Tag Archives: Drug addiction

Drug Addiction, Holistic Health, Mental Health

Benefits of Yoga For Men and Sobriety

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Drug addiction may be difficult to get through, as the decision to stop using drugs once addiction has developed is unnerving to make. Successfully overcoming any dependency on an addictive substance takes time, energy, and enough patience. The risk of relapse can be high if a person doesn’t gain enough education about staying sober after detox, relapse prevention coping skills, and helpful sober mentoring programs. While many individuals report having less intense cravings as sobriety continues, there will be times when the body remembers the drugs it once received and will carve more.  These cravings can cause a disturbing relapse if there is not a proper plan set in place to handle them at any notice. While this doesn’t mean that the person is a failure or that their long time participating in rehab was a waste.  It simply means that the symptoms of their disease have reappeared at the time and tweaks need to be made to their treatment model.

The best way to stop relapses from happening is practicing holistic medicine by diving into activities that positively strengthen the relationship between the body and mind. Instead of just conforming to what traditional rehab programs offer, holistic medicine considers what you specifically need to get better. One method of ensuring that you can learn how to control the gray area in sobriety and regain your control is by training in programs like yoga and meditation.

Learning about the many benefits of yoga for men may help those experiencing symptoms of relapse and need help to stay sober. Many professional sports teams, pro athletes, and other prominent male figures are incorporating yoga into their daily routines and have found success!

The Physical Improvement

When you learn about yoga, you are learning a lot about connecting mentally to your body, your mood, and your overall spirit at the same time. This treatment is an incredibly positive and calming technique to alleviate or discourage the risk of relapsing, and provide addiction and depression help. Some of the most important benefits of doing yoga include an improved ability to breathe, lowered blood pressure throughout the day, deeper feelings of relaxation, and boosted athleticism in muscles. For men, they can especially benefit from the improved flexibility that yoga provides along with more consistent sleep patterns each night. Yoga movements stretch the muscles and other soft tissues in the body, releasing any types of lactic acids that can build up in the joints and normally cause stiffness and fatigue.

The Mental Benefit

Strong relapse prevention coping skills are best practiced with a strong mind to match. Along with helping the body improve, yoga relaxes your racing mind and levels of stress throughout the day that can come from staying sober. Any headaches or migraines that you may have once experienced can be eased as you learn to master different yoga movements over time. Doing yoga helps to keep anxiety hormones down to a minimum and boost mood improving chemicals instead. Since yoga primarily focuses on clearing the mind, men who often have struggled with attention problems can easily see an improvement on caging their monkey thoughts throughout the day as well. Most importantly, yoga helps a person rebuild their intrinsic sense of self confidence as they attain a new level of fitness. This builds an unshakable foundation for a person to stay sober after detox and shy away from people in their lives who may not approve of their new and improved lifestyle.

An Aid to Healing

Men practicing yoga often report feeling strong and empowered after each yoga session. No matter what someone’s religious or spiritual beliefs are, they can easily intertwine the yoga philosophy into their lives for a better mindset on life. The philosophy is focused on emptying the mind of intrusive thoughts and finding a true balance within the nervous system. Even if you’re not the most experienced, don’t be afraid to try out a couple of yoga poses yourself to see how you feel. Remember to start the process slowly and safely, accept your limits, and think positive thoughts as you begin to strengthen your body. When combined with a sober mentoring program, healing is done effectively and in an organic manner so results are developed in the long term.

The Bottom Line

Often men who have become addicted to drugs or alcohol are escaping their own kind of pain, whether it is physical or emotional. However, having healthy alternatives like yoga and meditationhelp to ease the discomfort of the initial pain or trauma that led them to abuse substances in the first place, and create a real and lasting impact for a successful rehabilitation.

Men who actively participate in the exercise as an alternative medicine find that it helps reconnects them with their body, reintroduces them to a more healthy and natural mindset, lowers their anxiety levels, and provides them a strong sensation of inner peace and satisfaction. Although addictions can have a way of stealing everything you have in life, you can take action by not allowing yourself to go to ruin. Take the time to learn how to regain control of your present and move towards a stronger, positive, and motivated future!

