You’ve acknowledged the reality that you are addicted to painkillers. You’ve accepted it’s now time to get help. How do you begin? There are several approaches to battle this addiction depending on where you are with it. Unfortunately will power alone won’t get the job done.
If you are physically dependent on the painkillers, and decide to stop cold turkey, your body may still crave the drug due to the symptoms of withdrawal. Withdrawal is when the body has gotten used to the external supply of medicine and the brain has released receptors to allow the drug to work, causing nerve cells in the brain to stop working normally. Reducing or stopping the drug causes the body to go through physical changes or a chemical imbalance if you will, resulting in painful side effects known as withdrawal symptoms.
Withdrawal symptoms may include include:
- craving for the drug(s)
- Diarrhea
- Nausea and vomiting
- Mood swings
- Cold sweats
- Restlessness
Withdrawal usually lasts between 6 hours and a few weeks. If you think you are going through withdrawal, you should consider some sort of detoxification program right away.
Detox is where you physically cleanse your body of the harmful drugs you put into it. Usually done through a medical facility or hospital, detox is done by administering (of all things) drugs to control your withdrawal symptoms while cleaning you out. Basically, by blocking the receptors that allow the painkillers to have any effect on the brain. You may still have the psychological craving, but your body’s tolerance is greatly reduced.
Other methods of treating your addiction include individual and group therapy and residential treatment where you enter a clinic to avoid those outside influences. If you are not feeling the symptoms of withdrawal, you should consider one of the later options. Successful recovery
