Substance abuse treatment is available in various formats in today’s times. It is no longer the dreaded kind of treatment that is was about ten years ago, when the only forms of treatment known for curing a person’s dependency were to rehabilitate the person in a lonely inpatient setting. In those cases, patients would be isolated from their families and kept away from all kinds of familiar environments by housing them in a rehab center which would be far removed from their homes, both physically and mentally. There needed to be a constant medical vigilance and tales of detox withdrawal and cold turkey were too horrific to be recounted to others, be they adults or children.

However, the scenario of substance abuse treatment has definitely changed in today’s times. Today, several kinds of medicines are available for addiction treatment. These medicines can do different things for the person’s body. Firstly, they can help remove the person’s craving for the substance in totality. Antabuse that is developed for helping people overcome their alcohol addiction is an example of this. When a person is put on Antabuse treatment, the person actually develops an aversion to alcohol. This makes it all the more simple for the person to come out the dependency.

Secondly, some medicines can help people lose the temptation for the addictive substance by replacement therapy. Methadone and buprenorphine used in heroin treatment are both effective in this manner. As long as a person is kept up on these medicines, the person will lose the temptation for the substance of addiction, which in this case is heroin. The only problem with replacement medication (also known as maintenance medication) is that they are themselves addictive, as they belong to the same class of substance as the original substance of the addiction. Therefore, it becomes very important that these medications are provided in a controlled and medically supervised treatment setting.

Speaking of methadone and buprenorphine, methadone needs to be provided in a complete inpatient setting because of it habit-forming nature. The substance can very soon cause an addiction of its own, replete with a withdrawal if it is stopped abruptly. Hence, complete control is needed when this medication is administered. The quantity must be perfectly controlled and it is important to reduce the dosage slowly as the person begins overcoming the heroin dependency. Buprenorphine, the alternative treatment, is not as habit-forming. Hence, in most substance abuse treatment centers, methadone is administered in an inpatient setting while buprenorphine can be administered for outpatient patients also. In recent times, this has made heroin treatment convenient because now there is an outpatient option for people who are looking for a more convenient form of treatment for their mild addiction conditions.

Then there is a third kind of medication that is required during substance abuse treatment. This medication is mainly used for normalizing the conditions of the person’s body once the addiction starts wearing off. The bulk of the medications that are provided in alcohol abuse treatment, for example, are for this intention. Campral, which is chemically acamprosate, is an example of such a drug. When the person is kept up on Campral treatment, the chief benefit that they get is that their brain gets stabilized in its function, especially after the exposure to alcohol. Medical experts have not yet discovered the exact manner in which Campral works on the human system, but it definitely acts positively on the pathways of the brain that are influenced by the presence of alcohol in it.

There are various other medications that are provided to the patient to clear off and improve their physiological functions too, those that may have been impaired by the substance of the addiction. There are medications that are provided to improve the functioning of the liver and the kidneys, for example. These medications are provided during the detox treatment and may be kept up during the aftercare program.

This brings us to aftercare medication, one of the most vital arms of the medicinal therapies used in substance abuse treatment. Most of the medications provided during this phase of the treatment are maintenance medication, provided so that the person may effectively come out of the craving of the substance. The rest of the medications are provided so that their bodies do not degenerate on account of the addicted phase of their life. This is both a repair treatment in which already degenerated processes are improved and a prevention treatment where further biological problems to the body are averted.



Thanks to Todd Lange for contributing this article to our Addiction blog:

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Can you answer Kristen’s question about Addiction?:

ok after months of denial i’ve come to admit that i have an addiction to cocaine. i’ve tried stopping by myself but the withdrawals just get so bad to the point where i break down and cry and end up having a huge binge. it’s terrible.. i don’t want to stop, i NEED to. i can’t even seem to function without it. i can’t ask help from my parents for numerous reasons. i’ve also already gotten caught for it and i lied and said it was a one-time thing. i’ve just dug myself into the biggest hole. i really would not appreciate a lecture on substance abuse, considering it’s a little late for that. i need ideas on how to conquer this, or at least settle it down for the moment because it’s starting to get really out of hand.. going to a rehab or counseling is out of the question. it also doesn’t help much that my boyfriend is extremely caught up in recreational drugs.. so the temptation is always there. i need help and fast because i can’t live like this anymore. what can i do on my own?
the thing with the whole rehab and parents thing is that when they first found out about me doing coke, i lied to them and said i only did it once. and they said if you seriously have a problem you have to tell us now because if we find out your lying, we’re not helping you. and at the time i just thought this was gonna be a fun run and i would never need help but this has just turned out to be so much worse than i ever could’ve imagined. and i’m terribly embarrassed to say how young i am, but i’m 16, i can’t drive, if i tell my parents, not only would they flip out, they would seriously disown me.. we don’t have a very good relationship, and i just don’t know how i can get help with all these hindrances which is why i wanted to try on my own. but all of you are right, i can’t do it. i just don’t know what to do

by the way all your comments are extremely appreciated.. thank you all so much

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