Hope for Alcoholism Treatment
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Crack Cocaine Recovery
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Teen Alcohol and Prescription Drug Use May Create Need for Rehab
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Should Parents Use Drug Tests if More than Half of All High School Students are Abusing Drugs?
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How Pain Killers Can Lead to Addiction
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The Benefits to Your Community of Effective Drug Rehab
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Using Cocaine with Other Drugs
Although it may be difficult to understand the mindset of a drug user who would think it beneficial to mix one drug with other drugs, this type of polydrug abuse is quite common.
In fact, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction states that polydrug use accounts for a large percentage of medical emergencies. It is this synergistic effect of many illicit drugs, alcohol and often other prescription drugs that can cause severe, unanticipated ill effects.
The dangers of this may be obvious to one who isn’t a user. One can lose track of which drugs or how many they have taken, especially if one enters alcohol into the mix. This may lead to more overdoses. Using polydrugs also increases the risk of traffic accidents.
However, from the drug user’s point of view, adept combining of certain drugs allows one to fine-tune their desired effect, possibly augmenting the high achieved from one drug alone. The combining of benzodiazepines after using coke or meth, for example, could allow a person to sleep. Or, conversely, using coke after alcohol use, may avoid the usual sedation effect that alcohol creates, enabling a person to stay awake longer and drink even more.
Reports from Europe indicate that in some areas, 94% of cocaine users are combining cocaine and alcohol together.
One might be able to see that a combination of cocaine and heroin could be lethal, and in fact several well-known people were killed by such a fatal concoction. This drug combination, known as Speedball, killed some well-loved celebrities like John Belushi, River Phoenix and Chris Farley.
The bottom line is that using polydrugs makes the already extremely dangerous practice of drug abuse even more dangerous. This makes it even more vital that one gets a person involved in using polydrugs help so that they can enter an effective drug rehabilitation program.
Narconon offers an extremely effective, holistic and drugless program to help users of any drugs or alcohol get sober and stay that way. Narconon residential treatment centers exist in more than fifty locations around the world, and have delivered help to hundreds of thousands of people over the past forty-five years.
Narconon delivers a comprehensive program spanning both the physical addiction and effects on the body and the mental or emotional reasons why someone resorted to drugs to begin with. This really allows a drug user to start a new life and get free of the drug demons of his past.
One starts the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program with a closely supervised and surprisingly tolerable withdrawal period. This is followed by the unique Narconon New Life Detoxification program, consisting of good nutrition, daily exercise and time spent in a dry-heat sauna. This program works because it helps the body to rid itself of the harmful toxic residues of drugs, whether one had taken one drug or many. People who have finished this part of the program report fewer and sometimes no cravings for drugs at all, along with clearer senses of taste and smell, a fresh viewpoint and renewed energy to face the world.
Further treatment is given after the body is freed of these drug residues in Narconon’s life skills courses. These consist of helping the former drug user to regain his self-respect, his integrity, and he learns a moral compass to guide his future decisions. One only graduates the full Narconon program when he is certain he can live a productive life, without again resorting to drugs, even when the going gets rough. It is this full, comprehensive program that allows Narconon graduates to stay sober and clean in seven out of ten cases. This is without having to attend Narconon meetings.
Cocaine rehabilitation is possible at Narconon. Find out all the details by calling: 800-775-8750.
Resources:
http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/attachements.cfm/att_93217_EN_EMCDDA_SI09_polydrug%20use.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedball(drug)
Cocaine Damages the Heart
Cocaine has many potential devastating effects on the human heart, both physiologically and emotionally. In an article entitled, “The Effects of Acute and Chronic Cocaine Use on the Heart,” published on the American Heart Association’s website, the authors document how cocaine is toxic to the heart muscle and actually leads to necrosis (death of tissue) of the heart muscle itself. This occurs as cocaine lessens the heart muscle’s ability to contract and pump blood so that less oxygen reaches the heart.
Even young cocaine users can have symptoms like those of a heart attack, sometimes making diagnosis difficult, since doctors are more accustomed to seeing these in older patients.
Another factor is the accumulation of plaque in the arteries (known as atherosclerosis), that causes the arteries to become less supple, making blood flow more difficult and sometimes leading to heart attacks or strokes. The heart can also become enlarged, thicker or stiffer than it should be due to this greater inflexibility of the blood vessels.
This makes cocaine a very dangerous drug when it comes to one’s cardiovascular health. However, there is usually far more damage done to the cocaine abuser’s life than only the physical injury to his body.
An addict to any substance has become so preoccupied or consumed with the need for more and more drugs that he cannot usually see what damage he may be doing to his own life, his loved ones, his career or his home. His decision-making seems to have shifted onto how to get his next fix or the next one after that and so on. His loss of self-esteem and ideals make his life very difficult to face so that more abuse of the drug is the only way he finds escape.