 

 

 

Drug Addiction, Holistic Health, Mental Health

How To Deal With An Alcoholic

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When you watch a person you love go through addiction, it’s natural to want to help them in any way you can. Parents especially will want to offer their support, no matter the circumstance. However, whether their child is a teenager or older, that desire to help may have a negative impact on their recovery. They will want to empower the addict to succeed in life, but doing this by enabling their behavior is only contributing to their vicious cycle of dependency. The more enablement the addict has to help them continue their unhealthy behavior, the longer they will wait to change their life. They will also become used to always relying on their parent to pick up the fallen pieces. It’s important to watch out for the signs of enabling behavior and make changes to prevent worse consequences, ultimately resulting in prolonging someone’s addiction.

Signs of an Enabler

When it comes to helping an addict, there’s a fine line between providing them enough support and encouraging their behavior. Supporting them means helping them do things they can’t do alone. On the hand, if you’re enabling, you are regularly doing things that the other person could and should be doing by themselves to be self-sufficient.

Other signs of being an enabler include putting the person’s needs ahead of your own time, sanity, and schedule. This could range from going out of your way to miss important responsibilities or taking the blame when the addict gets into trouble. Other red flags are feeling resentful towards the addict since you’re taking on more responsibilities than you can handle, lying to yourself about how acceptable the addict’s behavior is, spending excessive energy focusing on solely their personal needs, and bailing them out when legal consequences eventually happen. Doing any of these behaviors only is contributing to the harmful environment that addict is living in every day. Over time, they will only start to believe that no matter how bad things get, you will always be there to mend the stitches and bring them back on their feet.

Breaking the Cycle

Since addiction affects everyone in the addict’s network, breaking your habit of enabling can make a huge impact on how well they can break their cycle of substance abuse. Any untreated or undiagnosed addict can wreak long term havoc on their families or spouse who is suffering as well. When a person is suffering from an addiction disorder, oftentimes they are in denial of their alcohlism and are unaware that the disorder exists. Rehab centers focusing on dual diagnosis have found that the link between dependency and alcohol addiction can be less weakened when the root cause is identified. In these types of situations, a person must be continually evaluated with a professional specialist to find which factors are contributing the most to their addiction specific symptoms. For example, when a person initially begins treatment, they may be experiencing a strong sense of paranoia which can recur even after staying sober for a few weeks. However, if the paranoid feeling do seem to lessen after a period of sobriety, then alcoholism can be determined as the cause. This process can make it easier to identify the true underlying disorder when any physical or psychological symptoms resulting from alcohol abuse are eliminated.

The Final Straw

Many people battling addiction find that turning to the aid of therapy and support groups provided by rehab centers can make a huge difference. Interventions especially provide unique benefits and challenges to addicts if the person is very resistant to getting help. During this process, friends, family members, and spouses need to unite as a unified force to confront the person and urge them into getting enough treatment. Interventions are often successful with the help of a professional counselor who can provide them enough advice to find the right treatment for their lifestyle, explain different alternative medicines, and other specialized rehab therapists in their area. Choose the right time and place to have this important conversation with your loved one where you can have enough alone time to process your thoughts and conversation. Make sure the person you’re having an intervention with is also sober, not busy, and focused enough to fully absorb the words that you are trying to communicate with them.

The bottom line is that helping your loved one doesn’t have to be as hard as it seems. As a family member, it’s much easier to turn a cheek towards your family, friends, or spouse who is using alcohol and other addictive substances to counteract the pressures from their life. However, make the choice to bravely stand up for their health. Don’t be afraid to call for help and be proactive when it comes to saving their lifestyle!

