Opioid Apocalypse

 

Photo illustration: Opioid epidemic and drug abuse.

Opioids are a prescription pain medication or they are illegal drugs. Over the years the rate of death from

this type of drug progressed quickly. There is treatment you can receive for this type of substance abuse

but you must want it. People who do receive this treatment either progress or relapse.

Since the early 2000s more than 800,000 Americans have died from overdosing on opioids. The big

question is what causes the addiction to this drug? People do not know the answer to that question. Is it

because it helps with pain or it just makes people feel good? Studies show that even doing it one time can

get someone addicted to opioids. After a period of taking the substance for a long time and multiple times

a day you can experience euphoria. Euphoria is the feeling of happiness. You also can experience

withdrawal if you stop or not take enough of the drug. 

By Alyssa Valentin  Posted April 28, 2017  In Articles, Clearbrook Treatment Centers Pennsylvania

Treatment 

Having an opioid addiction is a disorder you can get treatment for. These types of treatment don’t work for everyone but they can definitely help. One way of treatment is getting put on medications that are FDA- approved like buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone. Another way is getting psychological treatment that can train them for proper use for overdose and pain management. Inpatient and support programs tend to have a high success rate of working as well. While going through treatment you can experience many different symptoms from withdrawal like anxiety, chills, sweating, vomiting and more. Even when all the drugs are out of your system you still should proceed with your treatment since it is easy to relapse.

Does the treatment work? Roughly 13% of people enroll into treatment and only 5.3% recover . Treatment working depends on many different things like the patient and how bad the disorder is. It also can depend on family support and the environment they are living in. The rate of recovery estimates that 1.2 million adults do recover from their addiction. So overall it is possible that you can recover from addiction. 

Relapse

People also don’t realize how easy it is to relapse. Sometimes it can be the simplest things like certain people or places. These things can bring back flashbacks that cause people to want to relapse. Sometimes it seems like people can never get away from drugs, it is like they are hiding in their shadows waiting for the perfect moment to get them to relapse. 

Although drugs are bad, some people believe that they have a good effect on them. People like to think that doing drugs makes them cool, they do it because they are grieving, and that it is helping them with stress. In reality it possibly can be helping that person in a way they think is good but, it also can be harming them at the same time. Prescription drugs can also be useful in many ways since they are made to help people. But some people like to abuse their prescription drug, and that can cause the doctor to not prescribe it anymore or even put them in a different type of treatment. 

Opioid addiction is a threat. It is a silent killer and it can cause more harm than anyone will know. Treatment is there and it will always be there but the addict needs to want to help themselves. Sometimes the different types of treatment don’t work and you can relapse. But at the end of the day there will always be that temptation and that’s when addicts need to mask their addiction.