Signs that your loved one might be struggling with relapse

When someone recovers from addiction and becomes sober, the journey doesn’t end there. They need to keep being intentional about their activities and habits so that they won’t go back to their addiction. Someone can be sober and later relapse due to many reasons.

If your loved one just recovered from addiction, this is the best time to keep an eye on them so that they don’t relapse. If you suspect that they might be struggling to return to their addiction lifestyle, here are some signs to help you find out.  

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They skip counseling sessions

One of the easiest ways to know if your loved one is struggling with relapse is when they don’t attend counseling sessions. They might keep giving different reasons why they were unable to meet up, but if you check closely, you will discover that those reasons are mere excuses.

You can also find out from the counselor or therapist to know how frequent they’ve been with their aftercare counseling sessions.

They isolate themselves

While it is quite normal for individuals who recover from addiction to isolate themselves, it could also be a sign of relapse. It is important to note that addiction thrives in isolation.

Therefore, even if you want to give your loved one their desired privacy, you need to find out what they are up to. When you suspect that they may be back to their addiction, you need to get help for them.

They talk regularly about the “good old days”

You need to also listen to the words that your loved ones will say because there might be some hidden messages there. If they love talking about how their addiction lifestyle was one of the best days of their lives, then it could suggest that they might return to it.

They start meeting with old friends with questionable habits

Another way to know that a relapse is lurking in the shadows is when they start reconnecting with some of their friends who are addicted. When you discover this, you can advise them to connect with sober people who will encourage positive habits.

How to Prevent Drug Addiction in Your Family

Drug addiction is a very harmful illness with long-lasting effects. Its negative effects could spread beyond one person to a family, and even to other generations. Therefore, you must do all in your capacity to prevent the onset of drug addiction in your family.

But to effectively do this, you need to know key ways to prevent addiction. Thus, this article will guide you by highlighting some ways by which you can avert drug addiction in your family.

Some of these include;

  • Maintain a Healthy Relationship

Major causes of drug addiction are childhood trauma, or the inability to cope effectively with stress. One way to address this is through healthy family bonding. Maintaining a healthy bond within the family will help ensure that no one falls into depression or anxiety, which could lead them to drugs.

Having a healthy relationship also allows people to open up when there is something wrong with them. This way it is easier to address any emotional or psychological issue that could lead to drug addiction.

  • Addiction Awareness

You can have occasional awareness talks about the ills of drug addiction as a family. Do not avoid this sensitive matter with the family. If you do not talk about it, someone out there will talk about it and can tell them the wrong thing.

So, you can honest conversations about the causes and effects of drug addiction. This can help deter any of your family from drug addiction.

  • Monitoring

Drug addiction can occur due to various social influences, like peer pressure, etc. effective monitoring would help you identify the type of friends your children have. If they are people who are drug addicts, you would notice this quickly and can address it immediately.

In summary, these are some ways to prevent drug addiction in your family. First, know what drug addiction entails. Know its symptoms and take steps to tackle its occurrence in your family. 

Signs That Your Family Member Might Be Addicted to Drugs

Drug addiction is a horrible illness that the brain cells of a person. It virtually affects the entire life of a person and can even spread to the lives of those around them. Therefore, it is vital that you avert this illness in your family.

One way to prevent drug addiction is by knowing the signs that indicate addiction. If you do not know that addiction is ongoing in your family, you cannot do anything to stop it. Therefore, it Is important that you know how to spot drug addiction in a family member.

These signs show that your family member might be addicted to drugs.

  • Withdrawal

Let us begin first with the social signs of addiction. If you begin to notice sudden signs of withdrawal in a family member, it could be due to addiction. Drug addiction affects the brain of a person such that they begin to withdrawal from everything that isn’t drugs, including their family.

  • Loss of Interest

If a family member begins to express irritated loss of interest in activities, it could be due to drug addiction. As stated earlier, drug addicts spend all their time thinking about when they can get another dose of the drug. Thus, they are uninterested in other activities that doesn’t relate to drug consumption.

  • Physical Signs

There are also physical signs that tell that a family member might be addicted. Signs like dilated eyes, smell of drugs, or lack of sleep. These are physical signs that could relate to drug addiction.

  • Secrecy

If you notice that a family member begins to be uncharacteristically secretive about his/her whereabouts. And he/she begins to be absent at odd periods of the day. This could be due to drug addiction.

Especially if these absences become sudden and unexplainable.

  • Loss of Memory

If your family member begins to have frequent loss of memory, paying less attention to details and having very low performance. It could mean drug addiction.

In summary, note that these signs could also be indicators for else which isn’t drug addiction. So, it is vital that you do not take them in isolation, but collectively to identify drug addiction in a family member.

Effects of drug addiction on your family

Most people think that drug addiction is a personal battle that must be faced and conquered by the individual alone.  