 

 

 

 

Drug Addiction, Holistic Health, Mental Health, Women's Health

Alcohol Dangers as a Drug

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In our world today, partying and binge drinking in college a lot are often considered milestones we will experience at some point in their lives. There’s a recent trend of campuses who have had more students experiencing alcohol related problems and critical injuries thanks to easily accessible bars and the pressure to some exerted by the Greek system. Bars that offer tempting drink specials, sometimes mandatory hazing, and wine binging focused exchanges to get tipsy when work gets too tough are considered a social standard to live up to for fitting in. Studies show that almost sixty percent of college students drank alcohol in the past month, and almost two thirds of those students engaged in binge drinking during that same time. Many of us know someone who talked about their drunk night out meeting up with someone not safe at all. It’s disturbing to hear some those stories while wondering if your friend really remembered everything that happened. Especially in an open campus, seeing crimes regularly happen close to home isn’t much help either. Aside from risking your safety, actively living a binge drinking lifestyle is extremely negative and brings your body’s health down the drain. The truth is that we can still get tempted and maintaining self-discipline is almost impossible when everyone else is following along. Ultimately, we must be educated about alcohol’s effects and seek treatment if addiction is present.

Being High Functioning

Almost twenty percent of adults, especially college students who often consume alcohol, can be considered a highly functional addict in our country today. High-functioning alcoholics are hard to recognize sometimes since they have learned with trial and error how to mask it easily. Chronic drinking leads to a negative change in how they look on the outside, act with others, and feel throughout their day. Some signs of one, especially if they’re a college student, is if they use alcoholic drinks to wind down after stressful tests or become more outgoing at social gatherings, drink by themselves, black out often, run into problems with the campus police, often joke about having an addiction or get rather upset and defensive when confronted about their habits.

I’ve witnessed many of my peers start their taste of alcohol with a few drinks here and there. There’s nothing bad about having fun and enjoying a drink in moderation if you’re of age and know your limit when you go out. The point is that binge drinking to manage stress or self-medicate is what causes negative changes to occur in the body that are sometimes permanent. Drinking a lot of alcohol is socially acceptable in college and doesn’t have the same stigma attached to it as other popular vices like marijuana, cocaine, or Adderall. What seemed like a moderate activity can grow into a weekly wine night, tons of beers at happy hour, and endless vodka shots on weekends to celebrate just getting through to Friday. Rarely are such nights filled with truly wholesome memories, since drinking so much can cause it to end short or scary from a black out. The media and social norms around us are also constantly showing a glamorized version of drinking after work or at lunch breaks as a figure of humor. It seems like battling the side effects of alchohol is a piece of cake when done right. However, this notion is incredibly false and is misleading thousands of people who believe the lie.

Long-term Health Problems

It’s no joke that alcohol abuse can lead to serious acute and long term effects on a person’s mind and body. Besides severe withdrawal symptoms that develop, addicts may also develop a bad habit of experiencing memory loss and lose concentration on important tasks throughout the day. They could also develop anxiety and depression, increase risk of cancer in the colon, liver, throat, breast, etc., high blood pressure, and a damaged digestive system. A study about alcohol’s long term consequences also showed a link to a heightened risk in heart disease because of the heart not being able to effectively pump blood through the circulatory system and arteries. It depicts a striking statistic that the number of people in three years who developed heart failure, heart attack, or a condition of irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, were three times more likely in their risk if they drank a lot of alcohol in the past.

Overcoming Your Addiction 

While forming a plan to recover by yourself may seem more convenient, it’s more helpful to get professional assistance; for example, getting treatment from an established alcohol rehab in Florida. They can provide you with more education on the dangers of alcohol, health consequences, and recommend the best programs for alcohol addiction recovery so you’re in the best place possible!

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Drug Addiction, Holistic Health, Mental Health, Website Design

Holistic Recovery and Alternative Treatment

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Holistic addition treatment is marked as an efficient method to treat substance abuse as it weaves together integrative medicines to boost a client’s physical well-being, emotional levels, and prevent relapses in the future. In many cases, depending on a prescribed medication from doctors can hide more serious addiction symptoms which hurts a person’s through recovery in the long term. The point of alternative treatment, and especially holistic recovery, is for a person to start from within and break away from using foreign chemicals in the form of medications, They focus on bettering their exercise habits, dive into meditation, improve their nutritional diet, and strengthen their spirituality. For example, starting a routine of doing aromatherapy, music therapy, and joining a local sports group would be advised as a perfect mix of holistic recovery methods. When combined, these activities energize the mind, body, and soul for true healing that will last a long time.

