The thrill of a drug rush keeps drug addicts coming back for more.  The fuzzy edges of reality keep alcoholics drinking beyond control.  These effects from drug and alcohol are signals from the body’s nervous system.  Eventually, this vital system of neurons and neurotransmitters suffers significant damage.  Because this is an important method of communication within the body, damage eventually affects many bodily functions we take for granted each day.

How Neurotransmitters Work

The messages traveling along your nervous system in the blink of an eye.  What’s more amazing is how complex the mechanisms are that allow it to work so well.  Your nerves don’t zing messages in a straight line like electricity along an enclosed wire.  Instead, they jump across hundreds and thousands of little gaps or “synapses” between your nerve endings.

The chemicals in these synapses are called neurotransmitters.  They transmit the messages from one nerve to the next at breakneck speed.  Several different neurotransmitters do this job over and over throughout the body.  Each neurotransmitter fits into certain spots on the nerve endings like a key fits into a lock.  These locks are called neurotransmitter receptors.  Some of commonly known neurotransmitters are dopamine, serotonin, and histamine.

How Drug Addiction Affects Neurotransmitters

Dopamine is a big player in drug and alcohol addiction.  It is involved with feelings of pleasure and pain, emotions, and controlling bodily movement.  When drugs and alcohol get into the bloodstream, they fit themselves into the dopamine receptors.  This artificial connection can either make a message happen or prevent a message from happening.

This is where drugs and alcohol can be so disruptive.  As a person uses drugs and alcohol more and more, the body adjusts to this and becomes more attached to the drugs than the natural dopamine.  The body “forgets” how to use it’s own dopamine receptors in the normal way.  When the drugs and alcohol disappear from the blood stream, the body revolts with uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms.  Consistent excessive drug use has set up the body to rely on something external to function properly.  This makes recovering from addiction so difficult to do without drug treatment or alcohol rehab.

Recovery From Drug Addiction

After years of hard drug use or alcoholism, the efficiency of nervous system can really suffer.  Scientists are not certain if neurological damage from drug addiction can be reversed.  Certainly, if a person stops using drugs and alcohol and transforms their lifestyle to complete sobriety, future damage can be prevented.  Drug treatment can help a person safely and somewhat comfortably get the drugs out of their body and begin a sober lifestyle.   For more answers about drug addiction recovery, contact the drug rehab centers in your
area today.

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Perhaps the last thing a woman with an addiction wants is for everyone to know about her problems.  Yet at the same time, this hurting woman wants to be a part of a caring group.  These opposing forces can make it difficult for a woman to get started in drug rehab.  But once she understands the value of group interaction in drug treatment, she can begin a better life connected with others.

Shame And Embarrassment With Drug Addiction

It can be bad enough dealing with the problems of life.  Drug addiction can make things so much worse.  A woman with a drug addiction is on the run from problems, trying to stay ahead before they swallow her whole.  Once an addiction catches up to her, it’s time to face the music in her mind.

The truth about drug addiction can be devastating to face.  Not only have things been going badly, but she’s dug herself a hole with drug use.  She can get caught up in just the shame of having let herself get in the grips of something terrible and socially out-casting as an addiction.

It’s important to help a woman very carefully as she’s coming to that point of truth.  The shame of admitting to an addiction can make her want to retreat, even from genuine offers of help.  Her mind may know she needs help, but she may not be able to bear the thought of facing others with that truth.  Spilling her guts in a group treatment setting may be the last thing she wants to think about.

Privacy And Sharing in Drug Rehab

Even with this strong conflict between publicly sharing and privately hiding, a woman gets much of her personal value from social groups.  She may be too caught up in her own pain to realize that everyone else at drug rehab is going through a difficult struggle like her own.  Other women may be just as hesitant and ashamed of their addiction story as she is.  Yet, each woman needs the connection and caring support of a group.

Each woman will gain much more by joining and sharing than she will by hiding and withdrawing.  It takes courage to take this leap of faith.  And women who do are usually well rewarded by improvement in their well being, their self respect, and their sobriety.

Group Drug Treatment Many Benefits

Everyone needs to feel like they belong somewhere, but women particularly need a social network for her personal mental health.  Drug rehab centers that focus on just women know how to maximize the value of these connections.  Women in drug rehab can experience long lasting bonds with women who understand them like no one else.

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If you are about to enter a drug rehab center, you may already be thinking about when you can go home.  That would be pretty normal, especially since the drug rehab experience will require some adjustment.  But don’t forget that coming back home won’t be a snap either.  You will have gotten used to the drug rehab schedule, format, support, and regimen.  To make a smooth transition home, you will need to do some planning with your drug rehab counselor.  The following lists a few questions you’ll want to consider during this process.

What Are Your Most Effective Coping Skills

Before you go to rehab, you might not be sure what your best coping skills are.  You will discover many things at drug rehab.  You’ll learn many new ways of coping with stress, relapse triggers, and cravings.  Also, you will better understand good coping skills that you already know but may not use effectively or often enough.  Yes, chances are you already have a few things inside you that can help you stay sober.  Drug rehab can help you bring those to the surface so you can use them regularly.  You will need them as you get back into your home environment.

What Are Your Biggest Blind Spots

Blind spots are the things that will get us into trouble, but we don’t have complete awareness of them when it’s happening.  For example, you may know that you are troubled by your history of sexual abuse.  But you may not be aware of your thoughts and emotions that connect to your drinking or drug using behaviors.  These connections can be uncovered and understood with a little time in drug rehab.  Of course, this discovery process will last long after you have left drug rehab.  That’s why sobriety is a journey, not just a one-stop deal.  As you gradually become aware of these emotional blind spots, you can be better prepared for relapse prevention at home.

