Drug Addiction and Rehab in Worcester, MA

When you suffer from an addiction to drugs or alcohol, you may think that you can quit at any time and that all you need to do is use your will and give abstinence a try. However, drug addiction does not work like that. A drug addiction is a chronic disease characterized first and foremost by an inability to cease substance abuse and consumption in spite of the ever-growing list of negative side effects and consequences that such behavior can and does cause. Drug addiction requires drug rehab or some other form of treatment in order to successfully recover and abstain from future substance abuse.

Gaining a Better Understanding of Drug Addiction and Drug Dependence

While drug addiction is a chronic disease, drug dependence is something more along the lines of a common symptom or presentation of the disease. The physical (also referred to as chemical) dependence that a person develops to drugs or alcohol starts with the basic reactions that occur when a drug enters the person’s body.

Addictive drugs, though all different, have one thing in common. These drugs always send signals to the brain and nervous system, instructing them to perform certain actions while quelling or suppressing others. The actions that are stimulated are actions that the brain would perform anyway at one point or another to increase happiness and contentment (i.e. releasing dopamine) or to calm the nervous system down or speed it up and give a person energy. However, when an outside substance like an addictive drug triggers the reaction, it is more than likely much more intense than it would be otherwise.

With continued abuse of the drug that causes a specific chemical response from the brain, the brain begins to adjust to try to normalize itself when the drug is present, relying on that drug to send signals when certain actions need to be performed. The result is that the brain is dependent on the drug to function.

Addiction includes this physical dependence but also has to do with the reasons that a person ever consumed the drug in the first place and the reasons they continued to do so before the physical dependence developed. This also encompasses their specific behaviors that go into their substance abuse as well as any spiritual, emotional, or relationship factors that contributed to the development of the substance abuse problem and addiction.

Why Getting Treatment is Important

Drug addictions are complex, as complex as the individual who suffers from an addiction. Because of this, simply quitting using or consuming a substance is not enough to fully overcome that addiction. Detox is the process of getting a drug out of a person’s system, and the best way to do that is medical detox. Medical detox occurs in a treatment center under the care of doctors who can administer medications to reduce withdrawal symptoms in their severity and duration.

Along with detox, a recovering addict will need to address the emotional and mental elements of their addiction. This involves a great deal of self-exploration and self-reflection to get down to the root of the person’s addiction and the reasons they began abusing drugs or alcohol. This can involve both traditional therapies and alternative therapies and treatments to help a person not only figure these issues out but also develop ways to deal with them and cope so that they do not return to abusing drugs or alcohol in the future.

Worcester Drug Treatment Centers is here to help you get into the right treatment program for you. Just call us at (774) 221-6005 when you are ready.