Cocaine was regarded as a status drug in the year 1970s for the reason that cocaine was pricey. The beginnings of inexpensive crack increased the convenience of this substance, and crack has become the drug of choice for many drug users, especially for inner-city disadvantaged youth. This has been the beginnings of the growing crack addiction. Crack’s convenience, ease of concealment, wide availability, and low cost has increased its use. The fact that crack is smoked rather than snorted has added to its popularity.

The preconceived notion that drug addiction only happens on the street is largely false. It is a common fact that celebrities have their “shining moments” when it comes to substance abuse. They may look pleasant and very much happy in front of cameras, but their deepest secrets are yet to be discovered. A number of celebrities have already been into rehabilitation to fight their crack addiction, heroin, or even alcohol addiction.

Long before Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears hogged the headlines with their wild child antics, there was Drew Barrymore. At the age of nine, Drew was already smoking cigarettes. She was an alcoholic at 11, a marijuana smoker by 12, and a cocaine addict by 13. She went to rehab twice and even tried to commit suicide when she was 14. Currently, that is all in the past. Her wild child days behind her, Barrymore has grown into a sober, responsible and productive woman. Aside from starring in a slew of hits, she has also become a producer, forming the production company Flower Films with friend and partner Nancy Juvonen in 1995. Her company is responsible for hits like Charlie’s Angels and 50 First Dates. This goes to show that anybody messed up with drugs can revive from life.

In the controversial Oprah-Winfrey-was-a-drug-addict tale, there are two known sides. On one hand, there’s the unforgettable TV moment in the 90s when she tearfully told in her own talk show that she had smoked crack cocaine while in her 20s, but never said anything about dependence on the drug or anything else. On the other hand, there’s the more latest allegation made in a tell-all book by a previous boyfriend that Oprah was actually a regular cocaine user in the 80s, and was in fact under the influence during her show tapings.

Whatever the truth is, it is clear that Oprah has now overcome whatever her drug demons of the 70s and 80s were. As of September 2008, Forbes has predicted Oprah as having a fortune worth over $2.7 billion. CNN and Time Magazine hailed her “arguably the world’s most powerful woman”. She is quite the success story, sordid drug past or not.

Any kind of substance addiction, be it crack addiction can happen to anyone in all walks of life. Life is largely unpredictable. On a certain point we are having a good laugh with friends living the good life, the next time we know, we are shaking and craving for a drug we never thought we couldn’t seem to live without. People may be aware of the effects of drugs if abused, yet they still give in to curiosity, probably, or to pressure and thus end up living miserably. However, there is still hope for every addict in this world. Life doesn’t end in addiction. Giving up is ends life.

The sex and love addiction anonymous was founded to cater to those who have been a victim of this addiction to sex and love. This was created by a previous Alcoholics anonymous member. Though, he had been sober, he was unfaithful to his wife for a period of time. He founded sex and love addiction anonymous as an attempt to discontinue his compulsive sexual and romantic behavior.

“Bottom-line behaviors” are persuaded to be identified on members of the organization. The organization recognizes these behaviors as “any sexual or emotional act, no matter what its initial impulse may be, which leads to loss of control over rate, frequency, or duration of its occurrence or recurrence, resulting in spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, and moral damage of oneself and others.”

In addition, the Sex and Love Addiction Anonymous uses the 12-step program and the 12 traditions in helping their members recover from the addiction. The good thing with the organization is that since everyone is a victim, they are empathic about each other’s experiences and feelings. Thus, they claim to understand what the other person is going through and are able to offer support through sharing and meetings. As quoted, “we found in each other what we could find nowhere else: people who knew the depth of our pain. Together we found hope and the care of a loving Higher Power. Our commitment is to help others recover from sexual addiction, just as we have been helped.”

Sex and Love Addiction Anonymous’ twelve-step program are the following:

1. We admitted we were powerless over sex and love addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to sex and love addicts, and to practice these principles in all areas of our lives.

Meanwhile, these are their Twelve Traditions:

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon S.L.A.A. unity.

2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as this Power may be expressed through our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3. The only requirement for S.L.A.A. membership is the desire to stop living out a pattern of sex and love addiction. Any two or more persons gathered together for mutual aid in recovering from sex and love addiction may call themselves an S.L.A.A. group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or S.L.A.A. as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the sex and love addict who still suffers.