What Are You Looking Forward To Most After Drug Rehab

This is a good question because the answer can be so different for everyone.  In fact, your answer on the first day of rehab might differ from your answer on the last day!  That’s OK - that’s part of the awakening process in drug rehab.  You begin to really know more about what makes you tick and what you value.  When you are finished with your drug rehab experience, you may appreciate and look forward to things you didn’t even realize you were missing when you started.

Home After Drug Rehab What Are You Most Afraid Of

Going to drug rehab isn’t like erasing every fear or problem from your life.  You just become better equipped to honestly deal with it all.  That means, like it or not, you are still going to have some fear and maybe even an urge to hide from some things when you get back to regular life.  Just being able to name this and share your concerns can help take the power out of the fear.  Courage is not the absence of fear, it is doing things while taking your fear with you.   Facing your fears straight on seems a lot more doable when you look at it like that.

Drug Rehab Planning

Coming home from drug rehab can be a wonderful thing to look forward to, but it does require some planning to be successful.  Talk to someone at the drug rehab you will be attending if you have questions about transitioning back home.

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It’s one thing to add a woman’s touch to a drug rehab center.  It’s another thing entirely to make a drug rehab center just for women and their needs.  That’s exactly what the Orchid Recovery Center has done.  It puts a strong emphasis on the community within the drug and alcohol rehab programs and the group dynamic that moves the treatment process.

Drug Rehab Addresses Painful Emotions

At an all-female drug rehab center, women through issues of fear, emotional pain, and despair in a socially supportive environment.  This is the creation of a community around each woman.  It also puts each woman in the role of supporter for all the other women.

This dual role helps each addicted woman to step out of her own painful misery and reconnect with others.  The trust and intimacy developed in this community is healing in a way that no other treatment can duplicate.

Dr Karen Dodge from the Orchid Recovery Center has discovered many unique aspects about women in recovery.  So many treatment models are based on men, leaving these unique aspects unacknowledged or even seen as being out of the norm.  Thankfully, Dr Dodge has taken her observations about women in recovery and transferred them to practical treatment methods at the Orchid Recovery Center.

Group Dynamics Key To Womens Drug Rehab

The group connection isn’t just something helpful, it’s a need for women.  Women are generally more attuned to creating community and social networks with other women.  These connections are closely linked with a woman’s ability to get through difficult situations.  With supportive female relationships, a woman in emotional turmoil and pain can keep moving forward.

Because it is so strongly needed by women, social connections need to be nourished both during and after drug rehab.  They need to know the connection won’t necessarily end just because they have finished their rehab program.  These connections are encouraged and supported through the Orchid Rehab’s strong alumni program.

Drug Rehab For Women A Unique Experience

A woman with an addiction may have no desire to go to drug rehab.  She may not think she needs it, and she may have no real idea what happens there.  Compassionate drug rehabs that serve women understand this perspective.  They encourage questions and provide information to help women needed treatment understand what to expect and how it can make a difference in their life.  Drug rehab for women, like the Orchid Recovery Center, is truly a unique experience.

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The Olympics are on right now, and millions of people from countries around the world are watching. That includes some drug addicts and alcoholics. As I’ve watched the Olympics the last few days, I’ve noticed a quality that both elite Olympic athletes and people in drug addiction recovery seem to have.  See if you notice the same thing as you enjoy the Olympics yourself.

Olympic Athletes Are Mentally Resilient

The Olympic athlete-physically strong and mentally tough. Years of training and competition put them in the top percentage of athletes around the world.  It’s easy to see how physical training and practice build up their muscles to do incredibly athletic things. The mental resilience - that’s a little harder to see.

Athletes have to wait four years between each Olympic competition.  In most cases, they compete in events around the world between Olympic years. But something about the Olympics is different. Years of waiting, hard work, and training do not guarantee a great outcome. Just yesterday, Lindsay Jacobellis (US female snowboarder) fell unexpectedly in the early part of her race and was disqualified.  In the 2006 Olympics, she lost out on the gold because she fell after doing a last second show-off move. Four years of waiting and still no gold medal. How does someone keep going after such disappointment?

Recovering Drug Addicts And Olympic Athletes

As promised, here’s my comparison between Olympic athletes and recovering drug addicts. Recovering drug addict can put in so much energy, effort, planning, and focus on living a sober life. When something comes up and knock them off track, they sometimes start using drugs again. A sense of overwhelming failure can set in if they don’t get up and keep going towards sobriety. Was all that time living sober a mistake? A waste of time? No, it was a journey worth traveling.  The obvious visible setback is also part of the journey. What that person does with the setback is up to them. If they allow their emotions to completely take over, they may struggle for a while before they become sober again. They may even need to go through drug treatment again if it gets bad enough.

A disappointed Olympic athlete can either feel terrible and succumb to their feelings, or they can keep going forward and hold their head high. They can get back in the gym, retire and pursue a new passion, or even just get the courage to finish their race when it’s clear they will not win. What Olympic athletes master is their ability to acknowledge their emotions but not let them be in charge. They instead use their emotions to propel them forward. Sometimes their lowest moments become inspiration for huge achievement in later competition. The Olympic spirit embodies excellence, persistence, and dedication. A recovering drug addict doing their best to live sober shares these qualities.

Drug Rehab Build Your Honorable Character In Recovery

Drug addiction isn’t revered and respected like Olympic sport.  But the character it takes to get through the valleys of drug addiction is absolutely respectable and honorable. If you are addicted to drugs and struggling to get sober, start building your honorable character by getting in to drug rehab.

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