The cost of drug abuse can also contribute to a financial downward spin leading one to quickly lose control of his finances when so much money is consumed in the high-cost powder form, or in rocks such as crack cocaine.
It is fortunate that even chronic cocaine addiction can be reversed with effective drug rehabilitation. Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation offers a drugless, holistic approach to rehab that really works. The Narconon drug rehab program is so effective that seven of ten of its graduates over the past four decades have remained drug free and sober at least two years following program completion.
This unique program includes the Narconon New Life Detoxification Program, which helps to reduce or eliminate drug cravings. An individual enrolled in the Narconon program is closely supervised during the period of drug withdrawal and then is overseen during daily moderate exercise, while receiving excellent nutrition and plenty of nutritional supplements, as well as spending time in a dry-heat sauna. This strict regimen continues until the person is freed of the harmful residues of drugs in his body, allowing one to feel clean again, and see the world unclouded by drug shadows. In addition to fewer cravings, one usually recovers a brighter viewpoint and more energy after completing this part of the program.
The Narconon program continues with essential life skills training enabling the former addict to recover his own personal integrity, self-esteem and moral values. He will learn how to make drug-free decisions and to choose people in his life who will be supportive of a drug-free lifestyle.
It is fully possible to regain a healthy outlook and love for life that had seemed long-gone. The recovery process is only complete when one has charted a course for his future that is productive, drug free and one he will be happy to maintain.
In more than fifty locations around the world, Narconon is helping to create lasting recovery from cocaine and other drug addictions every day.
Call us to find out more details of the Narconon program and locate a rehab center near you. Or check out some Narconon reviews to get more information.
Resources:
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/85/2/407
Physical Effects of Cocaine Addiction
While most people know that cocaine is extremely addictive to the user, it may not be as well known that the drug has some very hazardous health effects. Some are so severe that one can immediately die from taking cocaine, even just once.
That fact was uncovered when a healthy, recently recruited Boston Celtics basketball player named Len Bias died in 1986 from heart problems caused by cocaine use. It wasn’t particularly known up to that time how severely cocaine, a strong stimulant, potentially affected the heart.
A stimulant causes the body temperature and heart rate to rise, while cocaine also constricts the blood vessels. This combination can potentially put a fatal strain on the heart muscle. The resulting increased blood pressure can also cause a stroke.
When one takes cocaine orally, as is sometimes the case, one can cause so much constriction of the intestines that abdominal gangrene can be formed. It is that strong a drug.
Additionally, a coke user who snorts the drug may cause erosion of the nasal tissue, so much so that a hole can form between two sides of the nose. While this isn’t fatal, it can never rebuild itself, even with drug rehab, and can only be repaired surgically. One may never notice this happening however, because cocaine also has a strong local anesthetic effect on the tissues. It is used, in fact, as a numbing agent for eye surgery.
Rehab for cocaine addiction is needed as soon as possible to prevent these potentially harmful effects. If one gets treatment early, effective rehab could also prevent the moral and emotional devastation, not to mention the financial ruin that can result from such an expensive addiction.
Narconon centers around the world have helped cocaine and other drug addicts to find lasting recovery for forty-five years. Narconon rehab is a comprehensive, holistic, drugless program which includes the physical, as well as the emotional and practical aspects of rehabilitation and recovery which is what someone addicted to any drug needs to break the cycle completely.
When one starts off at a Narconon facility he experiences 24-hour supervised drug withdrawal which is likely to be far more tolerable than expected. It includes nutritional support, exercises to get one’s attention focused outward rather than inward, and some assistance to the body much like a gentle massage. This often leads to less fatigue, anxiety, depression and irritability related to substance abuse.
After this period, one begins the Narconon New Life Detoxification Program, which is a unique deep detox, enabling the body to rid itself of the drug residues which are stored in the body’s fatty tissues. When these are released, the person who is recovering from drug addiction feels cleaner, brighter and most report few or no cravings for drugs. This program uses more nutritional supplementation, mild exercise and time spent in a dry-heat sauna daily. This strict regimen usually results in more energy, more enthusiasm for life and a higher sense of well-being than before the program.
The Narconon program continues with training in essential life skills to make one more stable and capable of making good decisions for the future. One studies course materials which improve one’s ability to communicate with another person and help one to regain his integrity and sense of self-worth. He also learns a common sense moral code to give him tools for a successful and productive life.
One completes the full Narconon program when he has charted his own future course, and knows that he can maintain sobriety even when faced with difficult situations.
Cocaine addiction can be cured. The destructive physical effects that coke could cause can be avoided with prompt and effective cocaine addiction rehab. Call Narconon to find out more details about how you or a loved one can get help with cocaine addiction.
