How to Actually Stop Using Drugs and Alcohol when You Are Hooked on Them
What is the best way to actually stop using drugs and alcohol when you are hooked on them? There are a few different things you might do and the nature of your withdrawal will dictate which is the best choice for you.
For starters, if you are going through a severe withdrawal from any of the following, you should seek immediate medical attention:
* Alcohol
* Methadone
* Barbiturates
* Benzodiazepines (Valium, Librium, Klonipin, Ativan, etc.).
I repeat: if you are going through a severe withdrawal from any of those, then you should probably go straight to an emergency room. All of those substances could cause death if you stop taking them cold turkey.
In addition to that, if you are using any of those substances and you do not seem to have a severe withdrawal from them, it is still probably a good idea to go to a detox center in order to get off of them.
Now there are other substances out there that may or may not require detox as well, and if you think you need it, by all means, call up a rehab and ask them about it. They will be more than happy to advise you on what level of services that you need. That is their job, after all.
So really there are 2 basic levels of decision here if you want to stop using drugs or alcohol:
1) Stop on your own.
2) Seek professional help.
Pretty much everyone will make attempts to do it on their own first, as this is just human nature to minimize our problems in some form of denial. We reason that “we are not that bad” and thus should be able to stop by ourselves. People will inevitably do this whether you warn them against it or not. Most will quickly learn exactly what they are up against and just how bad their withdrawal symptoms are.
Some folks will be lucky and have little to no withdrawal symptoms. Some drugs produce almost no withdrawal symptoms, at least none that are physical or need to be treated in any way (such as marijuana and cocaine). Now in some cases you can still have some symptoms from going cold turkey from those substances, but it will never warrant medical attention.
And so many will try to stop on their own, and they may or may not succeed.
Now here is the key: If you try to stop on your own and you FAIL, then you need to quickly move to step number two in this process: asking for help.
Asking for help is almost hard for anyone to do, but it is a necessary step in this process if you cannot detox yourself. You have to ask someone else to help you to detox. Your best course of action at this point is to call up a local treatment center and start asking them what you would need to do in order to gain admittance to their program. They will do what they can to help you and to get you in the door. Of course it is all about the funding and whether or not you have a way to fund your treatment. Rehab does cost money and in particular the detox portion of treatment is even more expensive than usual because of all the medical staff that is necessary.
But the cost of rehab and even detox is minuscule compared to the long term benefit that you could gain if you stay clean and sober. If you want sobriety and recovery badly enough then it is worth your trouble to invest in treatment. Yes it is an investment because:
a) It costs a lot of money, and
b) You end up with a huge return on that money, provided you stay clean and sober.
Imagine if you went the next 10 years without using any drugs or alcohol. Think of how much better your life would get, how much happier you would be, how much more productive you would be. This is what your money is buying when you go to rehab.
Worth considering.
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