The Canyon

 photo credit: wonker

An addiction to prescription drugs can feel like it comes from out of nowhere.  At one point, you are managing pain from a car accident.  A few months later, you are using three times your usual dose and seeing multiple doctors just to keep up with your ever growing need for pills.  How did your life turn upside down so quickly?  Prescription drug addiction is more common and easier to fall into than many people think.

Common Addictive Prescription Drugs

Prescription drugs that tend to be addictive come in three basic forms.  Central Nervous System (CNS) depressants slow the nervous system down.  These include drugs like Xanax, Valium, and Nembutal (for insomnia).  CNS stimulants include Ritalin and Dexadrine, which have an amphetamine base.  Narcotic analgesics are used to treat severe pain, also making you sleepy and slowing down the respiratory system.  Some commonly used drugs include Vicodin and Oxycontin. 

How Prescription Drug Addiction Can Develop

The prescription drugs described above are quickly addictive and can cause a medical emergency if the drugs are stopped suddenly without medical supervision.  Often times, a prescription drug addiction occurs because there is no specific “exit plan” for getting off the medication or the doctor’s instructions aren’t followed exactly. 

This kind of addiction can strike down stay-at-home moms recovering from a car accident, highly achieving executives with attention problems, or energetic productive citizens recovering from painful surgery.  Not every person who is prescribed painkillers or stimulants becomes addicted.  However, the potential is there each and every time someone takes these medications in a way that is risky.

Risk Factors for Prescription Drug Addiction

This is a list of possible risk factors for developing a prescription drug addiction.  Notice that anything over-stretching a person’s coping skills, health, or abilities puts them at risk.

Not following doctor’s medication directions exactly
Depression or bipolar disorder
High level of stress, chronic stress
Poor economic conditions
Chronic fatigue/overworked
Poor self esteem, poor social support
Daily use of alcohol
Family or personal history of addiction
Poor health (easy access)
Addictive personality (low self control, high aggression, high risk taking, socially difficult)
Requiring greater and greater doses to feel original pain relief

Prescription Drug Addiction and Dual Diagnosis

Prescription drugs can be highly addictive, especially dangerous when give for mental illness symptoms such as anxiety.  Xanax is such a drug, often prescribed to help people manage severe anxiety.  When abused, Xanax can produce painful harsh withdrawal symptoms and make an anxiety condition worse.  This becomes a vicious cycle - using more drugs to help the anxiety, using more drugs to avoid the awful withdrawal process. 

Prescription Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery

The Canyon is well equipped to treat individuals with prescription drug addictions.  Few treatment centers offer highly trained professionals prepared to deal with a variety of mental illnesses as well as challenging drug and alcohol addictions.  A person needing prescription drug treatment is especially urged to seek a facility capable of supervising the difficult and medically risky detox process.  The Canyon specializes in a full range of prescription drug rehab services including drug detox, drug addiction treatment, and drug addiction aftercare.  The blog for Meditox of Palm Beach also has a great deal of information about prescription drug addiction. 

Your Reaction and Experience

Have you ever fallen into an addiction with prescription painkillers or medication for mental disorders?  How quickly did your addiction develop?  It’s so easy for prescription medication to start out as a helpful tool and end up a dangerous addiction - I’m interested to hear your story.

Some feel that the lines dividing alcohol use, alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence are too fine to distinguish. Certainly, after a few drinks, those lines tend to blur even more. Being objective about yourself is difficult in any situation but when it comes to alcohol addiction and the need for alcohol rehab, it can be next to impossible.

Alcohol Abuse Versus Alcohol Addiction

There are specific characteristics that define alcohol abuse versus alcohol addiction. Alcohol abuse can be dangerous but it is less critical than physical dependence upon alcohol or alcohol addiction. Alcohol abuse certainly requires attention, but alcohol addiction is a serious medical disease and requires alcohol rehab and possibly detox in order to begin the journey back to a life without addiction.

Alcohol Abuse

Alcohol abuse is defined as the use of alcohol to the point that it causes problems in their lives, but not so much that it is completely out of control. Those who abuse alcohol have some boundaries around their drinking, although they still drink too much to the point that they hurt themselves and present a danger to others.

They are not, however, physically addicted to alcohol. This means that they can stop drinking at any time for any length of time without experiencing withdrawal symptoms. However, they may have health issues, problems at work due to their hangovers and a high number of sick days, or issues with drunk driving.

One of the largest risks of alcohol abuse is the fact that many who are abusers will soon become physically addicted, the defining characteristic of an alcoholic.

Alcohol Addiction

Whether you call it alcoholism, alcohol dependence or alcohol addiction, make no mistake: when your body is physically dependent upon alcohol, you will need an alcohol detox and rehab in order to treat the disease. Some characteristics of alcoholism include:

* The need for more alcohol or other drugs to fight off withdrawal symptoms like tremors
* The need to drink more and more alcohol in order to feel its effects
* Having a hard time limiting the number of drinks once drinking begins
* Physical and mental cravings for alcohol
* An inability to stop drinking even when trying to abstain

Alcohol Rehab at The Canyon

If you need treatment for alcohol addiction, The Canyon provides an alcohol detox and alcohol rehab that will give you a solid foundation to begin a new life without alcohol dependence. Check out our site and let us know what you think!

Internet Addicts don’t steal to pay for their habits. They don’t lock themselves in bathrooms and shove needles up their arms or snort things through their noses. Their addictions don’t cause car accidents or impair their judgment or ability to make decisions, but that doesn’t mean an Internet addiction isn’t dangerous.

