Drug addiction is a chronic disorder, meaning that the individual tends to fall back into a past addictive behavior, with drugs use, often even after a long treatment. The sooner the individual seeks help, the greater the chances for a successful drug withdrawal are. For many people, it may be effective and safe to choose outpatient drug withdrawal. Other people may require supervised and medical drug therapy, or, certainly, home withdrawal, or drug free withdrawal.
Drug treatment may be effective if it is tailored to suit the specific situation of the person and if it involves a successful combination of different methods. These methods may include group therapy, or individual counseling, supervised and medication withdrawal, home withdrawal and drug free withdrawal. If the individual is reluctant in approaching the doctor, hot and help lines can be a very good place to initiate learning more about drug treatment. And as denial is frequently a characteristic of drug addiction, people who abuse drugs won't usually seek home withdrawal, or drug free withdrawal.
Family, friends and colleagues may persuade the individual to begin drug withdrawal. Thus, breaking the drug addiction may involve counseling, a residential treatment, or, an outpatient program. Diagnosing the drug addiction frequently starts at the level of a family doctor, and very often after that, one of the family members who raised concerns about the behavior of another member of the family.
The doctor, as a rule, may ask about the frequency of drug use or whether anybody has criticized his drug use, and whether anybody ever felt that the person might have such a problem. Generally, the final diagnosis of drug addiction occurs after the evaluation of a psychologist, psychiatrist, or the specialized drug addiction counselor. The blood test often isn't able to offer a diagnosis in this way, but these blood tests may help the doctor to detect the presence of a drug when its use is denied.
The support from a family or friends while undergoing home withdrawal, or drug free withdrawal, will help to sustain the needed practical and emotional support. For family and friends this support can include: to know what to do in the case of an overdose; to supervise the treatment dose for this period of treatment; to encourage the family or friend in developing their friendships and their support networks, and to involve them in healthy and positive activities; to attend family counseling and to go with them to different appointments to doctors or counselors.
If a dependent individual suddenly stops taking drugs, or he cuts down
on the amount he uses, he experiences the symptoms of drug withdrawal, because the body wants to readjust for existing without drugs. Symptoms of withdrawal from drugs are restlessness, craving for the drugs, yawning, diarrhea, tears, low blood pressure, vomiting, leg and stomach cramps, runny nose and goose bumps.
They get stronger; usually, around 2 - 4 days after the last use, when they peak. These symptoms of drug withdrawal include, also, irritability, loss of appetite, emotional depression, insomnia, and vomiting and muscle spasms. After that they begin getting weaker. Usually, these symptoms subside after 6 - 7 days. However, these symptoms such as anxiety, chronic depression, a continued craving for drugs and loss of appetite, insomnia may last for months and even years.