Location
Our Washington Location
Our inpatient facility is located in Washington, and will serve Washington state. It will provide a safe & therapeutic environment for both our staff and patients.
- Edmonds
7416 212th St SW,
Edmonds, WA 98026
List of Drugs that Require Detox and Treatment Options to Consider
Once you’ve made the decision to recover from a drug addiction, the very first step is to go through drug detoxification.
This is a process that aids in the elimination of toxins from the body, and it’s recommended for a wide variety of drugs. Drug detox provides you with an easier transition into your recovery, but it is also instrumental in protecting you from enduring some of the more severe withdrawal symptoms that can result when you stop using drugs abruptly.
Drug Detox: An Important Step in the Recovery Process
While drug detox offers you an excellent start in recovering from your addiction, it is essential to go to drug addiction treatment in order to address the psychological symptoms of drug cessation.
It is vital for you to understand that once you’ve gone through drug detox, your recovery journey is not complete.
Those who only opt for drug detox often relapse because they lack the knowledge and education they need about their addiction. In addition, they are also never given the opportunity to heal from the source of their addiction.
What Types of Drugs Require Detox?
There are several classifications of drugs that require detox in order to speed up the process of elimination from the body. These include: Benzodiazepines, Opioids or Opiates, Pain Medications, Synthetic Drugs, and Stimulants.
Detox Information for Sepcific Drugs
Because of the fact that all of these drugs are very different, and they have a different effect on the body, the drug withdrawal symptoms that can result when you stop taking them is going to differ as well. There are a lot of different factors that can influence how severe your drug withdrawal symptoms will be, and these can include:
- How long you’ve been using the drug
- Whether or not you drank alcohol or used additional drugs at the same time
- How much of the drug you’ve been using
- Whether or not you have physical or mental issues at the time of detox
- The half-life of the drug you’ve been using
Drug Withdrawal Symptoms By Drug Classification
In order to fully understand your symptoms of withdrawal, and what you can expect, it’s important to look at each classification of drugs separately to determine what you may experience once they’re stopped. Of course, if you choose to stop them without going through drug detox, these symptoms will be much worse than if you were to stop them with professional supervision and treatment.
Once you stop taking Benzodiazepines, your symptoms of withdrawal may include:
- The risk of developing seizures
- Hallucinations or delusions
- Agitation, irritability or anger
- Anxiety or even panic attacks
- Tremors
Once you stop taking Opioids or Opiates, you may experience:
- An increase in your bodily pain
- Increased sensitivity to pain
- Bone and joint discomfort or achiness
- Aches in your muscles
- Gastrointestinal problems
When you stop taking pain medications, your symptoms of withdrawal may include:
- Feelings of restlessness
- Hot and cold flashes
- Fever accompanied with chills
- Irregular heart beat
- Feelings of weakness in your body
Synthetic drugs, such as bath salts, are very dangerous, and their drug withdrawal symptoms are intense. These include:
- Experiencing tremors
- Symptoms of depression
- Anxiety or panic attacks
- Sleep disturbances, including insomnia and nightmares
- Becoming extremely paranoid
When you stop using stimulants, your drug withdrawal symptoms might include:
- Severe depression symptoms
- Suicidal ideations and behaviors
- Trouble sleeping at night
- Very intense dreams
- Hallucinations or paranoia
As you can see, stopping these drugs outside of professional and medical supervision can potentially be dangerous, not just uncomfortable. However, when you choose to go through drug detox centers instead, your drug withdrawal symptoms are more easily controlled, and they are often less severe or even eliminated.
Beginning Drug Detox and the Drug Withdrawal Timeline
Initially, once you begin to go through drug detox, the experience can be quite intense. Some of the earliest symptoms of withdrawal that you experience might not be too difficult for you to manage. For example, you might become a bit anxious, have trouble sleeping, or have watering eyes. These symptoms are minor, and generally don’t require much intervention.
However, as the drug detox process progresses, it’s common for some more serious problems to occur, and these do require intervention for your own safety, as well as for the safety of others. You could experience:
Becoming medically ill
Medical complications can occur for anyone who is going through drug detox, regardless of his or her past medical history. It’s essential to identify what’s happening so that the issue can be treated immediately, if possible. For example, heart irregularities, seizures or even mild to severe strokes have been reported when stopping some medications, but these are much less common when choosing drug detox instead of stopping on your own.
Onset of violent behavior
There are some drugs that can lead to violent outbursts once they’ve been stopped. Bath salts are an excellent example of these drugs, and patients who use them have an increased risk of hurting others or themselves. Drug detox does lessen the risk of becoming violent, but the proper measures will be taken to ensure that patients and others are kept safe.
Onset of psychosis
Psychosis is a dangerous mental state that can occur when stopping certain types of drugs, such as cocaine. When psychosis begins, patients may start to have auditory or visual hallucinations or delusions. If you currently have a mental disorder, your risk for psychosis increases. This behavior can become quite unpredictable, but again, drug detox helps to lessen its severity and allows it to be controlled.
