If you have a drug addition, you already know the most uncomfortable part – withdrawal. Not every drug has physical withdrawal symptoms, but practically every addictive drug has a psychological addiction. Much of the power of addiction is it’s affect on your thoughts and beliefs. When you face an ugly withdrawal period, you could go to a drug treatment center that provides medically supervised drug detox, or go cold turkey on your own. Let’s look honestly at both sides.

Privacy

Cold Turkey – Certainly this option would provide a lot of privacy. You could choose to isolate yourself completely and you would have no interruptions. You could ask a friend to check in on your after a couple of days. However, it pays to look at the rest of the list to see if being totally alone is really the safest idea.

Drug Treatment Center – Doing a drug detox at a private drug treatment center gives you about as much privacy as you could get with some important benefits. No one from outside the drug rehab will know you are even there unless you give express permission to release information. Most importantly, you can be assured a safe medically-assisted detox experience.

Discomfort

Cold Turkey – The pain and physical discomfort of the withdrawal experience often draws people back into their addiction. Depending on the drug you are withdrawing from, those hours and days can be anywhere from miserable and annoying to unbearable and dangerous. Many people simply go back to the drugs because they can’t handle the withdrawal symptoms and can’t see the end in sight.

Drug Treatment Center- Going the professional route doesn’t guarantee a pain-free experience. But for some drug withdrawals, a doctor can prescribe medications to ease the physical cravings and lessen the overall discomfort. This is most commonly done with opiates due to their highly physically addictive nature.

Emotional Support

Cold Turkey – You may feel like your willpower and desire to be done with drugs will be enough to get you through. But keep in mind how emotionally fragile you are from being on drugs in the first place. What happens when it gets really tough? Can you count to your friends who are on drugs and understand the experience? Can you turn to friends and family who are sober and want you to come through it, but may not know how to help you?

Drug Treatment Center – Professionals at a drug treatment center have helped many people in your situation. They won’t get rattled by the emotional things you say or do. These folks are also trained to help you stay encouraged, listen to you, and give you accurate information on your progress to give you hope. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Something Going Wrong

Cold Turkey – Most people are not at risk of dying from attempting a cold turkey detox at home (although it might feel like it). It can be extremely uncomfortable, but it rarely becomes fatal. However, if you have untreated medical problems and you try detox on your own, you could be putting your life at risk.

Drug Treatment Center- The advantage of going to a drug treatment center is knowing that your health is being carefully watched. If anything should get difficult, you can be transferred to a nearby hospital until you are out of danger.

More than likely, you didn’t start out life with aspirations of having a drug addiction. Taking addictive drugs is sort of a “something is better than nothing” approach when managing an untreated mental illness. Unfortunately, moments of your life slip by forever as you wander in the wilderness of drug addiction and emotional pain. The price for temporary relief from drugs may be more than you realize.

Mental Illness and Drug Addiction Living Hell

A person with untreated mental illness will tell you how awful daily living really is. Minutes of misery feel like hours. Hours get sucked away just trying to isolate from others, rationalize with irrational emotional beasts inside, and cope with the basic responsibilities.

Most people in this situation would give anything to be free of the burden, even if just for a short time. But what most people in this spot don’t (and can’t ) rationally consider is the fallout of choosing drugs to deal with mental illness.

When you are plagued with depression, anxiety, or unpredictable mood swings, your judgment and critical thinking skills are messed up. A logical thinking process takes a bit of time to develop. This is nearly impossible with a constant stream of interruptive thoughts spelling doom and gloom, changing the subject, and expanding reasonable concerns into do-or-die catastrophies. Amazingly, you might scoff at the idea of drug treatment. It may not even cross your mind.

Beaten Down By Thoughts Drug Addiction Takes Hold

So instead of swimming upstream against the strong current of out-of-control thoughts and feelings, a person taking drugs to soothe mental illness minimizes the problems. This is a one time thing. It won’t really be that bad for me. I can stop any time. I won’t ever get hooked, it’s just for when things are really bad. It’s only (marijuana, beer, one hit of cocaine, etc).

Guess what else happens in the meantime? While your mental illness still goes untreated and you are now dabbling in a drug addiction, you miss moments of your life each day. Valuable moments of learning about your community, self awareness, interacting with your family, getting better at something, discovering new ideas, having pure fun – all of these take a back seat while you drown in your misery.

Managing mental illness with drugs and alcohol is like wrestling in a tar pit. Every move you make to take down your opponent actually drags you further down into the tar pit. Even some ill-advised moves you make to get out of the pit eventually pull you back in.

Drug Treatment Pulls You Out of the Drug Addiction Pit

But please – don’t go away from this post thinking mental illness and drug addiction are a one-way ticket to doomsday. A well-designed drug treatment center is the answer. You may think that drug rehab is too expensive, too scary, too long, too hard, or just too “something” for you. Even with your seriously imparied judgment, take a minute to see what your life would be if you did nothing to stop your current life direction.

Can you afford not to go to drug rehab – even if it scares the bejeebies out of you? What about losing those moments every day? Drug treatment for dual diagnosis can finally put you on a life path out of mental illness and away from drug addiction. Take a step forward and don’t miss another moment.

Drugs can really turn a person’s life upside down, causing years of self-destruction and emotional pain. Friends and family members don’t like seeing this happen to a person they love. They can talk about drug rehab and even try to make their loved one go, but no one can really make a person better until they are ready. Does this sound familiar? How do you know if you are ready for drug treatment? Below are a few compelling situations that might cause even a hard core drug addict or alcoholic to consider starting anew.

You’ve Hit Rock Bottom With Your Addiction

Your spouse packed your bags and kicked you out of the house. You have been fired at work because of your absences and showing up loaded last week. You need to keep a low profile because you just broke your parole by getting fired. You haven’t “almost lost it all” like they say on TV. It’s as good as gone, right this minute. Where do you go next?

You Want to Avoid Rock Bottom With Your Addiction

You have a friend who looks like the person described above – losing their family and home, losing their job, in trouble with the law, etc. You already have plenty of conflict at home, you’re on a thin string at work, and you don’t want to get involved with the law. But you can see that a few more months or weeks on drugs, and any of those problems could have your name written all over them. It’s time to take a U-turn before it all goes completely to hell.

Your Drug Addiction Has Changed You Too Much

You haven’t had a string of devistation like being arrested, being homeless, or getting divorced. However, you know you weren’t always this way. You seemed to have more money around, you were in better health, you used to enjoy life more, and it felt like people liked being around you. These are slow-burning problems, changes that have evolved over time. You hardly know who you are anymore, and neither does anyone else. You know this is no way to live life – there has to be a better way.

You See Another Person Get Better From Drug Rehab

Your good friend decided they couldn’t keep living the drug lifestyle – their family had an intervention, and they went off to a residential drug rehab place for a few months. When they were in a sober living home following treatment, you got a chance to visit them in person. You knew they had a long road ahead, but they were already doing better. They said they felt like their body was starting to feel healthier, they had learned some good ways to deal with cravings, and they had made some strong personal connections while in rehab. Most of all, they were learning to live their life again.

For the first time in years, you began to see a glimmer of hope, hope that you didn’t have to stay in the shadows, ashamed of yourself as your life slipped away. You could see a flicker of light at the end of the long dark tunnel – drug rehab just might work for you.

Get Started in Drug Rehab

The first step towards drug rehab is saying you are ready. This can often be one of the more difficult parts of drug rehab. However, The Canyon makes this as simple as possible. Talk to one of our understanding phone operators to start the drug rehab admissions process today.