What is drug addiction treatment?
There are many addictive drugs, and treatments for specific drugs can differ. Treatment also varies depending on the characteristics of the patient.
Problems associated with an individual's drug addiction can vary significantly. People who are addicted to drugs come from all walks of life. Many suffer from mental health, occupational, health, or social problems that make their addictive disorders much more difficult to treat. Even if there are few associated problems, the severity of addiction itself ranges widely among people.
A variety of scientifically based approaches to drug addiction treatment exists. Drug addiction treatment can include behavioral therapy (such as counseling, cognitive therapy, or psychotherapy), medications, or their combination. Behavioral therapies offer people strategies for coping with their drug cravings, teach them ways to avoid drugs and prevent relapse, and help them deal with relapse if it occurs. When a person's drug-related behavior places him or her at higher risk for AIDS or other infectious diseases, behavioral therapies can help to reduce the risk of disease transmission. Case management and referral to other medical, psychological, and social services are crucial components of treatment for many patients.
Why can't drug addicts quit on their own?
Nearly all addicted individuals believe in the beginning that they can stop using drugs on their own, and most try to stop without treatment. However, most of these attempts result in failure to achieve long-term abstinence. Research has shown that long-term drug use results in significant changes in brain function that persist long after the individual stops using drugs. These drug-induced changes in brain function may have many behavioral consequences, including the compulsion to use drugs despite adverse consequences the defining characteristic of addiction.
How effective is drug addiction treatment?
In addition to stopping drug use, the goal of treatment is to return the individual to productive functioning in the family, workplace, and community. Measures of effectiveness typically include levels of criminal behavior, family functioning, employability, and medical condition. Overall, treatment of addiction is as successful as treatment of other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma.
How does drug addiction treatment help reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases?
Many drug addicts, such as heroin or cocaine addicts and particularly injection drug users, are at increased risk for HIV/AIDS as well as other infectious diseases like hepatitis, tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted infections. For these individuals and the community at large, drug addiction treatment is disease prevention.
Drug Addiction Treatment Is Disease Prevention.
Drug injectors who do not enter treatment are up to six times more likely to become infected with HIV than injectors who enter and remain in treatment. Drug users who enter and continue in treatment reduce activities that can spread disease, such as sharing injection equipment and engaging in unprotected sexual activity. Participation in treatment also presents opportunities for screening, counseling, and referral for additional services. The best drug abuse treatment programs provide HIV counseling and offer HIV testing to their patients.
Drug addiction is a complex disorder characterized by compulsive and often uncontrollable drug craving, seeking, and use that persists even in the face of extremely negative consequences. This is a chronic relapsing disorder, and treatment for drug addiction is about as effective as treatments for chronic medical conditions.
Once the habit is acquired there remains a vestige of innocence - belief that one can stop using at will. This belief produces an immediate gratification of the desire to be in control. Short periods of sobriety are often easy to achieve. Good long-term outcome is a non-trivial treatment objective.
The Problem of Immediate Gratification [the PIG], makes chemical dependence easy to fall into and hard to escape. Addicts, their families, and even the courts expect a quick cure - any backsliding is interpreted as a treatment failure. As Alan Leshner, the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, states: "In reality, because addiction is a chronic disorder, the ultimate goal of long-term abstinence often requires sustained and repeated treatment episodes." 2 He further observes: "Of course not all drug abuse treatment is equally effective. Research also has revealed a set of overarching principles that characterize the most effective drug abuse and addiction treatments and their implementation.
Short-term intensive treatment is so popular, not because it works, but because of the PIG. We want immediate gratification of the desire to be free of this problem. To do what is necessary now, to resolve the problem and get it over with. Alas, that is not the way it works - Leshner again:
Heroin addiction in the U.S. is an enormous problem, and the search continues for the best ways to rehabilitate addicts. One common treatment is the substitution of the drug methadone for heroin. In 1988, there were 587 methadone treatment units in operation for heroin addicts, with a total of 116,854 admissions.
Methadone maintenance treatment is commonly combined with group psychotherapy to provide recovering addicts with additional support in kicking their habits. A recent study compared the effectiveness of hatha yoga classes to traditional group psychotherapy as adjuncts in methadone treatment. Both were found to be equally effective in contributing to a treatment regimen that significantly reduced drug use and criminal activities.
Yoga induces a release of tension that is more immediate and direct than is experienced in verbal therapy. This letting go of tension can occur in the emotions and mind, as well as in the body, sometimes putting the yoga practitioners in touch with themselves on a very deep level. Individual psychotherapists report that their clients' yoga practices have lead to increased levels of self-awareness.
Despite a stated interest in integrating alternative methods by the methadone treatment center staff, the study's authors report that there was a lack of acceptance on the staff's part that manifested in a number of ways throughout the study. |
