or even years to come – and they may never fully go away. Instead, your tactic should be to develop coping mechanisms and strategies to help you move past cravings – to get around the want to drink, and to remind yourself why you’re sober.

That can be difficult to believe, especially if you’re in the middle of dealing with cravings – which can feel overwhelming. However, the fact they are overwhelming means it’s also important to ensure you have a support network. Talk to friends and family, go to Alcoholics Anonymous, and make sure you have people to call and talk to if things get too bad.

However, these 7 things to tell yourself when you want to drink will get you started.

1. “This will go away, and I’ll be glad I didn’t drink”

Cravings can overwhelm you when they hit. It can seem like getting a drink is the most important thing in the world. That’s unfortunate, because on average, those cravings last just 15 minutes and then start to subside. But, if you take action and go to start buying alcohol – you’ve already made up your mind and it’s unlikely that you’ll change your mind.

Cravings will go away. If you can hold out, you will feel better about yourself. You will have reason to be proud of yourself. And you will be moving yourself closer towards your goal of staying sober.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. Fighting cravings is difficult. But, therapists recommend looking for distraction, doing things with your hands, talking to people, or engaging yourself in an activity that takes your mind off of alcohol. For example, cleaning up, working on a Rubik’s cube, playing a game on your phone, starting a discussion with someone, or even setting a timer and spending that amount of time working out.

A time-out won’t make cravings disappear. However, they will lessen the severity of the craving and will give you time to get yourself together and to figure out what you want to do instead.

2. “I want to be sober”

No one quits drinking for no reason at all. You stopped drinking and likely went to rehab for specific reasons – and you know what those are. Along the way, you probably found other motivations to stay sober. Remind yourself of what those reasons are when you start to feel cravings for alcohol.

For example:

“I want to be sober because I like myself better as a person when I’m sober”
“I want to be sober because it gives me freedom to be there for my family”
“I want to be sober because I want to achieve my goals and alcohol gets in the way”
“I want to be sober because I deserve to be in control of my life and alcohol prevents that”

You know why you got clean or sober. You can write those reasons down, along with anything else you think of along the way, and repeat it to yourself when you start to feel cravings.

3. “People care about me staying sober”

Whether you have friends and family, caretakers, counselors, or even just therapists in your life, people actively care about you staying sober. Going to Alcoholics Anonymous or another 12 Step Group can be a great way to remind yourself of that – because you’ll have more freedom to discuss sobriety, cravings, and relapse with people who understand them. Having that social accountability can help you to stay sober as well. However, it can also be a good warning that you’re starting to slip. For example, if you find yourself withdrawing from your support networks or hiding things from then, it may be a sign that you need more support than ever.

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4. “I am relying on myself not drinking”

It’s good that you have other people who want and need you to stay sober. But you also have yourself. And, chances are, you’ve made promises to yourself and are relying on yourself to stay sober. That could be to enable you to be a better parent. It might be to allow yourself to graduate. It might be for your career, your health, your mental health, or even for your self-esteem. But, you are relying on yourself and you alone are responsible for taking care of yourself. Reminding yourself of that and of the fact that you are worthy of being taken care of is important.

5. “I am responsible for myself but I have people to help”

It’s important to take responsibility for yourself and for your sobriety. But, it’s also important that you don’t feel you have to do everything alone. Reminding yourself that you have people who can help can be an important way to avoid drinking when you want to. For example, you can make a list of people you can call. You can also state specific things to yourself.

“If I don’t think I can not drink, I can call X and have them pick me up”
“I can text my sponsor to ask for advice right now”
“I can ask my sibling for help”

If you know that you have support and specifically what you can ask for, you can remind yourself of that when it is relevant. Then, you’ll have an alternative to drinking.

6. “I’ve come this far”

Sobering up is a long experience and for many of us, it’s dangerous. Rehab is even longer and may involve weeks or even months of your life. You’ve put a significant amount of work and effort into getting sober.

Reminding yourself of that work and of how far you’ve come can be a great tactic. In addition, you can think about how proud you are of that journey, how much you’ve changed since you started, and what you’ve achieved for yourself.