However, accurate results from various studies have proved that addiction is more like a family disease than an individual disease. And the reason for this is because, provided the individual has a family, they would be affected in various ways unknown to them.  

Hence, addiction has the capacity to affect the loved ones of an individual, which also includes close friends.  

People who are addicted to drugs would most likely be terrible liars and it is no fault of theirs. Now, drug addiction comes with a stigma which the victims do not like to identify with. And this is because people do not understand how addiction works, that is why the stigma exists.  

Addiction breeds contempt in the family. A good number of the family members would be at loggerheads with the addicted family member.

Due to the fact that drug addiction can modify the way a person thinks and process emotions, the person would not likely be on the same terms with the family.

Within a short period, the addicted individual becomes distanced from the family. They no longer have things to do together in common because they are in two worlds apart.

At this point, none of the family members would be able to encourage the addicted member to seek help from a rehab.

If care is not taken, the addicted member might even affect some of the family members and they could start abusing drugs in no time.

For instance, if the addicted member is the first child of the family, he or she could directly or indirectly encourage the younger siblings to start abusing drugs which would eventually make them addicted.

It is important to seek help from a rehab when drug addiction exists in the family. And during treatment, there are times when the family would attend some of the counseling sessions to fully understand the condition of their loved one.  

Listening to your health provider before taking drugs

A good number of people make the mistake of taking drugs indiscriminately. They do not involve their health provider, and eventually they develop complicated health conditions.

One of the reasons for this is, people already know the benefits of the drugs they want to take, so there is this willpower to make decisions for themselves by taking the drugs. And the sad part is, a good number of people do not stick to the normal prescription.

It is either they take more than expected, or they take below what is needed.  

In addition to this, one of the major reasons why people do not listen to their health provider is because they enjoy abusing the drug. Now, there are some drugs which give some exhilarating feeling, and when they are used in excess, the reward system of the brain is triggered.

These drugs have been notably identified and when people need these “feelings”, they go for the drugs not minding if it is safe or not.

Hence, this is why people get addicted to drugs. When you continue abusing drugs for a long period of time, addiction sets in fully and this becomes a risky stage.

One of the best ways to counter this is to reduce the popularity of over-the-counter drugs. Usually, the drugs that are abused are sold over-the-counter. So, people would rather go there and get drugs instead of going to the hospital to seek proper advice on the medications to use.

It is crucial to note that there are some drugs that destroy the liver and other important organs if they are not properly used. However, with your healthcare provider, this will be avoided because you will be given proper guidance on how to use drugs appropriately.

Conclusively, listening to your health provider means that you are ready to give your health top priority. With this, you are certain that you cannot be a victim of any form of addiction, particularly drug addiction.

Heroin addiction affects your life in negative ways.


Why is heroin so dangerous and what is it doing to me? Heroin can either be injected, smoked, or inhaled and abusers love the immediate “rush” sensation that ensues upon them following initial intake. Unfortunately, this drug affects the barrier between the blood and brain. Heroin is one the most addictive drugs as its results are felt quickly, but on the other hand, it rapidly attacks the brain. Once the brain recognizes the heroin, it is turned into morphine and quickly coheres to the opioid receptors which are found naturally within the brain. Click here for more information on the biochemical aspects of drug addiction. What short-term physical signs are most common once heroin is ingested? Symptoms include skin flush (turning red), dry mouth, and extremities begin feeling heavy. Soon after, nausea, vomiting, and severe itching over the entire body accompany the initial symptoms previously listed. Finally, in the hours that follow ingestion, an abuser becomes extremely lethargic and functionality is slowed by the depressing effect that the heroin has had on the central nervous system. A user’s heart rate will also significantly slow to dangerous near-death levels. Unfortunately, on the street where amounts and purity of heroin are rarely ever accurate, overdosing is a continuously increasing crisis.

Ultimately, addiction becomes one of the most devastating long-term effects of using heroin. It may have only started with a few simple “rush” experiences; however, this pleasure attained over and over again can become an abuser’s one motivating factor to live and compulsive behaviors take over. The more that heroin is used, an abuser begins to build a tolerance and as brain functionality continues to change, so does the everyday behaviors of the person. This building tolerance leads directly to physical dependence and higher doses are needed to maintain a constant level of functionality within the body. If use was abruptly stopped, an addict’s body would quickly go into shock. After weeks and months of injecting or inhaling heroine at a regular or increasing pace, severe withdrawal symptoms can very quickly occur in only a matter of hours from the time heroin was last used. An individual suffering through withdrawal will quickly think that death is “knocking at his door.” However, to the average or fairly healthy adult, withdrawal should never be considered fatal. It should be noted, however, that fatalities can occur to the unborn children of pregnant addicts suffering through severe withdrawal symptoms. Otherwise, withdrawal symptoms include the “cold turkey” concept or goose bumps, involuntary leg spasms or movement, irritability with the inability to hold still, persistent diarrhea, vomiting, pain of the muscles and bones, insomnia, and cold flashes. The worst of these withdrawal symptoms occur within the first 24 to 72 hours of going “cold turkey”, but can occur on a lesser scale up to a week. It is rare, but does happen, where symptoms will last over a matter of a few months while the body works to detoxify itself of the drugs and toxins that are still trying to get out and restore the body back to a healthy state.

