Opiate Addiction in Frisco, TX
Opiate addiction in Frisco continues to be a major public health concern. The number of drug overdose deaths across America has more than quadrupled since 2010, making substance abuse the leading cause of preventable death in the country.
Most people associate opiate addiction in Frisco with people abusing heroin. However, the reality is that more overdose deaths are caused by prescription opioid painkiller medications than from heroin. Legal prescription opiate drugs can cause some of the same risks as illicit heroin that is sold on the streets.
In 2015, almost 13,000 Americans died from a heroin overdose. However, according to a report published in November 2016 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Drug Enforcement Administration referred to prescription medications, such as methadone, OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin, and fentanyl as being the most significant drug-related threats across the United States. The report also indicated that abuse of prescription opioid painkillers is linked as a significant risk factor for progressing to heroin use.
What is Opiate Addiction?
Opiate drugs are derived from the opium poppy and include drugs such as heroin, morphine or codeine. However, the term opioid refers to the entire class of opiate-like drugs, which includes synthetic opiates such as OxyContin or Vicodin.
Opiates act directly on the brain's opioid receptors to block out pain signals, so they're commonly used to treat chronic or acute pain. However, some people choose to use opiate drugs for recreational purposes, which increases the risk of requiring intervention from addiction therapy programs in Frisco in order to break the physical and psychological dependency on the substance.
Dangers of Opiates
Legally available prescription opiate painkillers are intended to treat acute pain over a short period of time under medical supervision. However, abusing any opioid drug for any length of time can cause severe physical and psychological problems, the worst of which include:
- Brain damage: Heavy opiate use causes sedation, but taking higher doses increases the risk of respiratory depression, where the breathing rate slows significantly. When the brain does receive sufficient oxygen, the risk of hypoxia, or brain damage is increased.
- Lung damage: Opiate drugs suppress the body's ability to breathe normally, which interferes with the normal functioning of the lungs. The result is an increased risk of pneumonia.
- Liver damage: Every substance you consume is metabolized by the liver, so abusing opiate painkillers puts an unnatural amount of stress on the liver and cause severe damage. If the opiate drug being taken is combined with acetaminophen, such as Percocet or Vicodin, the risk of liver damage is increased.
- Stomach and digestive system: Taking any opiate medication can cause constipation, even under a normal dosage under medical supervision. Long term abuse of painkillers can cause severe damage to the stomach, intestines, bowels and anus.
- Kidney damage: Chronic abuse of opioid painkillers can cause severe damage to the kidneys, leading to an increased risk of requiring dialysis or even a kidney transplant.
- Colorectal cancer: Studies show a direct link between opiate abuse and an increased risk of a poor prognosis for colorectal cancer.
Opiate Addiction Signs and Symptoms
There are multiple different signs and symptoms of opiate addiction to watch for, but the most common include:
Cravings: A person who has developed an addiction to any opiate drug will experience overwhelming cravings to take more of the drug that are capable of driving the user to do almost anything to get more.
Loss of control: Someone struggling in the grip of addiction will begin to lose control over the amount of the drug being used and the dosage taken.
Tolerance: Abusing any opiate drug over a period of time can reduce its effectiveness as the brain begins to adapt to the presence of the substance in the system. The person needs to take larger doses of the drug in order to achieve the same effects.
Withdrawal symptoms: Abusing any opiate drug over any length of time causes significant changes within the brain's chemistry. When the user tries to stop usage suddenly, the brain can't adapt, which can trigger a range of unpleasant and potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms to emerge. In an effort to avoid the onset of such nasty symptoms, it's common for many people to continue a cycle of drug abuse. At this point, the person is considered physically dependent on opiates, or addicted.
Treatment for Opiate Addiction in Frisco, TX
It's common for many people to assume that recovering from opiate addiction in Frisco requires the person to quit taking drugs by going ‘cold turkey' and seeing out a couple of days of unpleasant symptoms. The perception is that the person should somehow be ‘cured' of drug addiction once they get through the detox process.
In reality, detox only rids the body of the effects of the drug and helps to break the body's physical dependency on the substance. However, detox on its own does nothing to address the underlying psychological triggers behind addictive substance abuse.
Treating opiate addiction begins with supervised medical detox in Frisco. Some patients may be given prescription replacement medications, such as methadone or Suboxone to help reduce the worst of any withdrawal symptoms and make the process more comfortable.
Professional treatment for opiate addiction uses a combination of therapies and treatments designed to identify each person's unique addiction triggers. Specialists within an opiate addiction rehab facility assess every person individually to determine the correct treatments and therapies needed, before tailoring the right treatment program to increase the chances of making a full recovery.
Patients within an opiate addiction rehab facility are taught healthy coping skills and recovery tools designed to help reduce the risk of relapsing back into a pattern of self-destructive substance abuse after treatment is completed. Call us now at (877) 804-1531.