If you are hooked on drugs or alcohol then you should consider the idea that you will need detoxing in order to get well and start living a new way of life.  This means that you are going to have to stop putting chemicals into your body at some point and start making some healthier decisions.  Of course when you do this your body will cry out for more drugs and alcohol and you will experience withdrawal symptoms.  Depending on which drugs you are taking and how long you’ve been on them and what quantities you consume, this withdrawal might be short and easy or long and intense (or anywhere in between).

Some people can detox on their own.  If you are coming off of, say, marijuana and crack cocaine, then you can easily detox yourself at home.  Just stop using the drugs and go on about your business.  Those 2 drugs in particular have almost no withdrawal symptoms at all.  You will be just fine as long as you do not put any more of the substance into your body.

On the other hand, say you are physically addicted to alcohol and consume large quantities every single day.  In this case, you cannot detox yourself, and in fact doing so may kill you.  What you need is to go into rehab or even to the emergency room.  If you stop drinking and start shaking, then this is a bad sign and you need to get professional help.  Failure to do so can be fatal.

Likewise, those who are addicted to opiate drugs, such as pain pills or heroin, are not likely to have an easy detox if they try to do it by themselves.  Even though there is no risk of death (like there is with alcohol detox), the pain and misery and discomfort that the opiate addict will feel is generally far worse that what the alcoholic will experience.  Therefore, it is almost impossible for the opiate addict to get clean on their own if they do not have some sort of help for detox.  If you are hooked on opiates then you should try to get into treatment or rehab, so that you can start living a new life without having to self medicate all the time.  If you need help with detoxing from opiates, either get to rehab or ask your doctor for help, as he might be able to prescribe you medicine to help you get off of the opiates.