 

Family and Substance Abuse

It might be that you are faced with a decision of when to put your loved one into a drug rehab program. This is a very difficult decision. Sometimes, it is not made correctly because a parent or spouse of someone with a drug problem doesn’t want the person to have a reason to be angry at them, and so they avoid brining up the subject and avoid getting the person help. However, this is going to do more harm than good in the long run. There are certain times that you just have to force someone to try to get help, and even if they seem to be angry with you at the start, they are going to figure out that you were right and they are going to thank you for it in the long run, because you are going to save their lives.

The decision of when to seek help for someone you love is a tough one. Basically, you should seek help from a luxury drug rehabilitation center for someone that you love when they can no longer control their drug use. When this happens, you will be able to tell that they are completely out of control of their own use. If this is the case, they will not be able to stop on their own, and you can probably not make them stop. You will have no choice but to admit them to a drug rehab program in the hopes that the professionals will be able to help them figure out how to stop using.

You should also consider a drug rehab program for someone who has hurt themselves or others with their drug use. If this is the case, you might not able to trust them to make their own decisions regarding their treatment. You might have to put them somewhere so that they can get clean, and once this has happened they will most likely be willing to listen to people and get help. Often it is the drugs that are talking when someone says they don’t believe that they need help, and it is the drugs that produce the anger that occurs when you force someone into a treatment center.

You should always keep in mind that while you can sometimes force a loved one to enter a treatment program, this does not always mean that they are going to get well. Eventually, a person must decide for themselves that they want to stop using and they want to get well. Once they have decided this, they will be able to make a much more successful and longer lasting recovery.

What is Prescription Drug Abuse?

Amongst the many drug addictions that are found in today’s society, prescription drug abuse is becoming more common. The ease of availability and the variety of drugs that can be obtained makes prescription drug abuse a popular choice, especially amongst school kids.

Prescription drug abuse is the misuse of drugs that are commonly prescribed by doctors, usually for common ailments. Prescription drug addiction can result from developing a reliance on a certain drug that was initially taken for the right reasons. Other times, prescription drugs are obtained by faking an illness.

There are three main types of prescription drugs that are commonly abused: Stimulants, Opioids and Central Nervous System Depressants. Stimulants are generally prescribed to treat sleep and attention deficit disorders. Opioids are used in pain relief treatment and CNS Depressants are most often used to treat anxiety.

The Detoxification Process

Detoxification is a necessary part of the drug rehab process and most drug rehabilitation centers will have a detox program before any kind of treatment will be given. This process helps to rid the body of the toxins and by-products associated with drug abuse.

Drug rehabilitation centers offer a variety of different treatments depending on the availability of the appropriate medicines and the type of addiction that is being treated. Treatment may last from a couple of hours, in the case of rapid treatment, or up to many months, again, depending on the severity of the addiction and the personality of the addict. In many cases, the length of treatment given at drug rehabilitation centers can be shortened if the patient shows good signs of recovery and doesn’t try to resist the treatment.

Most good drug rehabilitation centers will offer counselling throughout the course of the patients stay at the center. This will involve talking about the patient’s current situation and triggers that may cause the patient to use drugs. Social circumstances are often very influential in these cases.

It is the job of the drug rehabilitation center to provide the best treatment to meet the needs of the patient and ensure that treatment is complete, successful and provides the best chances for the patient to make a full and permanent recovery. The environment and atmosphere of a drug rehabilitation center is relaxing and supportive so the full focus of treatment and recovery is uninterrupted. Drug rehab in these environments of specialist support and care provide the best chances of making a good recovery with less risk of relapse.

Choosing a Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center

It is important to deal with the underlying causes of drug and alcohol abuse effectively in order to successfully treat the symptoms and abuse itself. One of the most important decisions that must be made is to choose the right drug and alcohol treatment center. This may seem trivial to some but there are a multitude of addiction treatment centers, rehabilitation centers and drug and alcohol addiction recovery programs to choose from, each focusing on different aspects of the addiction disorder. So choosing the right treatment center or program can be a task in itself. But this need not be the case. Analysing the particular circumstances of the abusing individual in question can give a better idea of the specific areas that must be treated or altered in order to make a successful recovery.