Risk of injuries
Whenever violent behavior is present, or even during the drug detox process, there is always a higher risk of injury. Certain drugs can lead to feelings of invincibility, which can cause people to think their behaviors won’t cause them to get hurt. When drugs are stopped, the risk of injury always goes up, and going to drug detox helps to ensure your safety.
Risk of suicidal behaviors
Depression is one of the symptoms of withdrawal that is most common. In many drug users, depression was present prior to the addiction, and so, they are at a much greater risk of developing suicidal ideations and acting on them. Patients in drug detox will be monitored carefully for any indication of suicidal ideations or behaviors.
How Long Does Drug Withdrawal Last?
The length of time that drug withdrawal lasts is different for everyone. Without treatment, it’s possible for it to last for several weeks, or even months. Quite often, former drug users will come to a point where they feel as though they’ve recovered, and then cravings or other drug withdrawal symptoms will begin suddenly. Quite often, when this occurs, people will go back to using as a way to ease their symptoms of withdrawal.
By going to drug detox centers, the proper methods can be used to purge your body of the toxins that are inside of you. Any lingering symptoms can be treated correctly, and the drug detox period can be drastically shortened. It is a method that has been proven to be effective for so many people, and it often leads to much higher success rates, as long as proper addiction treatment is completed afterwards.
Various Methods of Drug Detox
There are a few different methods of going through drug detox, and while they effective, both are not recommended for long-term recovery in most cases.
Medical Detox
You may have heard of some patients taking drug detox pills as a way to help them get through their drug withdrawal symptoms. For many years, this method was seen as the only one worth considering. The detox medicine that is administered is relatively fast acting, and it works very well. Unfortunately, it’s not always appropriate for long-term use, and so the detox medicine has to be discontinued. When this occurs, the medication can either cause withdrawal to occur all over again, or it can bring drug withdrawal symptoms up to the surface. Many professionals prefer not to use medical detox because of the risk of withdrawal from the detox medicine itself, and because it has been associated with a much lower success rate in the long run.
Holistic or Natural Drug Detox
Holistic or natural drug detox is a method that many drug detox centers prefer over medical detox. It allows for rapid drug detox to purge the body of toxins, but it does so in a way that’s completely natural and effective. Rather than using drug detox pills that often have side effects, and can lead to additional withdrawal once they’re discontinued, natural drug detox utilizes the power of the body to cleanse itself. Research has shown that with diet improvements and by adding exercise into your daily routine, your body can be “trained” to get rid of the toxins that lead to withdrawal symptoms all on its own.
When these two methods are compared, patients are in drug detox for approximately the same amount of time in both cases. However, the patients who choose to go through holistic drug detox often find that they enjoy higher levels of success and a more positive long-term outlook for their recoveries from drug addiction.
Of course, if you are considering drug detox, it’s important for you to opt for the method that you feel would be best for you.
Choosing At-Home Detox with Drug Detox Kits
If you’ve gone to a local drug store recently, you’ve probably seen that they offer a variety of drug detox kits for purchase. At first, this can seem like a good option for you because you’d be able to detox your body from drugs in the comfort of your own home. However, there are a number of reasons why this method is never recommended.
The most important reason is because of the fact that your drug detox cannot be monitored when you use a drug detox kit. Detoxification is a very personal experience for everyone, and there may need to be some quick medical decisions that are made for you. Throughout your drug addiction, your body has been building up a dependence on your drug(s) of choice. Once you stop, withdrawal symptoms begin because of the absence of the drugs. More often than not, when people attempt to use drug detox kits, they relapse, and this can lead to a potentially fatal overdose.
Also, it’s important to remember that drug detox isn’t a single treatment all on its own that will rid you of your addiction.
Following up with some type of additional addiction treatment is always recommended because you need to address your psychological addiction, and heal from the root of it.
Drug detox kits may seem like an easy answer to your drug addiction. However, most of the time, the only purposes they serve are to make it much worse, and put you in danger. Once you do stop taking drugs, you want it to lead to a lifelong recovery with a much smaller chance of relapsing. This is best accomplished by choosing to go to a drug detox center, where you will receive the personalized care that you need during this critical time.
Your First Step to Recovery From Drug Addiction: Finding the Best Drug Detox Centers
While drug detox doesn’t offer you everything you need to recover from a drug addiction, it’s recommended to be the first step in your recovery. Choosing the best drug detox program will empower you to take the next step and go to drug rehab for therapy to continue on in your addiction treatment.
Here at Northpoint Washington, our goal is for you to recover from your drug addiction, and we’ve taken a lot of time to ensure that we’re able to provide you with everything you need to make that possible. If you would like to learn more, or if you’re ready to start recovering from your addiction, please contact us.