Drug Addiction

  • Drug Addiction

    Drug Dependence vs. Drug Addiction

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    There are many terms thrown around in relation to drug use, and it can be difficult to discern what they mean. Drug addiction is an already misunderstood disease, and the confusion regarding terminology only adds to the problem. While drug dependence and drug addiction are often related, they do not mean the same thing. Keep reading to learn more about the difference between drug dependence and drug addiction.

    What is drug dependence?

    Drug dependence involves a physical condition. Repeated exposure to a drug or frequent usage causes the body to adapt to the drug. The easiest way to identify drug dependence is through withdrawal symptoms when the drug is no longer used.

  • Alcoholism (AUD) | Drug Addiction

    Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome PAWS: Symptoms, Treatment Types

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    When most people think of drug and alcohol withdrawal, they probably picture the initial withdrawal symptoms that occur when a person stops using drugs or alcohol and undergoes the detox process. While these initial withdrawal symptoms can be unpleasant and intense, another form of withdrawal comes later. According to the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, a second form of withdrawal, called post-acute withdrawal syndrome (PAWS), includes symptoms that occur for several weeks or even months after a person stops using drugs and alcohol. Other names for this condition include post-withdrawal syndrome, prolonged withdrawal syndrome, or protracted withdrawal syndrome, and it most often occurs with alcohol, benzodiazepine, and opiate misuse.

    Symptoms of Post-Acute Withdrawal

    Post-acute withdrawal symptoms may vary based upon the substance from which a person is withdrawing. According to a report in CNS Drugs, post-acute withdrawal syndrome for alcohol typically involves the following symptoms:

  • Alcoholism (AUD) | Drug Addiction

    Identifying Signs of Addiction in a Loved One

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    Has it ever seemed to you that something wasn’t quite right with your loved one? Were you unsure what the problem was? There are many possibilities in life when things are off with a person, but if you suspect addiction, the following can help you identify signs of addiction in a loved one so that help can be attained for them.

    First, it’s essential to define what addiction is. People with addiction engage in compulsive behaviors, such as alcohol and drug misuse, that can be harmful to them in many ways. Damage can come in all forms. Physical, emotional, mental, and financial. This lifestyle can cause their relationships to fall apart, even with the ones they care about the most. Addiction is a chronic state of desire for a substance or action that they must have, at the expense of all else in life. All people are susceptible; no one is exempt.

  • Drug Addiction | Recovery Support

    The HR Toolkit for Addiction in the Workplace

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    Next week, Pines Recovery Life Detox will be attending DisruptHR Miami. This event is a conference, of sorts, that brings together some of the top HR professionals from Florida and beyond. The purpose of this conference is to challenge those professionals to think beyond the normal HR structure, to confront them with issues, ideas, and situations that will spark thought, creativity, and leadership within their industries in tackling issues that some HR teams tend to neglect or shy away from.

    We plan on bringing what is still a very stigmatized situation into the light at DisruptHR, and offering the solutions that these HR pros, and their peers, need when this situation becomes real.

    Addiction carries with it some very unfortunate labels. Lazy, weak, careless, selfish, a liability. These words get tossed around a lot when the business world at large discusses addiction and the issues that come along with it. While none of these labels are anywhere near reality, they still exist and many opinions about a person are formed based around these labels when that person approaches someone for help or their identity as a person with addiction is revealed in some way.

  • Drug Addiction

    Why Me? | The Selective Nature of Addiction

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    Addiction is an epidemic that has run rampant across humanity for centuries. Helen of Troy was said to have utilized opium, given to her by an Egyptian queen, in helping to treat the Greek warriors in Homer’s Odyssey – “…presently she cast a drug into the wine of which they drank to lull all pain and anger and bring forgetfulness of every sorrow.” Roman addictions, as well as Spartan and Greek, are well documented. To go “berserk” is a term that comes from Viking Berserkers, a much feared warrior who would rush into battle mostly nude, no matter the weather, incredibly high on psychedelic drugs to cancel out all fear and pain during battle. Yes, addiction has quite literally been a part of humanity since the earliest days of our existence.