6. An S.L.A.A. group or S.L.A.A. as a whole ought never to endorse, finance, or lend the S.L.A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, or prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

7. Every S.L.A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. S.L.A.A. should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. S.L.A.A. as such ought never to be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. S.L.A.A. has no opinion on outside issues; hence the S.L.A.A. name ought never to be drawn into public controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, film, and other public media. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all fellow S.L.A.A. members.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Everyone has their abnormal persona. We all have that craziness within us. It is just a matter of how we handle our differences and extremities that we are able to handle our craziness. Moreover, many ask if mental illnesses really do exist. The English-speaking world has not always used medical language to illustrate the behavior we now label as symptomatic of mental illness. Descriptions were sometimes framed in quite different terms, such as possession. What we now call mental illness was not always treated as a medical problem. Non-English-speaking nations in the West have had changes in their linguistic usage and their treatment of the mentally ill roughly parallel to Anglophone countries. Anthropological work in non-Western cultures suggests that there are many cases of behavior that psychiatry would organize as symptomatic of mental disorder, which are not seen within their own cultures as signs of mental illness.

However, nowadays, it has been discussed that mental disorders are really existing mental conditions that may be a reason of disturbance in a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a reduced capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life.

Mental illness does not choose an individual to carry the burdens of the disorder. Mental illnesses are not the outcome of personal weakness, lack of character or poor upbringing. Mental illnesses are curable. Most people diagnosed with a serious mental illness can experience relief from their symptoms by actively participating in an individual treatment plan. In addition to medication treatment, psychosocial treatment such as cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, peer support groups and other community services can also be components of a treatment plan and that assist with recovery. The availability of transportation, diet, exercise, sleep, friends and meaningful paid or volunteer activities contribute to overall health and wellness, including mental illness recovery.

Unfortunately, society may be responsible for one’s failure in recovering form a mental illness. When the person is cured inside a medical institution, he or she is given ample treatment and is treated as if they are normal. They are given proper care and attention so as to promote recovery. However, when they go out into the real world after some time, society, upon knowing their past, would most likely ridicule them and treat them differently. Society would look at them as someone who still has the mental disorder and consequently, it would make them feel worse and thus, could trigger an occurrence of the mental illness once again.

A person afflicted with a mental illness would feel less of himself. He would think that he I not valuable to live in this world given that he could not act properly anymore. However, support from family and friends would be a great help for the patient to view life differently and positively. Thus it is the role of the family to provide the patient with love and care so as to sustain his recovery.

Alcohol is one teratogen that could greatly affect the woman’s pregnancy. People may not know of its danger and still allow a woman to drink alcoholic drinks during her pregnancy, but the result of this would be carried by the baby for the rest of his or her life. Alcohol is one of the known causes of mental and physical birth defects specifically in the United States. Though, this is only a possibility, the rate is high.

There is an incident where a pregnant woman consumes alcohol, a disorder called Fetal Alcohol Syndrome would take place in the embryo. Alcohol crosses the placental barrier and can inhibit fetal weight, create distinctive facial stigmata, damage neurons and brain structures, and cause other physical, mental, or behavioral problems. The main effect of FAS is enduring central nervous system damage, especially to the brain. Developing brain cells and structures are malformed by before birth alcohol exposure, often creating an array of primary cognitive and functional disabilities including poor memory, attention deficits, impulsive behavior, and poor cause-effect reasoning, as well as secondary disabilities for example, mental health problems, and drug addiction.

The signs and symptoms of a having fetal alcohol syndrome are low birth weight, small head circumference, developmental interruption, organ dysfunction, facial abnormalities, including smaller eye openings, flattened cheekbones, and indistinct philtrum (an underdeveloped groove between the nose and the upper lip), epilepsy, poor management, poor socialization skills, such as difficulty building and maintaining friendships and relating to groups, lack of imagination, learning difficulties, including poor memory, inability to understand concepts such as time and money, poor language comprehension, poor problem-solving skills, behavioral problems including hyperactivity, inability to concentrate, social withdrawal, stubbornness, impulsiveness, and anxiety.

