How to treat drug addiction

How to treat drug addiction – Drug addiction is an extremely powerful addiction. Of course, this is a somewhat simplistic statement, because just as we have different types of drugs, we have different types of drug addiction, and in the same way, different types of addictions to different psychoactive substances are treated differently. However, there are many commonalities that make drug treatment an extremely difficult process and it has many common elements, regardless of the substance.

Unfortunately, many drug addicts, even if they go through therapy for addictions quite well and stop taking drugs for a while, they return to their old habits over time. Of course, this does not mean that a drug addict who is not a drug addict must take drugs immediately after leaving the drug addiction centre. Sometimes this can happen even years after the worst seems to be over. Therefore, drug addiction treatment requires appropriate and professional therapy to be effective. How to treat drug addiction – let’s talk about it for a moment.

How to treat drug addiction. Therapeutic centers

Therapy for drug addicts is quite a lengthy process and in fact, for it to be effective, it is not enough for a drug addict to sit in a prison for a while, isolated from drugs. Drug addiction treatment centers, whether they are public or private drug addiction treatment centers, are associated with this approach. Of course, in some way, such a detox in itself can work positively, but it is unlikely that it will have long-term positive effects. Also, a lot depends on whether the person who would be subjected to such a detox would do it voluntarily or would be forced to do it. If, of course, it is a voluntary approach by the addict to recovery, there is of course a much greater chance of success. With regard to forced therapy, unfortunately this is very ineffective. Regardless of whether the drug addict wants it or not, drug treatment centers cut the drug addict from his normal environment, i.e. from the environment that somehow made him take drugs, and it is not really about his company, in the sense of, for example, other drug addicts who may have persuaded or enabled him to take drugs. It’s really about a whole lot of different situations, for example family or professional, which, in what way, made the addicted person take drugs. We need to talk about it.

Addiction or habit?

In recent years, psychology and neuropsychology have made tremendous strides in learning about the human brain and how it works. One of the greatest achievements, which could even be said to be a breakthrough when it comes to psychology and the treatment of various types of addictions, was the discovery of the so-called habit loop. We will not go into details here, but it is worth saying that many of the behaviors that are part of our lives, both good and bad, are performed by us almost instinctively. This is simply because when you learn certain things, of course, after some time, they go into the so-called automatic mode. The main point here is that, for example, when performing certain simple activities, i.e., for example, if we were to brush our teeth always the same way as the first time, in fact, we would focus all our attention on this activity, i.e., for example, the application of toothpaste, the length of brushing these teeth, or, for example, the type of movements performed.

Currently, few of us pay any attention to this activity at all. It’s the same with driving a car. If we have a newly obtained driving license, then, for example, we focus very much on, for example, leaving our yard backwards. However, if we do it for a long time, very often we may not even remember how we left our driveway today. Unfortunately, so are all sorts of bad habits. For example, if a drug brings us relief and relaxation at some point in our lives when we are under severe stress, there is a high probability that if this cycle has been repeated several times, it will most likely persist. Modern healing therapies focus on detox, but above all on the effective elimination of bad habit loops.

Physical dependence

Of course, we also cannot overlook such an important fact as the fact that many drugs cause a very strong physical dependence. Treatment of people who are physically addicted to drugs is quite difficult and most often it is pharmacologically assisted treatment. Many experts associate drug craving with the aforementioned habit loop. The point is that for a habit cycle to take place, a so-called trigger is needed. Craving causes physical discomfort, but many therapists believe that the role of the trigger is even more destructive.