    Yet, despite that, addiction is not something that runs throughout humanity. There are many millions of humans alive today who seem to be immune to addiction. No matter what they do, or what they try, when they tire of it, or they just don’t feel like it anymore, they stop. Just like that. They drop it, they’re done, they never think about it again, nor do they suffer side effects from stopping whatever “it” was.

  • Drug Addiction | Recovery Support

    How to Love Someone With a Substance Use Disorder

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    Addiction not only rips apart a life, it does the same thing to the relationships and loved ones held most dear by the person with addiction.

    It is a very difficult thing to watch a loved one slip into addiction. Suddenly, someone that you once knew so well has become a completely different person, a person that you can’t trust, a person who seems to resist every helping hand and seek out every harmful situation they can possibly find, a person who pushes away love, a person who pushes away you. You know that this is the addiction working, taking control, but you can’t help but be affected by it. You can’t help feeling hurt, angry, helpless. You can’t help feeling like you want to give up.

    And, unfortunately, many people do give up. They try and try until they’ve had enough – enough betrayal, enough rejection, enough hurt. Their person with addiction loved one has hurt them so many times, maybe even betrayed their trust as well, that the need to protect themselves from more hurt and more harm has overtaken the love that they feel for this person who has been changed so drastically by addiction. And they give up. They cut ties, they banish, they forget, they toss aside.

  • Drug Addiction

    Addiction at Work

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    There’s a stigma with addiction – that of the person with addiction passing out in an alley somewhere, unable to move, barely able to function at all. While that image of addiction does come from a real place, there’s a far more prevalent face of addiction out in the world – that of the highly functioning professional. Drug & alcohol addiction knows no bounds. It is not a poor person’s disease, it does not care about race, religion, social status, or career. Addiction affects every tier of society. That fact can be very surprising to people on the fringes of the addiction disease. Below are the career fields that rank highest for addiction among the workforce. You’ll see that addiction really does run the gamut, and permeates some unexpected places.

  • Drug Addiction | Heroin Addiction | Opiate Detox | Opioid Addiction

    The Heroin Journey

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    “What’s going to happen to me?” It’s one of the most common questions we hear when the heroin addiction treatment process is in its beginning moments. And that makes perfect sense! Something that your body depends on to feel “good” and “normal” isn’t going to be available anymore. What does that mean for you? What will your body and mind go through? And what does a treatment facility do to help in that process?

    While everyone’s treatment journey is unique, a few generalities exist. These include things that can be highlighted to help answer some of those burning questions about your journey from addiction to recovery, and what happens in between.

  • Drug Addiction

    Why People With Addiction Play the Victim — and How Family Can Respond

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    By the time addiction has become truly problematic, a person will come up with a bunch sophisticated defense mechanisms to continue feeding his/her addiction. One of these defense mechanisms is playing the victim role.

    Why do people with addiction play the victim?

    Knowingly playing the victim role helps a person with addiction to control and influence the thoughts and feelings of others, most commonly parents and spouses. A person with addiction hardly copes with their actions — they’re ashamed or afraid to acknowledge this and seek help — so they justifies their actions as a way of controlling the situation.

  • Alcohol Addiction | Drug Addiction | Getting Sober | Recovery Support

    Relapse Rates (or: How to Avoid Becoming A Statistic)

    ByPines Recovery Life Staff

    Over the past years, relapses have taken the lives of people with addiction and alcoholisms all around the world — people who have been struggling to live another day. Unfortunately, too many succumb to chemical dependency, despite measures taken by local and federal government against the opioid epidemic in the United States.

    No one person or organization can be blamed solely for this rise in relapse rates. For many, starting recovery is a long and messy process, and failure points are in abundance. Admitting is one thing, but accepting is what can prevent a relapse and lower relapse rates over time.