What to Expect from Addiction Detox

Drug and alcohol detox is the recommended first step that you have to take when you get started on the journey to recovery. Although not everyone will require this service before they enroll in a drug rehab program, it might be useful if you have been abusing mind altering and intoxicating substances in the long term.

As long as you are physically or psychologically dependent on these substances, you should go through a medically managed detox program before continuing with the rest of your treatment. Physical dependence effectively means that your central nervous system and brain would have built up tolerance to a particular drug.

Understanding Drug and Alcohol Detoxification

Detox is the process that your body has to go through to get rid of drugs, alcohol, and their resultant toxins after you give up these substances of abuse. When this happens, you will experience withdrawal symptoms.

Since most of these symptoms can prove to be difficult, painful, uncomfortable, severe, or even life-threatening, you should only undergo detox after checking into a medically managed program.

By so doing, you will receive a wide variety of medical treatments to ensure that you do not suffer too much or even succumb to your withdrawal symptoms and the other effects of drug detox, such as drug cravings.

Who Benefits from Detox?

The necessity of these medically managed detox services will largely depend on your age, substances of abuse, history of drug use, and medical and health condition. As such, not everyone would benefit from these services.

To this end, you should undergo thorough assessment and evaluation to check your vital signs and how your body reacts to the absence of your favorite substances of abuse. Through this assessment, an addiction treatment center can inform you if you need detox, and the types of detox services that would benefit you.

Expectations from Detox

Addiction affects people in different ways. In the same way, withdrawal experiences vary widely. To this end, you should only go through a detox program if you are struggling with a mild to severe substance use disorder, or if you develop withdrawal symptoms after stopping your drug and alcohol intake.

The withdrawal experience will also depend on the duration of your substance abuse, the drugs that you used to take, and the severity of your addiction. As such, the detox program will be tailored in such a way that it can address all these issues.

When you are enrolled in a medically managed detox center, you will receive round the clock medical monitoring, care, and supervision. The goal of these services is to ensure that you are not suffering from your withdrawal symptoms.

Further, the facility might recommend the use of certain medications to manage your withdrawal syndrome. Often, these medications would mimic the various pleasurable effects of the drugs that you were using.

Some centers also use a tapering system. This means that they will continue providing you with your favorite drugs but at a reduced scale each time. After a period, you would be required to completely stop using these drugs - once your tolerance is sufficiently reduced that you are not at risk of suffering painful withdrawal symptoms.

Over the course of your detox, you might experience various physical and psychological symptoms of withdrawal. This is because your brain and body would require time to go back to functioning normally without the presence of the intoxicating and mind altering substance that you were abusing.

Managing Withdrawal Symptoms

The primary goal of medical detox is to manage the withdrawal symptoms that arise when you reduce or completely stop abusing drugs and drinking alcohol. Often, different substances of abuse will cause different symptoms of withdrawal, such as:

  • Extreme mood swings
  • Feelings of anxiety
  • Physical discomfort

In other situations, you might suffer severe withdrawal. This is particularly true if you are addicted to multiple substances of abuse, or if you have a substance use disorder involving alcohol, opioids, benzodiazepines, and other drugs that cause painful or life-threatening withdrawal.

By checking into a medically managed detox program, you can get these withdrawal symptoms managed in controlled settings. The program could also continue monitoring you to ensure that your condition is improving as you go through withdrawal and detox your body.

Getting Help

Overall, it is essential that you do attempt detox at home. The withdrawal syndrome you develop could be accompanied by distressing or even fatal effects. Instead, enroll in a medical detox program so that you can get the treatments you need to overcome your physical dependence, manage your withdrawal, and deal with your drug cravings.

CITATIONS

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/treatment-recovery

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/teaching-packets/understanding-drug-abuse-addiction/section-iii/7-medical-detoxification

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64119/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2666333/

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