How Find Help For A Friend With A Drug Addiction
Drug Addiction Help
Getting help for a friend with a drug addiction is an uncomfortable process. It is difficult to confront your friend an discuss the problem they are having. Some may fear losing the relationship while others fear the person will uses even more drugs. There are two parts of this process of dealing with a person with a drug addiction. The first part is sitting down with the person and having a talk with them. The other part is finding the help that is right for them.
When you are getting ready to talk with you friend about their drug addiction, make sure you are not in a public place. Try to catch them when either you or they are not under a lot of stress. Planning something fun on the weekend with the person would be an idea. Try to start off telling them you care for them and that you are concerned at things that are happening in their life. Explain the problems that you have seen happening with them and that you think they need to get help. You want to see how ready the person is to get help.
Some people with a drug addiction may respond well to being asked to get help by someone who cares. They may just needed a little help with making the decision to seek treatment. Most likely, the friend will not be ready to seek treatment. The process of deciding to get help with a drug addiction can take many months or even years. Simply reminding the person periodically the problems you see is the most helpful thing you can do. If you are seeing the person doing things that put them or others in danger, you can go to any local drug treatment center. They will help decide whether there needs to be legal involvement or if the person needs immediate treatment against their will.
Forcing drug addiction treatment on an individual is only to remove them from harm’s way. Although some people do respond to forced drug addiction treatment, many do not. When they are released, they may be hesitant to get any more help from others. Addiction treatment is a long term process. A short stay in a hospital will only get them on the path of recovery, but they are going to require ongoing support for many months and years. Getting them help requires a lot of patience.
Getting Help With Narcotic Drug Addiction
The treatment for drug addiction has improved over the past twenty years. There are many new medication treatments that may be helpful. None of them are a cure, and each has it’s problems, but many patients have been helped.
Addiction to prescription medications is a problem that is becoming recognized as severe. May people have been started on pain pills for a specific problem such as back pain. We are not sure why, but a percentage of these people will eventually become addicted to the medication. Previously, becoming addicted to opioids means shooting up drugs. This is no longer the case. There are millions of people have a drug addiction to prescription pain pills now.
Some people can break their drug addiction to opioids by getting help from their doctor with getting off the opioid. Becoming abstinent from the drugs works for most patients. Medications can be prescribed to help reduce the withdrawals from a reduction in the painkiller medication. Others require longer treatment. They are switched to another medication such as methadone, and slowly reduced from the medication over a period of months or years.
Some people are unable to get off the medication without going back to their old drugs, so they are kept on the methadone treatment for as long as necessary. This is called maintenance treatment. There is another medication, Suboxone, which is a newer medication that does the same thing. It is also safer than using methadone.
There is one other choice for opioid drug addiction where abstinence is a problem. This is the use of an opioid antagonist such as Vivitrol. This medication blocks all opioid medications in the system so the person will not experience euphoria. This type of medication is now available in a longer acting formula. It mainly helps persuade a person to not act on an impulse to use drugs because it won’t let them get high.
Summary For Finding Help With Drug Addiction
Helping someone with a drug addition requires patience and caring. Reminding people of the problems in their life caused from drugs and that you care for them and want to see them seek help is the best way to help them. Many people take years to decide to accept drug treament. For some, forced treatment makes them avoid getting help in the future. There are newer medication available for opioid addiction. Reviewing these medications with a doctor can determine which is the best for you of your family member.
Find Professional Help With Drug Addiction
Use our FREE services to find help. We have three directories: a Suboxone Doctor Directory, Methadone Treatment Clinics Directory, and A Drug Treatment Directory. These list will help you find drug addiction treatment in your area. Dr. Rich has more articles on drug addiction including The Real Suboxone Cost and and Understanding What Is Methadone?
Governement Resources on Drug Addiction
National Institute on Drug Abuse
Brookhaven National Laboratory