As said earlier, damage of the central nervous system is the main feature of fetal alcohol syndrome. Central nervous system damage can be assessed in three areas such as structural, neurological, and functional deficiencies. Structural deficiencies includes microcephaly (small head size) of two or more standard deviations below the average, or other abnormalities in brain structure. During the first trimester of pregnancy, alcohol impedes with the migration and organization of brain cells, which can make structural deficits within the brain. During the third trimester, damage can be caused to the hippocampus, which plays a role in memory, learning, emotion, and encoding visual and auditory information, all of which can create neurological and functional CNS impairments as well.

The evaluation of neurological deficiencies will take place when structural deficiencies do not exist. Neurological problems are expressed as either hard signs, such as epilepsy or other seizure disorders, or soft signs. Soft signs are broader, nonspecific symptoms, such as impaired fine motor skills, neurosensory hearing loss, poor gait, clumsiness, poor eye-hand coordination.

When structural or neurological impairments are not observed, all four diagnostic systems allow CNS damage due to prenatal alcohol exposure to be assessed in terms of functional impairments. Functional impairments are deficits due to prenatal alcohol exposure (rather than hereditary causes or postnatal insults) in observable and measurable domains related to daily functioning, often referred to as developmental disabilities.

No evidence exists that can determine exactly how much alcohol ingestion will produce birth defects. Individual women process alcohol differently. Other factors vary the results, too, such as the age of the mother, the timing and regularity of the alcohol ingestion, and whether the mother has eaten any food while drinking.

Alcohol easily passes the placental barrier and the fetus is less equipped to get rid of alcohol than its mother, so the fetus tends to obtain a high concentration of alcohol, which remains longer than it would in the mother’s system. this is the reason why the child is the one greatly affected when in fact it is the mother who consumes the alcohol. This such a sad truth.

Depending upon the preference of the user and the drugs’ purity. Heroin can be used in different ways. Heroin can be injected into a vein, injected into a muscle, smoked in a standard pipe, mixed in a regular cigarette, inhaled as smoke through a straw, known as “chasing the dragon,” snorted as powder via the nose.

After a single dose, the short-term effects of abusing heroin appears and in a few hours disappear. After an injection of heroin, the user reports feeling a surge of euphoria accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, a dry mouth, and heavy extremities. Following this initial euphoria, the user goes “on the nod,” an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. Mental functioning becomes clouded due to the depression of the central nervous system. Other effects included decreased and slurred speech, slow gait, constricted pupils, droopy eyelids, impaired night vision, vomiting, constipation.

Long-term effects of heroin appear after repeated use for some period of time. Chronic users may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, cellulites, and liver disease. Pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia, may result from the poor health condition of the abuser, as well as from heroin’s depressing effects on respiration. In addition to the effects of the drug itself, street heroin may have additives that do not really melt and result in clogging the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain. This can cause infection or even death of small patches of cells in vital organs. Tolerance develops with regular use of heroin. This means the abuser must use more heroin to achieve the same intensity or effect.

Physical dependence and heroin addiction develops as higher doses are used over time. With physical dependence, the body has adapted to the presence of the drug and withdrawal symptoms may happen if use is reduced. Withdrawal, which in regular abusers may occur as early as a few hours after the last administration, produces drug craving, restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea and vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps (”cold turkey”), kicking movements (”kicking the habit”), and other symptoms. Major withdrawal symptoms hit the highest point between 48 and 72 hours after the last does and drop after about a week. Sudden withdrawal by seriously dependent users who are in poor health can be deadly.

Moreover, the withdrawal syndrome from heroin may begin within 6 to 24 hours of discontinuation of the drug; however, this time frame can alter with the degree of tolerance as well as the amount of the last consumed dose. Symptoms may include: sweating, malaise, anxiety, depression, priapism, extra sensitivity of the genitals in females, general feeling of heaviness, cramp-like pains in the limbs, excessive yawning, tears, rhinorrhea, sleep difficulties (insomnia), cold sweats, chills, severe muscle and bone aches; nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, cramps, and fever.

