Acupuncture in Drug Addiction Treatment
The goals of Chinese medicine—using approaches like acupuncture—are very different from our goals here in the United States. For one thing, Chinese medicine is very preventative in nature, offering you treatments that focus on whole body wellness. Americans, on the other hand, often don’t even think about their health until they don’t feel well… and then they treat the symptoms they’re experiencing rather than the cause.
Recently, however, Americans have started to pay attention to Chinese medicine and incorporate it into medical treatments like drug and alcohol addiction treatment. Western research and thousands of years of Eastern experience has proven over and over that acupuncture is an effective part of treatment.
Acupuncture Basics
The only tools used in acupuncture are long thin needles that are inserted into the top layers of skin painlessly along certain meridians or routes of energy that flow beneath the skin. The meridians and the energy are invisible, but it is believed that energy along these routes can get blocked and that the needles, inserted at the correct points, can unblock that energy. The Chinese believe that many ailments of the mind and body are directly related to these blocked energy routes. Drug addiction, which manifests with both mental, psychological, spiritual and physical symptoms responds well to acupuncture treatment.
Those Who Are Against Acupuncture in Drug Addiction Treatment Say…
Though research has been done that proves the effectiveness of acupuncture in drug treatment, there are some who don’t think that the studies were extensive enough or followed the recipients of the treat more long enough to be definitive.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) sponsored a review of acupuncture in detox programs and had this to say:
“It is clear that some of the reasons for the wide divergence of opinion regarding the efficacy of acupuncture result from the non-standard terminology used to describe it, the wide range of procedures that have been called acupuncture, the lack of a clear mechanism to explain the purported benefits of acupuncture treatment and perhaps most importantly, the lack of systematic clinical research in this area.”
Those Who Are For Acupuncture in Drug Addiction Treatment Say…
Though energy is not and cannot be medically quantified according to Western methods, thousands of years of effective practice is difficult to argue. Western science has proven that the insertion of the needles used in acupuncture stimulates the production of beta-endorphins, which could be a modern way of talking about ‘energy’ and ‘life force.’ Also, a number of studies have proven that the needles don’t even have to be placed in the correct positions according to meridians in order to be effective. Acupuncture in any form has a positive effect when integrated into drug and alcohol addiction treatment, minimizing the physical withdrawal symptoms and psychological cravings and lengthening the time in sobriety without a relapse.
Acupuncture in Drug Addiction Treatment
It is relatively simple to integrate acupuncture into alcohol and drug rehab whether in group settings or one-on-one. The Canyon makes sure to incorporate a number of alternative treatments like acupuncture. If you’d like more information on how acupuncture works or how it affects drug addiction recovery, contact The Canyon today.
Tags: acupuncture treatment, alternative drug treatment, Drug Addiction Treatment, drug-rehab
If you like this post subscribe to the feed or subscribe by Email