However, even if you’re at the very beginning of your recovery journey, you should remind yourself that you’re taking steps to achieve your goals to be sober. That’s something to be proud of. It’s something you put work into. And, it’s probably not something you want to lose.

7. “I’m not ready to give up yet”

Most of the time if you want to drink, the thing that you want is feeling happy, relaxed, carefree, or not having to think and be stressed. The thing is, if you drink, you have to face more of those negative feelings when you sober up – effectively making life harder for yourself in the future. Life will always have its ups and downs. But, if you drink, you are, in that moment, giving up. And, while you can always get back up, return to sobriety, and continue your recovery, you will regret the lapse. You don’t want to give up and you know that. Reminding yourself of it can be important in helping you to stay sober.

An alcohol addiction is a serious behavioral disorder. It’s important that you reach out to others, get help, go to an alcohol rehab, and ensure you have the support you need to navigate recovery. That should mean learning tools to deal with cravings, learning new coping mechanisms, and figuring out your triggers and how they affect you. Asking for help can be difficult, but especially in recovery, it’s an important part of moving forward. And, when you have help, figuring out what to say to yourself when you want to drink will be that much easier.

How To Flush Alcohol Out of Your System

How To Flush Alcohol Out of Your System

If you’ve overindulged at a party, you might be wondering how to flush alcohol out of your system to get rid of a hangover. In that case, the answer is pretty simple. Drink plenty of water, possibly some soda or carbonated water, eat a few healthy meals, go for a walk, and wait it out. But, most people looking up how to flush alcohol out of their system are looking to detox, either because they want to sober up, because they are facing a drug and alcohol test, or because they’re taking medication.

If that’s the case, the answer is unfortunately a lot more difficult. It’s almost impossible to speed up how quickly alcohol leaves your system. However, you might be able to influence how quickly you sober up – although even that won’t always be the case.

Can You Sober Up Quickly?

Unfortunately, once you’re drunk you’re just going to have to wait it out. Having caffeine and some water can help you to feel steady sooner. That’s also true of having a solid meal. However, it won’t reduce the impact of alcohol on your senses any sooner. Instead, you might feel safe driving or work, even when you really shouldn’t be. For most people, you’ll have to wait at least an hour after every unit of alcohol before you’ll sober up. If you’ve had a bunch of shots, that could be the same number of hours as the number of shots you had.

Most importantly, a lot of people resort to chugging water or caffeine. Not only does this not help, it can actually hurt you. Similarly, forcing yourself to throw up won’t reduce the alcohol in your system – although it may prevent you from getting more drunk if you’ve had alcohol within the last 15-45 minutes.

How to Recover From Drinking More Quickly

If you’ve had a long night drinking and are facing a hangover, there’s unfortunately not too much you can do. Here, most of the steps you can take to prevent a hangover are important before or during drinking. For example, eat a good meal before you start drinking, get enough sleep, and drink plenty of water or soda while drinking. You’ll also want to try to drink in moderation – but if that were the case, you wouldn’t be looking for tips.

Get some exercise, it will help you speed up your metabolism (briefly).
Drink plenty of water. Alcohol dehydrates and many of the negative effects the day after are “just” dehydration. Of course, it will do more if you try drinking a glass of water per alcoholic beverage you drink at night.
Get plenty of sleep. Your body needs time to rest and process alcohol.
Drinking soda while drinking can create pressure in your stomach, moving alcohol through your system more quickly. However, you might also feel the effects of alcohol more quickly.

Those tips may help you with a hangover. However, they won’t really help you to detox.

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Can You Flush Alcohol Out of Your System for a Test?

If you’re facing a drug and alcohol test or a breathalyzer test, there’s not much you can do. Unfortunately, breathalyzers can detect alcohol for 12-24 hours after your last drink. If you have a blood test, it can detect alcohol for up to 12 hours. And, if you have a urine test, that could be up to 80 hours. That can be bad if you’re taking a test and you’ve been drinking when you shouldn’t have been. However, there’s not much you can do.