Wine glass and Bottle on a wooden background

How Can You Start Holistic Recovery

The first step to practicing holistic recovery is setting a consistent time throughout the day to practice the act of mindfulness. This involves reflecting on your thoughts and feelings for a few minutes every day and focus on your body right there in the present moment. Treating yourself with care and taking a short break can help lower stress levels that may be built up and strengthen the bond you have with changes occurring within your body. Another great method for mindfulness is by tapping into yoga or dance, as it combines the physical body and directions from the mind to transport strength and develop flexibility as an exercise. Yoga also helps a person to build more internal discipline and strength as well.  Each yoga session a person undertakes involves having an intense focus on inhales, exhales, and being more concentrated on various aspects of the body that are pushed throughout each position.

Practicing your breathing can also increase your levels of energy, lower stress, and develop a better sense of clarity. Introducing more exercise is also extremely beneficial to holistic recovery, whether it’s running, tennis, or even basketball. Training in sessions with others and competing together helps build rapport to keep you accountable. You will sense that you are developing a stronger sense of confidence as you are consistently improving as well.

Holistic Benefits

Putting together multiple approaches in the idea of holistic recovery is backed up by various researchers who have observed its effects in long term studies. One study published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine in 2013 found the result that participating in yoga and mindfulness-based meditation during addiction recovery for drugs and alcohol made a huge difference with patients who can become much less vunerable to relapses. Two years later, in 2015, a report published in the Australian Journal of Primary Health also supported that there is a powerful link with mental and physical health. These support the many benefits associated with holistic treatment as it plays a role on whether a client will gain long-term sobriety.

Holistic therapy is also extremely easy to plug into as it doesn’t involve uncomfortable hospital tests, countless pills, and intense therapy sessions to get negative feelings out of the mind. Relying on medication, while based in science, may provide a powerful psychological or physical dependency which is difficult to break away from over time. That is why many people opt for holistic therapies instead. People are also more comfortable where fun activites like running therapy or yoga classes are widespread and accessible in their local community. Along the lines of the holistic recovery method of treating the mind, body and soul, these programs encourage their clients to learn new skills and use them as a building block of their long-term recovery. If a patient is willing to take the time to consider their overall health, they can pay attention to more details like their breathing, hydration, and food that together build a stronger and more disciplined body. Throughout the entire process of holistic treatment, each client is the tooled with a variety of relapse-prevention skills which they can put to good use even after they complete their recovery program.

Becoming Well

If you feel that you can identify as a patient who is struggling to overcome your substance addiction, consider the holistic therapy approach for a more effective recovery. The perfect way to learn more about holistic recovery and traditional addiction treatment is to speak with experts. Find a rehabilitation center that understands the importance of catering to each person’s specific needs and are enthusiastic to discuss their various methods.

 

 

 

Drug Addiction, Mental Health

College students and common street drug abuse

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College campuses across the country have to battle the many issues that come with students who are abusing their drug policies. Not only is drug use on the rise, but it is at one of the highest points it has ever been in American history. This means that if there was ever a time to get clued into what your son or daughter is up to at college it’s now! It can be very stressful when you first send them off to college and begin to wonder what they are up to. However, it is probable that many high school students are secretly engaging in illegal behaviors that their parents have no idea about. In a recent survey that was taken approximately 1 out of 16 high school seniors admitted to daily marijuana use, and 60% had admitted to having tried alcohol. These figures speak for themselves showing the prevalence of common street drugs in our society, starting as young as high school. I am sure that not all of these parents knew that their child was actively using marijuana, however if they did there would have been serious consequences. So the first question we need to answer is, “How are so many young adults getting away with illegal drug use in today’s world?”