Like any other cycle of drug addiction, heroin addiction starts with the irregular use of the drug that would then lead to a habit. This is so because it causes some chemicals in the brain to become dependent to the drug. Moreover, the body itself desires for the drug because of its pleasurable effects. It is relaxing, thus the person feels positively about the drug. And even though it gets to the point that the drug is slowly destroying the person, he or she could not get away with it anymore, because he or she has become dependent on heroin. Thus, when the drug intake is suddenly terminated, the person experiences withdrawal symptoms. With this, professional help is required for recovery.

To add, admitting to oneself that a superior being controls your life and you can turn to that superior being in time of needs is part of spirituality. It is God’s spirit that can provide for you the strength and courage to face your problems. It is the recognition that you do not have to burn yourself out struggling to solve all your problems on your own. It is the openness to let go of your sense of over-responsibility and let God have some power over the problems. Spirituality is also the identification that humans consist not only of physical matter but also have a spiritual dimension that needs daily care in order to survive.

here are three foundational characteristics of spirituality are faith, hope, and love. Faith is what allows the person to believe that a supreme being is helping them in times of trouble, sorrow, and pain. Faith is the belief that God will never desert or forget you during your time of need. Furthermore, spirituality is quickly identified in people who have hope and trust in God’s mercy, wisdom and justice. Their hope enables them to “let go and let God.” Their hope enables them to hand over their sense of over responsibility, guilt, rescuing and enabling to God’s hands. Their hope enables them to take a “tough love” stance in order to get aid for the troubled persons in their lives. There is also spirituality when one gives love, concern, and generosity to other people. With spirituality, people are altruistic and giving in their approach to the world. They are able to make a difference in people’s lives.

However, there has been a rising conflict between the boundary of spirituality and religion. The two terms may be sometimes used by people interchangeably, yet one should be clarified with its distinction. Religion is an institution established by man for various reasons- exert control; instill morality, stroke egos, or whatever it does. On the other hand, spirituality is born in a person and develops in the person. It may be kick started by a religion, or it may be kick started by a revelation. Spirituality extends to all facets of a person’s life. Spirituality is chosen while religion is often times forced.

On a personal note, I do believe that spirituality has more weight than religion. As what was said, religion is oftentimes forced, thus, usually, people practice religious rituals out of obedience to the religious tradition. But, true spirituality is something that is found deep within oneself. It is a way of loving, accepting and relating to the world and people around. It cannot be found in a church or by believing in a certain way.

Subutex binds so tightly to the opiate receptors, that taking heroin or methadone will have little or no effect. This substance is usually used in narcotic drug treatment programs, and prescribed in varying doses. The effects of subutex are less pronounced than those of other opiates, giving the individual the feeling of being somewhat “normal” once more. Buprenorphine is an opioid that is used to wean people off their addiction to stronger opioids such as morphine, diamorphine (heroin) and methadone. It is prescribed as a replacement for such drugs. By acting on the similar opioid receptors as other opioids, buprenorphine prevents the physical withdrawal symptoms that happen when these drugs are stopped. This prevents physical cravings. Over time, the dose of buprenorhpine is gradually reduced until it can be stopped completely. Moreover, buprenorphine substitution therapy for opioid addiction must be used in combination with other medical, social and psychological treatment.

We must also take into account that addiction would not leave an individual right after medication. The body would eventually adapt to the effects of subutex and thus would probably become reliant to it. Meaning to say, the person may be free from heroin addiction but in turn, become a subutex addict. Science has found a drug that could counterfeit the effects of certain drugs such as heroin and methadone, to stop withdrawal syndrome. However, just like any other drugs, subutex still has a negative effect on the body.

Some side effects of the drug are as follows: Drowsiness; dizziness; weakness; constipation; headache; nausea or vomiting; slow, shallow breathing; mental changes; mood changes (depression); stomach or abdominal pain; liver problems; dark urine; yellowing eyes; skin changes; vision changes; and death due to overdose). These effects could be qualified upon using subutex. Moreover, it could worsen if the drug is taken together with other substances such as alcohol.

Subutex (buprenorphine) can cause drug addiction. If the use of subutex is suddenly discontinued, the individual may experience withdrawal symptoms and/or the desire to decline and consume the addictive drug once more. When taken together with other drugs (antidepressants, alcohol, sleeping medicine, etc.), subutex may boost their effects and cause serious health hazards. Subutex can cause fatality from overdose if injected with a tranquilizer.

