Unfortunately, drug addiction is more of a problem now than ever before, especially here in the United States. Opiod addiction in particular is raging through the country, impacting the lives of the young and the old alike. After all, addiction does not discriminate and just about anyone and everyone can fall pray to it, given the right circumstances.
Other kinds of addiction are also, of course, still prevalent. Alcoholism is one of them, something that many people battle with and struggle to overcome on a daily basis. The process of detoxing from alcohol can even prove dangerous, those this is relatively rare. For many people, alcohol is simply a pleasurable substance to enjoy every once in awhile. For other people, however, it can prove deadly and utterly destructive.
Fortunately, we know more about addiction than ever before – and we also have more means of treatment and recovery than ever as well. With the opiod crisis still in full swing, we have needed to take steps forward in this field. After all, it has proven quite essential in saving the lives of many.
The first thing that is important to know is the warning signs of addiction. Opiod addiction symptoms might vary slightly from person to person but will still look relatively the same throughout all addiction cases. As many young people are now addicted to various substances and opiods, it is important for parents to be aware of the symptoms of addiction. Getting their child treatment early on in the progression of addiction might actually end up saving their life.
After all, drug related deaths are at an all time high. At the current date, accidental overdose has actually been established as the top cause of accidental death all throughout the country as a whole, surpassing even obesity (though this still comes in at a close second). And there’s no telling when an overdose will be fatal. Some people might die after the first overdose while others will live through multiple overdoses. Catching and treating the addiction in question before it can get to this point is something that will save the lives of many.
And for many people, it is medication-assisted treatment that will help them on their path to recovery from opiod addiction. Medication assisted treatment has grown more and more popular in recent years. For people deeply entrenched in addiction, medications like suboxone can give them their lives back – or at least some sort of path that will get them back to their lives. Suboxone does not eradicate the addiction, as an addiction will develop to suboxone itself. However, suboxone will prevent withdrawal symptoms in addicts who take it, something that will prevent them from using again. Suboxone will also not get an active addict high, meaning that they will be able to go about life relatively normally again – and can maybe even begin the long process of putting the pieces back together, something that will certainly never be easy.
For many people, suboxone is the only way that they are able to get and stay clean. Though people do form a dependence of suboxone itself, this dependence to suboxone is certainly far better than having an active raging addiction. For many people, the symptoms of withdrawal are too much to handle on their own and so attempting to withdraw from all substances completely is something that will typically end in failure. This is where suboxone can step in to make things easier.
And though some people are not proponents of suboxone, other methods of recovery are simply not always possible. While rehab centers and programs can be astoundingly successful for some people, both life changing and life saving, they are not an option for everyone, for every addict looking for a better life. For one thing, they’re hugely expensive. If you don’t have the money to pay for such a program, you will not be able to attend it. In addition to this, many addicts simply do not have the ability to get up and go to a rehab program. Many have children and some are still functioning in society, holding down a much needed job that they can’t take time off from.