Different names for common street drugs

The first answer to that question is that many of these drugs have street names that have no relevance at all to the substance they are using. There are many slang terms for drugs that students may come across over. As an example drugs like cocaine and codeine are currently being called by other names such as blow c, coke, freeze, sizzurp, purple, and lean. Another example of different terminology being used to describe a drug is when Adderall is referred to by addy, study buddies, dexies, zing, pep pills. Finally, another very well-known street drug such as marijuana has many different names like weed, pot, herb, broccoli, green, and many more are used throughout high schools campuses. In my personal opinion broccoli seems the most suitable fit, because at the end of the day everyone needs their daily dose of green right? (That’s called irony). It might seem light-hearted but it really is a serious issue. The college use of drugs has grown 11.8% and will continue to rise if nothing is done about it. Therefore as a parent or older adult it’s very important that you become aware of some of the highly used slang phrases for these drugs. It can protect you from dangerous activity going on in your area and give you a better idea of how to detect if these drugs are being used by a loved one who doesn’t want you to know. Finding the full list of illegal drugs and street names online can be a good starting point to use as a reference.

How to combat drug abuse

College campuses are always the hardest place to stop the distribution of common street drugs; they are readily available and too easy to come into contact with. With the current situation, there is a good chance that more than one of your son or daughters friends has access to such drugs and may even be using them. Therefore equipping them with the right information before and during school can always have a major impact on the decisions you make. This means it is extremely important to continue to educate yourself on the drugs that are out there and the effects they can have. With that being said there is only a certain amount you can do as a parent to keep your children safe, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink it. At the end of the day, if they want to find drugs and use them on a college campus there is no way of truly stopping them. So in that case, using a drug and alcohol rehab center may be the best decision for you. If you feel unsure about what to do, giving a specialist a call is never a bad option. There are some warning signs that drugs are present in your son or daughter’s life, these can range an increase in aggression, abnormal sleeping or eating patters, unusual scars or bruising on the body or a constant need for money. If you feel they are demonstrating some of these signs then it is never too early to give a drug and alcohol rehab center a call. Common street drugs can be life threatening and the sooner this issue is treated the better.

Drug Addiction

Family and substance abuse

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Family and substance abuse – A reason for drug and alcohol intervention

Drug and alcohol abuse can lead anyone down a grueling road in life. They can become very dependent on these substances making them helpless in breaking the cycle. Seeing a friend or close relative go down this path can be tough to deal with, it not only affects them but can also impact your life depending on the situation. Even though it may be a lengthy process, confronting them about the problem and starting on the road to recovery is always the best move. Although in some instances, family and friends let the addict become comfortable.

Reasons why family don’t get drug and alcohol intervention sooner

It may seem obvious that family members should be the first to respond to these situations and help them quit. However, sometimes the addict is unable to get the help they need from these family members. Sometimes they are unaware of what is going on or even the extent of the situation. If you are not constantly surrounded by this person you may not know how much they are abusing. Another reason is that some of these family members may also be abusers. In low income neighborhoods this is sometimes a likely case, and therefore your first line of protection -family- is unable to help you overcome these issues and point you in the right direction. Finally these loved ones may feel pressured by concern, fear or guilt to put off ending the enabling behaviors. In reality, delaying a family-member or friend from entering rehabilitation will only make the problem worse. In cases like these, the support of a professional interventionist can make all the difference. If you feel having this support could help your situation with a loved one, Family First Intervention is a drug and alcohol intervention center that offers goal orientated step by step guidance for your family. They will help you and your loved ones accept the situation and willingly undergo treatment, but also to provide your family with closure in regards to your loved one’s addiction.