It’s easy access and less expensive price contribute to the increase in the number of subutex addiction cases. The fact that buprenorphine costs less than heroin and is more accessible has speeded up the development of illegal markets in various countries. Buprenorphine manufactured in India, for example, is smuggled into Nepal and Sri Lanka, as well as Bangladesh, where it is used by 90 percent of the country’s intravenous drug users, according to a UN Drug and Crime account last year.

It is quite upsetting to think that no single drug is free from becoming an object of addiction. People have to be watchful in taking both prescribed and non-prescribed drugs. These certain drugs could somehow be thought of as a traitor. At first they act as if they are giving you positive effects. Then later on, you become addicted to the drug and take the drug

regardless of the negative effects it is eliciting. It’s like the devil that tempted you to eat the apple from the forbidden tree and then left you when everything else went wrong.

Then, he seeks for help from hi loved ones. He seeks for professional help to intoxicate him from the drug. Rehabilitation centers offer help to those who have substance use problems. They provide medical help as well as psychological and social reformation. However, rehabilitation may not be adequate for the full recovery of the person. The patient should be prepared with the right values and abilities in facing the real world after rehabilitation.

Groups such as alcoholics anonymous, emotions anonymous, and cocaine anonymous are fellowship groups that provide spiritual enhancement and life skills program to people who wants to receive them. Anyone who is determined to modify and turn away from such addictions or someone who merely wants to help victims recover form the darkness they were in is very welcome to join the fellowship. Inside this organization, members help each other to recover from their problems. The fellowship believes that the best people who could understand addicts are those who have been addicts themselves. Sympathy and compassion will never be enough. Someone who has experienced the dark side of drug would really understand the feeling of an addict and thus, would be able to offer the right comfort and support.

Moreover, the fellowship uses the twelve-step program in helping the patients recover. This twelve-step program was first made by the alcoholics anonymous. This consists of twelve steps on how to deal with the addiction, emphasizing acceptance, surrender, and self-awareness. The twelve step program tries to impart that there is one very potent being above us all, and that we should surrender all our flaws to Him and al will be well. Of course, man should do his best to become a better person and God will then do the rest.

Here is an example of the famous twelve-step program from Overeaters Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our emotions — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

With the twelve-step program, individuals who have become victims of addiction are given hope that it is not too late – that life does not end in addiction. In fact, it even opens a new door, a new part in our lives in which we should live meaningfully.

Studies have been made as to determine the real effects of suboxone to the patient. Suboxone tablets have been studied in 575 patients, Subutex tablets in 1834 patients and buprenorphine sublingual solutions in 2470 patients. A total of 1270 females have received buprenorphine in clinical trials. Recommending doses are based on facts from one trial of both tablet formulations and two trials of the ethanolic solution. All trials used buprenorphine in combination with psychosocial counseling as part of a comprehensive addiction treatment program. There have been no clinical studies made to evaluate the effectiveness of buprenorphine as the only component of treatment.

In a double blind placebo and active controlled study, 326 heroin-addicted subjects were randomly given to either Suboxone 16 mg per day, 16 mg Subutex per day or placebo tablets. The main study comparison was to test the efficacy of Subutex and Suboxone individually alongside placebo. The percentage of thrice-weekly urine tests that were negative for non-study opioids was statistically higher for both Subutex and Suboxone, than for placebo.

Since suboxone is a mixture of two currently marketed medications, buprenorphine and naloxone, it offers a combination of a weak narcotic (buprenorphine) and a narcotic antagonist (naloxone). The later is added to prevent addicts from injecting the tablets intravenously, as has happened with tablets only containing buprenorphine; because it has naloxone, Suboxone is extremely likely to produce intense withdrawal symptoms if misused intravenously by opioid-addicted individuals. Buprenorphine is a partial agonist at the mu-opioid receptor and an antagonist at the kappaopioid receptor. Naloxone is an antagonist at the mu-opioid receptor.