Internet addictions have broken up marriages and strained friendships. They’ve torn apart families and gotten in the way of school and work. Because an Internet addiction isn’t seen as life-threatening as drug addiction, it’s a lot more acceptable. Because it’s legal doesn’t mean we should be any less aware of what can happen if we spend all our time online.

The Internet vs. The Real World

The Internet is attractive to so many people because it offers something we don’t have in the real world, anonymity. People who are shy or have trouble speaking to others can have intense discussions online. People who feel they’re unattractive or unpopular can have many online friends. In fact, there’s really no need to leave the house anymore. Now that we can shop, chat, play, date, even have sex online. One can see how easy it is for someone to get hooked.

Signs of Internet Addiction

There are those who spend a lot of time on the Internet and there are those who are just plain addicted. People who spend too much time online, might have trouble tearing themselves away from their computer screens, but people who are addicted can’t seem to do so at all. Here are some signs of Internet Addiction:

• Spending hours online without a break.
• Preferring to spend time with a computer over friends and family.
• Lying about the amount of time spent online.
• Hiding what you do online.
• Checking email several times an hour.
• Family complains about the amount of time spent online.
• Thoughts are always on the Internet – even when offline.
• Logging on while at work or school instead of working or studying.
• The first thing an addict does when family leaves the house is log on.

Internet Addiction Defense

In July 2007, a Nevada couple was charged with child neglect after their Internet gaming addiction kept them from caring for their two children aged 11 and 22 months. The couple claimed they spent so much time online, their kids where left to “fend for themselves.” The children were underweight, malnourished, dehydrated, suffered from infections and filthy. One child had cat urine in her hair. The couple was unemployed and used a $50,000 inheritance to support themselves and pay for equipment. The couple pleaded guilty to two counts of child neglect which can land them each a dozen years in jail. (Source: bloggernews)

In 2000, a teen who vowed to “finish what Columbine started” blamed his threats on his Internet addiction. 18 year old Michael Ian Campbell sent the threatening note to a sophomore at Columbine High School. The school ended up closing down for a couple of days as a result. Campbell was sentenced to four months in prison. (Source: nytimes.com)

Crimes & Other Addictions Attributed to Internet Addiction

Many Internet addicts are also addicted to:

• Online gambling – Some online addicts turn to robbery to support and pay off gambling debts.
• Pedophilia – With child pornography available online, more cases of pedophilia and predators searching for children to have sex with are surfacing.
• Identity theft – Hackers break into online databases and steal personal information.
• Cyber Harassment, Stalking and Bullying – The anonymity of the Internet allows many individuals to be bolder than they would in real life. Thus, cyber bullies are becoming more prevalent as is stalking and bullying others online.

Statistics and Studies

The Washington Post listed some interesting statistics:

• About 6% of surveyed individuals responded, “their relationships suffered as a result of excessive Internet use.”
• About 9% attempted to conceal “nonessential Internet use.”
• Nearly 4% reported feeling “preoccupied by the Internet when offline.”
• About 8% said they used the Internet as a way to escape problems
• Almost 14% reported they “found it hard to stay away from the Internet for several days at a time.”

A 2006 telephone-based Stanford University Study revealed one in eight individuals displayed at least one “problematic” sign of excessive Internet use. Elias Aboujaoude, a clinical Assistant Psycholology and Behavioral Sciences Professor at Stanford’s Impulse Control Disorders Clinic likens these problematic behaviors such as the constant need to check email or visit online forums and chat rooms as being similar to the cravings drug addicts experience.

Some statistics from the Stanford University study:

• 13.7 percent of those interviewed found it hard to stay away from the Internet for several days at a time
• 12.4 percent stayed online longer than intended very often or often
• 12.3 percent had seen a need to cut back on Internet use at some point
• 8.7 percent attempted to conceal non-essential Internet use from family, friends and employers
• 8.2 percent used the Internet as a way to escape problems or relieve negative mood
• 5.9 percent felt their relationships suffered as a result of excessive Internet use

Treatment:

So other than shutting down forever, how does one treat an Internet addiction? In China online addicts are put behind bars and given shock treatments to ensure they don’t abuse their access. In the German town of Boltenhagen there is actually a camp geared towards weaning kids from the Internet. These are rather drastic and there are more recommended recourses:

Most treatment involves therapy, including getting to the root of the addiction. What does the addict do when online? Socialize? Gamble? Shop? If so, the treatment might not necessarily be to control Internet use but work on socialization skills or addictions to shopping, gambling or sex. In fact, many argue the addiction isn’t to the Internet itself but what one does when one is online.

Other therapy relies on motivation. What will motivate the user to spend less time online? Since most people can’t function at work, or even at home without at a computer, the key is moderation rather than abstinence.

Conclusion

If you find you’re online more than off, that your real-world relationships are sacrificed to cyber friends you’ve never met, and you can’t stay away from your computer … you may be addicted to the Internet.

Because Internet addiction doesn’t impair one’s ability to judge and think clearly like drugs, it’s a more socially acceptable addiction. Plus, many who spend large blocks of time online refuse to believe there’s such a thing as Internet addiction, anyway.

If the time you spend online is straining relationships in the real world and getting in the way or school or work, do seek help or at least make an attempt to spend less time online. As many things as there are to do online, there are more in the real world. Get out and explore.