Reasons you should intervene sooner

If you have convinced yourself that they will be able to stop on your own and getting involved is not the right thing to do then you should think again. The dangers of these types of addictions are something that cannot be stressed enough. There is never a good enough excuse for you to not try and get in the way of their substance abuse. It takes a lot of support and encouragement to battle such an addiction and usually takes a push to get started in the right direction. If you are unsure of some of the clues here are some tell tail signs that they are becoming an addict:

 

  • If you have found them hiding drugs.
  • If they are going to the doctor to get more of their prescribed drugs than normal.
  • If they have been stealing money to buy more drugs.
  • If their sleep patterns do not seem normal.
  • Or if they have bloodshot eyes or bad breathe more than usual.

All of these are signs that your friend or loved one is becoming an addict and you should seek help immediately. There is no time like the present to cut off someone from an addiction, and the longer you leave it will only get worse. Hoping for them to stop is not the right answer. To see if it’s time for you to stand up to the situation and put an end to their addiction take the free family first intervention drug and alcohol intervention quiz. It will give you more information pertaining to your situation and will advise you on the best options for you.

Drug Addiction, Holistic Health, Mental Health

The effects of binge drinking in college

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Wine glass and Bottle on a wooden background

Alcoholism in college these days is a growing problem; campuses around America are just starting to implement different types of programs to raise awareness of the dangers and negative effects it can have on your heart long-term.

Many college students actively engage in partying. We have all been to a crazy party sometime or other in our college careers where at least one person leaves feeling pretty sick and can’t remember what happened. At first glance, this doesn’t seem like too much of a problem, and these young adults tell themselves it’s an easy mistake to make and hopefully they just drink more responsibly next time. However, sometimes a person’s affinity for alcohol can become too much and it eventually turns into an addiction we all know too well – alcohol abuse.

Woman playing outside

Many colleges know this can be a major problem, especially with how easily alcohol can be obtained on a college campus these days. For example, the University of Illinois has a page called “rethinkthedrink” where information can be found about the serious risks of drinking alcohol and attempts to educate students on how to drink responsibly on a night. It helps you make a plan for the night by asking how much you plan to spend on drinks and what you plan to consume per hour, thus reminded the individual to maintain a safe and responsible drinking pace throughout the night. Campuses know they will never be able to fully put an end to drinking in college (and the use of other drugs for that matter), but they are trying their best to reduce the number of injuries and even casualties per year because of drinking accidents. As the saying goes, it’s all fun and games until something bad happens. Recently I had to bear the horrible news that a friend’s friend at a party had drunkenly stumbled off the dance floor and is now in the hospital needing major surgery.

 

There are multiple reasons why people may become alcoholics over the course of their college career. These reasons could range from exam pressure, loneliness and even just becoming psychologically dependent on it, as it is a drug after all (which most people seem to forget). According to the statistics “in 2015, 26.9 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they engaged in binge drinking in the past month; 7.0 percent reported that they engaged in heavy alcohol use in the past month”.

If you think you have fallen into this trap and slowly beginning to consume an unhealthy amount of alcohol Elevate Rehab can help you overcome an addiction and treat the mental health issues that often go hand in hand with drug and alcohol abuse. Based in the beautiful landscape of northern California, it is one of America’s prominent alcohol rehab facilities.

 

Making sure to stop the addiction before it goes too far is key, as alcohol can have a wide variety of negative effects on the body. Most of all it can impact your heart. There are many types of life threatening heart problems alcohol abuse can give you, one of these being atrial fibrillation. Alcohol poses a unique threat to heart health because it increases a person’s risk of this issue by 60%. This is a dangerous form of arrhythmia which makes the heart incapable of efficiently moving blood into the heart’s ventricles making the individual more susceptible to blood clots, strokes, heart failures and other life-threatening complications. These are not issues that you want to have to deal with; binge drinking alcohol is clearly not worth the risks that come with it.

 

Along with dangerous short term and long term heart problems, alcohol abuse can also contribute to cancer, anemia, cardiovascular disease, dementia, seizures, depression, memory loss and many other health problems. These diseases are a steep price to pay for what started out to be a little bit of fun at a party. If you currently drink, please drink responsibly and if you think you have an alcohol addiction please seek treatment and help right away.

Portrait of teenage girl sitting on a bed beside a window