In fact, all of the home remedies such as drinking a great deal of water, taking herbal supplements, or taking detoxes don’t actually work. You can’t speed up how quickly your body processes alcohol. Instead, that’s determined by factors like your metabolism, body fat, liver health, volume of alcohol consumed, normal alcohol consumption, etc.

Otherwise, there’s no way to fake a test. Instead, you’re recommended to be upfront about it, to admit to drinking alcohol, and to talk about it with your employer. If you just had a late night, everything should be fine. And, even if you’ve broken company rules, you’ll likely still have an easier time if you talk about it right away instead of waiting for a test to come back.

How Do You Detox from Alcohol?

Alcohol detox is the process of going through withdrawal, usually in a controlled medical environment. Depending on how much you drink, how often you drink, and whether or not you experience withdrawal symptoms when you quit drinking, this process may be extremely difficult and dangerous or relatively simple.

In most cases, alcohol withdrawal sets in within 12-24 hours of your last drink. Symptoms start out slowly and increase over the course of a few days. From there, you’ll normally experience cravings, cold and flu symptoms, shaking, paranoia, anxiety, and potentially mild seizures. 2% of heavy drinkers develop into longer-term symptoms with potentially severe side effects. For this reason, if you drink heavily, it’s important to seek out medical detox and support when trying to quit alcohol. Withdrawal should normally take about 2 weeks from start to finish. However, it will only get you through physical addiction to alcohol. If you have cravings, seeking behavior, or behavioral addiction to alcohol, you’ll need addiction treatment to fully quit alcohol.

If you’re drinking so much that you’re concerned about being caught, are struggling with hangovers, or find yourself drinking in situations where you shouldn’t or where it causes danger to others, you probably need help. That often means seeking our addiction treatment including therapy and counseling to help you understand the underlying causes behind your reliance on alcohol, to help you find better coping mechanisms, to help you build life skills to manage stress, and to build a life you can enjoy.

Going to rehab can sound like a big step and it is. At the same time, alcohol addiction treatment can help you to get your life back, and it’s just the first step on a journey to recovery.

What Are the Most Addictive Prescription Medications?

More than 1/3^rd of Americans, or 66% of all adults, or 131 million people, take at least one prescription medication. Americans spend some $73 billion on prescription drugs annually, and that’s often with the expectation that those drugs will improve our health, reduce symptoms, and improve our quality of life. Unfortunately for many, prescription drugs don’t work the same for everyone and many can be habit forming and addictive. In fact, while awareness of the addictive potential of pain pills and opioids is on the rise, prescription opioid usage is still one of the leading causes of moving on to street drugs like heroin.

If you or a loved one is being prescribed a medication, you don’t have to worry. Talk to your doctor, request a Risk Evaluation and Management Strategy (REMS), and go in for your checkups. As long as you use the prescription medication as directed, you shouldn’t have problems with the drug. However, it’s important to have those discussions, to understand your risks, and to understand how prescription drugs can impact your health and your mental health.

Many drugs can be habit forming or dependence inducing, meaning they are “addictive”. However, the following are the most addictive prescription medications.

Opioids

Opioids are the most well-known class of prescription painkillers. These drugs all work in similar ways, by binding to the opiate receptors in the brain. In small doses, they can reduce your perception of pain and create a calming or sedative effect. In high doses, they can create euphoria and intense highs that can be extremely addictive.

For many people, opioids are the most addictive drug. In fact, fentanyl, an extremely strong opioid, is one of the most addictive in the world, and also takes part in some 70% of all opioid overdoses.

Common opioids include:

Oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet)
Codeine
Fentanyl
Meperidine (Demerol)

Each of these drugs has different properties and strengths. However, all of them work in the same way. All of them also cause euphoria when taking large doses. And, people abusing these drugs normally start to show long-term cold and flu symptoms, stomach problems, lethargy or drops in energy, and increased “seeking behavior”. Here, individuals think about, use, or spend time acquiring drugs for a significant portion of their day, their behavior changes, and they may prioritize drugs over anything else.