Smuggling Efforts Reach New Highs in Sonora, Mexico Reports Narconon Spokesperson
With the billions of dollars of profits that are raked in each year in the illicit drug trade, there is enormous motivation for traffickers to innovate new smuggling methods. The last year has seen homemade submarines bringing loads of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, cocaine smuggled into the US in Easter eggs, and new, sophisticated tunnels dug under the US-Mexico border. And then there are the usual vehicles with drug packages hidden in the frames, seats, doors, roofs or gas tanks, and pedestrians with drugs taped to their bodies or hidden among their belongings.
In late January 2011, traffickers in the Mexican state of Sonora came up with a new one: a nine-foot catapult that would sling packages of marijuana far across the international border.
The US National Guard in Arizona monitoring a remote video feed spotted the primitive catapult that was hauled into place next to the international border by a team of men, and then was used to toss four-pound packages of weed over the border. The National Guard tipped off the Mexican military and military personnel disrupted the operation, seizing 45 pounds of marijuana and the catapult but making no arrests.
“The efforts of drug cartels to get their products into our neighborhoods is never-ceasing,” stated Narconon spokesperson Bobby Wiggins. Narconon is an international non-profit organization dedicated to the elimination of substance abuse and addiction through effective drug rehabilitation and education. “Once the drugs are in this country, traffickers and the drug dealers distributing the products on the street draw no lines. They will sell their addictive wares to anyone without concern for destroying lives. The only protection comes from avoiding substance abuse and finding lasting recovery from addiction.”
Wiggins cited the report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that said that nearly half of all addiction treatment admissions were repeats. When the addictive substance was an opiate, the proportion of repeat treatments went up to 60 percent. “As long as addiction treatment fails, Americans will continue to be customers of the drug cartels. That is why Narconon centers have developed a workable system of helping people achieve a lasting recovery. Since 1966, drug addicts have been learning to live clean and sober, the Narconon way.”
In more than 100 Narconon centers around the world, seven out of ten graduates succeed in staying clean after they go home. For more information on the Narconon drug rehab program, visit http://www.narconon.org
Narconon Spokesperson Warns that Cocaine and Ecstasy Are Being Cut with Toxic Drugs
If you needed any further proof that drug traffickers and dealers are nobody’s friends, recent analyses of cocaine and ecstasy supplies shows that they are moreand more often being cut with toxic drugs. Shortages of cocaine in various parts of the world and reduced production of ecstasy may be driving drug traffickers to use bulking agents more frequently and in greater quantity than previously.
Narconon Spokesperson, Bobby Wiggins warned that while drug use is bad enough, drug use with unpredictable chemicals added is far more dangerous. “Drug users may become accustomed to the actions of their drugs of choice and may think they can control the effects pretty well – but when toxic drugs and chemicals are added to what they think they are buying, the matter can easily get out of control.” Narconon is an international non-profit organization dedicated to the elimination of substance abuse and addiction through effective drug rehabilitation and education.
The two main drugs being found as adulterants are levamisole and MCPP or meta-Chlorophenylpiperazine.
Levamisole was a drug once used on humans but dangerous side effects caused most uses to be discontiunued. Some people suffered allergic reactions including difficulty breathing, confusion, loss of consciousness or decreased bone marrow or blood problems resulting in extreme fatigue. It is now primarily used as an animal wormer.
In the last few years, the Drug Enforcement Agency has been finding levamisole in 69 percent of cocaine samples they test in the US. It’s also being found in ecstasy supplies, especially in Australia, along with cocaine samples tested there.
MCPP has been found in many cocaine samples. Medically, it is used to instigate migraine headaches so that headache medications can be tested. It has been found to cause anxiety, depression and panic attacks, and worsen obsessive behaviors. One investigator suspected that this drug was used to cut cocaine instead of other, more innocent, substances because it adds not only bulk to a package of illicit drugs, it also adds weight. It may also mimic the effects of some illicit drugs and may even enable a package of cocaine to pass a street purity test.
Levamisol has even played a role in recent celebrity deaths. In 2009. DJ AM was found dead from an overdose in his New York apartment. Toxicology tests showed OxyContin, benzodiazepines, cocaine and levamisole in his body. And when newsman Ted Koppel’s son was found dead in 2010, his death was determined to have been caused by an overdose of alcohol, cocaine, benzodiazepines and levamisole.
“When a person is addicted to cocaine or ecstasy, they may feel they have no choice but to continue to find supplies of the drug, no matter how dangerous those supplies may be,” explained Wiggins. “But in fact, they do have a choice. An effective drug rehabilitation center that helps them leave drug use behind is their best path to a safe and healthy life. In more than 100 centers around the world, Narconon drug treatment centers are helping addicts find healthier lives.”
www.narconon-news.org
