Recovery from addiction

Determine which nonpharmacologic therapies should be used, either alone or in combination with pharmacologic treatments, to foster a recovery from addiction. 

To facilitate recovery from addiction it is necessary to utilize a comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment that includes the motivation for change. Pharmacologic treatments are always adjunctive to psychosocial therapy. 

The overall goals in recovery from addiction are the same for all substances and they consist of ... 

To facilitate recovery from addiction it is necessary to utilize a comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment that includes the motivation for change. Pharmacologic treatments are always adjunctive to psychosocial therapy. It is important to remember that mere treatment of withdrawal is not sufficient treatment of DSM-IV-TR dependence (addiction), and that medications are always adjunctive to psychosocial therapy. Comorbid psychiatric... 

The conceptual basis of the methods adopted by AlcohoUcs Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and related organizations. It is considered that recovery from addiction is achieved by addressing 12 specified steps in turn See solvent misuse... 

Flynn PM, Joe GW, Broome KM, Simpson DD Brown BS (2003). Recovery from opioid addiction in DATOS. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 25, 177-86... 

Individuals who are addicted to benzodiazepines should not try to quit cold turkey on their own. Often, individuals addicted to a benzodiazepine have an addiction to another substance or drug, such as cocaine or alcohol. These multiple addictions are complicated. Recovery from these addictions should not be attempted alone. Withdrawal from abuse of benzodiazepines may cause life-threatening complications. 

Recovery from drug addiction can be long-term and requires intervention throughout the years to help a person become fully drug free. 

Abstinence on its own is not enough for the addict. Addiction is a function of the lower brain and cannot be controlled by force of will. Craving will wear down the addict s resolve and in an attempt to resist can create a rigidity known in the field as white-knuckle sobriety, in which the abstinent addict is clinging so hard that it is like the driver with such a grip on the wheel that his or her knuckles are bloodless. That is no way to drive a car or to maintain recovery from addiction. Recovery for the addict is a lifelong undertaking and requires help. ... 

From having been the initiators for what needs to happen in the family, they become primarily reactors to what is happening, effectively ceding family influence to the substance-abusing or addicted child. (This is why part of parental recovery from codependency is reclaiming initiative to run the family.)... 

Does a young person ever abuse drugs or alcohol in order to escape or medicate suffering from low self-esteem, or does self-esteem ever become lowered as a result of abusing drugs or alcohol The answer to both parts of this question is "Yes." Substance abuse and addiction can be both the cause and consequence of low self-esteem. Therefore Key to the prevention of, and recovery from, substance abuse and addiction is helping the child build and maintain a strong, positive sense of self-esteem. 

Essential to a young person s recovery from substance abuse or addiction is the willingness to own personal choice and to face the consequences that followed. 

Recovery from addiction requires recovering the capacity to tell the truth to oneself and to others. All addiction depends on lying. All recovery depends on honesty. The solution is that easy, and that hard. 

The use of a partial agonist helps to promote a constant level of receptor stimulation when secretion of the endogenous ligand is erratic. For example, patients with inappropriate secretion of norepinephrine (where levels are increased at rest and decreased during exercise), benefit from pindolol therapy, and those involved in the recovery of opiate addiction benefit from pentazocine therapy to prevent reintroduction of the opiate narcotic. 

In direct addiction of post-addicts to methadone, signs of abstinence on withdrawal were identical with those seen after withdrawal of methadone subsequent to substitution from morphine. The slow recovery from methadone abstinence was more unpleasant to many subjects than abstinence from morphine. Those experimentally addicted to methadone came to prefer methadone to all other drugs. If refused morphine, many addicts will ask for either methadone or meperidine. 

Beasley JD. Foodfor recovery the complete nutritional companion for recovering from alcoholism, drug addiction, and eating disorders. New York Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1994. 

Addiction is progressive and can be fatal if not treated. It is incurable in that the addict cannot go back to non-compulsive, non-out-of-control use. In the recovering community, it is said that a cucumber can continue to be a cucumber, but once it becomes a pickle, it cannot go back to being a cucumber. Although incurable, the disease can, however, be brought into remission via abstinence from all psychoactive substances and a program of supported recovery. 

In the addictions field, changes back to health in physical, psychological, spiritual, and soci functioning. It generally is believed that recovery is a lifetime process that requires total abstinence from alcohol and nonprescribed drugs. 

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