Once someone is physically dependent on an opioid medication, getting off of it will require a withdrawal phase. That can mean up to 2 weeks of severe cold and flu symptoms, anxiety, and depression, which can interfere with normal life and responsibilities. For this reason, many people using pain pills end up continuing to use them to avoid withdrawal symptoms, despite no longer needing them for pain management.

However, if you receive an opioid medication, you’ll likely only have it for a few weeks. Doctors are increasingly aware of the dangers of opioid addiction and will therefore normally take large steps to ensure you are safe while you receive your prescription.

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Benzodiazepines

Benzodiazepines are a class of central nervous system suppressants used to treat anxiety, panic attacks, and the symptoms of PTSD. Previously, they were also used for sleep issues. Today, some 30.5 million people have a prescription or use benzos illicitly. However, 17.1% of all people with a benzodiazepine prescription misuse them and a further 2% qualify as having a drug use disorder.

Benzodiazepines include:

Diazepam (Valium)
Lorazepam (Ativan)
Clonazepam (Klonopin)
Alprazolam (Xanax)
Midazolam (Versed)

Today, most doctors won’t prescribe these drugs without a co-occurring therapy requirement. It’s also unlikely that you’ll receive a prescription for longer than 5 weeks. However, many people have had benzodiazepine prescriptions for years.

Unfortunately, these drugs are highly addictive and can cause significant psychological reliance, where users might work themselves into panic attacks because they don’t have the drug in case something goes wrong.

In addition, many people experience significant withdrawal symptoms while trying to quit benzos. Often, the only safe way to get off of them is to slowly taper usage over the course of a few weeks or months. If you go cold turkey on a benzodiazepine, chances of severe symptoms like seizures are high. For this reason, it’s not recommended to quit benzodiazepines without medical supervision,

Sedatives

Sedatives or prescription sleeping pills include several classes of drugs but most of them have similar effects and a similar addiction profile. Often, these drugs are prescribed for the short term, alongside a REMS, and alongside therapy that is intended to resolve the root of the problem rather than symptoms. However, some people have been on sleeping pill prescriptions for decades. Today, we know that these drugs are addictive and dependence inducing. But, if you’ve been on one for some time, chances of dependence and possible addiction are high.

Common sleeping pills include:

Zolpidem (Ambien, Zolpimist, Edluar)
Zaleplon (Sonata)
Triazolam (Halcion)
Temazepam (Restoril)
Ramelteon (Rozerem)
Eszopiclone (Lunesta)
Doxepin (Silenor)

All of these drugs are dependence inducing. In addition, like benzos, you should not stop most of these drugs cold turkey. Instead, they should be tapered off to avoid causing major symptoms such as seizures and major paranoia. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to consult with a doctor before quitting a sleeping medication or sedative.

Amphetamines

Amphetamines are most-famous for street drugs like methamphetamine. However, they also make up a large selection of prescription medications including ADD and ADHD treatments like Ritalin, Concerta, and Adderall.

Adderall (Myadayis)
Methylphenidate (Concerta, Ritalin)

However, these amphetamines are rarely severely habit forming. Instead, most people will never have problems. At the same time, heavy abuse, especially in combination with other drugs or alcohol, can cause significant.

Getting Help

If you or a loved one is struggling with a prescription medicine, there is help. The first step should normally be to go to your doctor, who can offer insight into your prescription use, where it went wrong, and what the next steps should be. Depending on your specific case, you may benefit from therapy, tapering off the drug, or rehab and drug abuse treatment. However, in most cases, if you’re compulsively using a drug, you’ll need therapy and treatment to help you resolve the underlying causes – or your risk of relapse or changing to a different drug will remain high.

Prescription medications can be dangerous. However, they can also be lifesaving. Following the prescription, avoiding mixing drugs, and stopping drug usage when you no longer need it can all help you to stay safe when using prescription medication. However, you should always discuss your plans and their safety with your doctor before changing how you use or take a prescription medication.

If you or your loved-one struggles from substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.