Addiction to suboxone or subutex is often inevitable. The drug is not supposed to be used occasionally. It should be used as a nonstop treatment method and thus, may become dangerous if usage is stopped too quickly. Like heroin, suboxone could result to a “euphoric” feeling. It cannot be denied that the person who is continuously taking the drug has a very high risk of becoming dependent and addicted to the drug. It has a system that copies the actions of unsurprisingly occurring pain-reducing chemicals called endorphins. Endorphins are found in the brain and spinal cord and decrease pain by combining with opioid receptors. However, opioids also act in the brain to cause feelings of euphoria and hallucinations. This greatly explains their addictive inclination among people who are taking them in a long-term basis.

Moreover, in taking in suboxone, one should be very cautious. As much as possible this should be taken with great supervision by a medical expert. This medicine may cause sleepiness. If affected, do not drive or operate machinery. Drowsiness will be made worse by alcohol, tranquilizers, sedatives and sleeping tablets such as benzodiazepines. Taking these in combination with buprenorphine can also cause potentially dangerous problems with breathing and so should be avoided while taking this medicine. The liver function should be often monitored while getting treatment with this medicine.

In substance addiction, it is very excellent to use drugs such as subutex and suboxone. However, there has never been a substance that has been found to be an effective medication for addiction that is at the same time non-addictive. Science may have been in the practice of trying to find the perfect drug that would provide us with the two benefits.

Drugs, therefore, must be taken with care and appropriate supervision from medical professionals. In addition, it is the liability of the individual himself to look after his in-take of a drug. He should be the first to control the substance, not the other way around.

The consequence would always be the deterioration of one’s life and body. A person with drug abuse trouble may find it hard to acknowledge the situation. The individual has the tendency to hide any manifestations of the problem, thus showing the people around that nothing is wrong. Moreover, family members may not also identify that the the one they love has a drug abuse problem. Consequently, the strong denial and excuse of the person using drugs makes it very hard to get help, and can make concerned family members feel like they are the problem.

The breaking of the problem of admitting that one is abusing drug is always the big leap to recovery. On the other hand, in wanting to recover from the problem, one should try to find help from others, specifically specialists in the field of substance abuse treatment and the right social support. With no right support, it is very easy to rationalize just one more hit, and withdrawal symptoms can test the strongest resolve. Therefore, peer support, matched with therapy and medication could help a person who has fallen into the dark side of substance abuse.

During the treatment, drug detoxification could still be needed. The individual may still need drug detox services if they are abusing drugs and not yet at the point of being drug addicted. In an emotional point of view, there are mild withdrawal symptoms. Detoxification could still help for the reason that it frees the body from the toxins brought by the drug. Furthermore, there is a program called the Intensive Outpatient wherein the individual in need of help for drug abuse has a steady home environment, good support system and is motivated and willing to give up drugs and/or alcohol. They are generally in early to middle stage drug abuse. If waning occurs while in intensive outpatient therapy, housing treatment would be recommended. A therapist is also available for an individual therapy with the patient.

In drug related problems, there are a lot of treatment programs offered by different rehabilitation centers. Substance abuse is very likely to become substance addiction if interference does not occur. Though prevention is still better than cure, drug abuse is a little bit better than addiction. Abusing the use of a drug is still a hopeful case and easier to deal with both by the patient and the therapists, as compared to substance addiction.

So, when a loved one or a family member is likely to be a victim of drug abuse, as early as possible do not hesitate to seek help and face the problem. Usually, in the case of teenagers, parents fall short to identify if their children are guilty of drug abuse since changes in behavior seemed to be normal among teenagers in their generation today. Despite of this situation, parents should for all time be keen enough to notice some changes that might be linked to drug abuse.

One should not expect anybody who is drug dependent to improve right away. It is not as easy as treating a person with cough. Making a progress will always be an ongoing process. People must to realize that these people will need all the support they can get most especially from their family. Someone who abused drugs will not suddenly be a cured person once sober. Drug use may have been masking sore feelings that will bubble up to the surface. Many in recovery experience depressed moods for up to a year or more as their brain reestablishes from the drug abuse. Learning new coping skills to resist cravings, and how to apply them in stressful situations, is an ongoing process. Ongoing support is critical to work through those issues.

People who are into drug abuse should not be feared. Rather, they should be helped and supported in order for the to become well again.