What is addiction?
Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. ... Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death.
Addiction is a thief of life.
As a physician who regularly sees individuals addicted to a variety of substances such as :
heroin, pain pills, cocaine, methamphetamine, alcohol, benzodiazepines etc., I felt the need to comment on what I see as the worst problems in addiction, heroin and opioids (pain pills etc).
Western society uses more opioid containing pain medicines by far than the rest of the world. This is partially because patients have been taught that they should never experience pain. Please note that pain is a natural and needed part of life. Also note that pain and suffering are not the same thing. Secondly, pharmaceutical companies have often pushed opioid pain meds to this end.
Opioids are fantastic for short term pain (i.e. a femur fracture) or when a patient is at the end of their life and has pain (i.e. metastatic cancer). If these medications are used for long (especially in those with genetic susceptibility) the body changes and it is very hard to stop using the medications, (patients get ill, feeling like they have the worst flu of their life).
We now have a significant part of the population that is addicted to pain pills (by prescription or illicitly obtained) or has moved on to heroin which is cheaper. These substances have become a leading cause of death in our society killing more than 1000 Americans a week. It often is not noticed by a family until their family member dies.
If you are addicted to heroin or pain pills there is help. The American Society of Addiction Medicine has a list of doctors who specialize in addiction (https://www.asam.org/).
There are a variety of paths to a cure:
- Counseling alone. This path unfortunately has about a 95% failure rate inside of a year. This has to do with the intensity of the cravings.
- Naltrexone: a shot (or pills) that blocks the ability to get high, but does not really address cravings. It also blocks the natural opioids that we make that make us human and not surprisingly is associated with dysthymia and depression. It also can cause liver toxicity.
- Buprenorphine (often combined with naloxone). This is the best starting point for many who are addicted to opioids and is really a very safe medicine that has helped many people. It is very safe as long as it is not combined with certain other medications. SAMSHA provides a list of buprenorphine providers if the physician has openings (they can have a max of 275 patients) and are boarded in Addiction Medicine, they are likely a good choice. (https://www.samhsa.gov/medication-assisted-treatment/physician-program-data/treatment-physician-locator ) . Many individuals can be weaned from this medication. Some patients require ongoing small amounts of this medication but are able to regain their life.
- Methadone is another choice. It is cheap but has major interactions with many medicines and a significantly higher rate of death than the other treatment modalities. It has helped many people but is more sedating and is more dangerous. It is highly addicting.
- There are many other untested alternative treatments but they are unproven and some of them are dangerous.
Please if you have an addiction to opioids make an appointment for you and for your family. You can get your life back. I have seen it happen with many patients whose lives are so different now that they are almost unrecognizable. It takes work but regularly happens. Counseling is a useful part of any addiction as well, it just does not work as well with this addiction as it does with others (i.e. alcohol).
I will address other addictions in the future and other medical topics. If you know someone who has a problem in this area please feel free to share this with them.
Peace!
Congratulations @medicineman2! You have received a personal award!
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard!
Participate in the SteemitBoard World Cup Contest!
Collect World Cup badges and win free SBD
Support the Gold Sponsors of the contest: @good-karma and @lukestokes
Congratulations @medicineman2! You received a personal award!
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!