Meth Addiction Recovery: Getting Used to Sobriety
Meth is a hard-hitting drug. It takes your body on a wild ride every time you use it. Over time, the chemical influences can really harm your body. Drug rehab is essential with a drug as powerful as crystal meth. But the challenges don’t stop once you get sober. With a lot of support and persistence, you can start feeling better and rebuilding your life. Take a moment to better understand how and why your body may take a while to recover from crystal meth addiction.
Possible Brain Damage From Meth
Your brain is a very flexible and resilient organ, but it can’t always bounce back when it’s been damaged. Meth can significantly harm your brain over time. In some cases, normal functioning can return after a few years of sobriety. But the longer you have used meth, the more likely you are to suffer some level of permenant damage.
One of the biggest problems with meth addiction is its powerful effect on the body’s dopamine reward system. Dopamine is neurotransmitter that allows you to feel pleasure naturally. Eating, sex, or an happy event causes dopamine to flow through your body. It keeps you motivated to do things that are essential to your survival.
Meth overstimulates the dopamine system, causing an intense rush sensation in the early stages of use. Over time, your dopamine system shuts down. Excessive meth use can even kill nerve endings that use dopamine. When you get sober, the dopamine system doesn’t quite know what to do for a while. As a result, you may find that fatigue and depression challenge you in your first year or two of recovery.
Feeling Fatigue After Sobriety
Many crystal meth users have a lot of trouble feeling energetic shortly after becoming sober. Meth is a powerful stimulant, giving you an unnaturally high feeling of energy during your first several uses. As time progresses and your body adjusts to the presence of meth, you need the drug just to feel normal.
Your body dramatically alters the production of dopamine and other chemicals that help you regulate your cycles of energy and rest. Also, the addiction lifestyle will cause you to neglect your nutrition and physical health. This can also be part of the fatigue experienced in early recovery.
Feelings Of Depression
The lack of dopamine moving through your body also affects your mood. Without the natural ebb and flow of dopamine, you will likely feel many symptoms of depression. You may lack motivation or interest in doing things, feel hopeless, and feel unhappy much of the time.
Exercise, good nutrition, and healthy social connections can gradually retrain your brain and body to enjoy naturally positive things. It may take some time and patience, but recovering meth addicts can and do get through this period. If you are newly sober from meth, you can do it, too.
Meth Addiction – Adjusting To Sobriety
When you get sober from meth, you go through stimulant withdrawal. You experience the exact opposite of what you felt when you were using meth. Fatigue, depression, and lack of motivation are common hurdles in your first year or two of sobriety. When meth use is stopped early enough, you may eventually feel more like you did before your addiction. But you’ll need drug rehab to get you started. Don’t hesitate to call us for more information today.
Tags: addiction recovery, crystal meth rehab, crystal-meth-addiction, drug treatment centers, drug-abuse, drug-rehab, relapse prevention
I have adhd and I took ritalin and adderall for 7 years. I started using meth and drinking heavily. I also did other drugs. I have now been using meth for 10 years on and off. But for the last 5 years its been almost daily. I stopped my prescription adhd meds when I was 14 and I’m now 25. I want to stop using but its to accessible. I need some tips on how to get clean for my family.