How to treat drug addiction on your own?
The issue of drug addiction treatment at home arises quite often. It may be related to a number of factors. The reason may be a lack of funds, namely, payment for hospital accommodation and food makes up a large part of the cost of the course of treatment and rehabilitation. In this case, it may be advisable to combine inpatient treatment with outpatient (home) treatment. Many public and private drug treatment clinics now offer day and even overnight inpatient treatment.
In addition, the reason for treatment at home may be the patient’s reluctance to go to the hospital. Drug addicts rarely ever want to seek treatment, and sometimes, home treatment is really the only option. However, we should not forget that now almost all specialized clinics provide intervention services, motivational conversation. As a result of such a conversation, the addict, as a rule, admits his addiction and expresses a desire to begin treatment in a drug treatment clinic.
There are addicts and families who are afraid of publicity, which of course is understandable. But today, a drug addict does not have to register with a drug dispensary; in private clinics, drug addiction treatment is carried out completely anonymously.
If we still have not dispelled your doubts, and treatment for drug addiction at home seems to you the most attractive option, then in this article you will find useful information on how to make this process safer and more effective. Before we start talking about this, we note that experts insist on inpatient placement in the following cases:
- Severe long-term addiction.
- Critical condition of a drug addict.
- Inability to provide complete control and isolation at home.
In fact, home treatment is more suitable for addictions that have just begun to form and do not require serious medication support.
Treatment methods
Any treatment for drug addiction begins with detoxification. It should be noted that folk remedies for detoxifying the body cannot be considered sufficient in case of established addiction. Yes, they can be used to remove toxins on your own after one or two random episodes of drug use, usually this concerns marijuana and psychostimulant tablets. But it is impossible to carry out complete detoxification with them in case of serious long-term addiction. In this case, drug detoxification is required in the form of a course of IV drips, and home remedies can be an addition to this therapy.
Today, in almost every specialized clinic you can call a qualified psychiatrist-narcologist to your home, who will provide the necessary treatment at home. Many clinics have a package of services that immediately includes a full course of IVs. The doctor remains with the patient during the procedure and gives recommendations on subsequent care and treatment. In a hospital setting, the doctor has more opportunities to monitor the patient and can adjust the drug course during the treatment process.
Advice for loved ones when treating an addicted person
There are a number of useful tips for the loved ones of a drug addict.
Assess the situation
First of all, it is necessary to verify the fact of drug use, the presence of addiction and the length of use.
Despite some differences in symptoms when taking different types of drugs, there are many identical signs of their use:
- the similarity of the appearance and behavior of a person with someone who is intoxicated, but in the absence of the smell of alcohol;
- lability of mood in inconsistency with the situation;
- active gesturing;
- coordination problems;
- fussy and uncontrolled movements in a significant amount or relaxation, lack of desire to move;
- change in skin tone;
- dry mouth or, conversely, significant salivation;
- an unnatural shine in the eyes and/or a wild, abnormal look;
- change in speech speed, slurred pronunciation;
- tremor;
- chills or hyperthermia;
- sleep disturbance.
Identify the problem
There are many indirect signs of drug use, in addition to physical and mental manifestations.
You should be wary of the following cases:
- a secret life previously not characteristic of the individual;
- strange conversations on a mobile or landline phone;
- sudden meetings in the evening or at night;
- finding ampoules, pill blisters, syringes, burnt spoons, small knives, plastic bags, any small containers with remains of an unknown plant or powder in the living room;
- strange smells;
- cluttered room and complete disorder in it.
Arm yourself with patience
To combat drug addiction, loved ones and relatives need to stock up on much-needed patience in this situation. They will need to be mentally prepared for a long period of living together and communicating with a drug addict, including the stages of intoxication, struggle, withdrawal and recovery. Aggressive and hostile behavior may last for several months.
Get to the bottom of things
It is necessary to understand the reason for bringing the problem to its current state, the reasons for connivance. Communication with psychologists and studying information on forums of former drug addicts to understand their life before and after will help with this.
Recognizing the problem of addiction
We noted that treatment begins with detoxification, however, the elderly do not always sincerely admit their problem or have the desire to be treated. Therefore, the best thing would be to provide a psychologist with the opportunity to communicate with the drug addict before starting detoxification or in parallel with it. In the clinic, this happens without fail; patients undergoing detoxification also receive personal consultations from a staff psychologist.
Recognizing the problem of addiction is necessary for treatment to be effective. If the patient does not want to be treated, if he does not want to get rid of the disease, then even after undergoing detoxification, he will improve his physical health and start using drugs again. When it is normal for a patient to be a drug addict, it is his choice, then it is almost impossible to help him. A person may not know how he will achieve this, he may not have the strength to do this, but he must make an internal decision, have the desire to return to a healthy lifestyle. A psychologist or psychotherapist helps in making such a decision.
If such an internal decision is made, then all medications, psychotherapy, support and care of loved ones will fall on fertile soil and lead to healing.
Isolation of a drug addict
This is a very important point in treatment, which is not so easy to achieve at home. Two factors are important here. Firstly, a person should not have the opportunity to get a drug, and drug addicts are ready to do anything for this. Secondly, it is extremely important to isolate the person from the environment that provokes him to take drugs.
Naturally, it is easier to do this in a specialized clinic or center, but if desired, this is also possible at home. It is necessary to completely control the patient, he should not go out, it is advisable to stop his usual communication by phone and via the Internet. You must be prepared for the fact that the addict will ask, beg, threaten, and blackmail you. He is afraid of withdrawal.
Is it possible to get rid of drug addiction at home?
Not wanting publicity, trying to avoid registration or the fact that other people will find out about the problem and this will affect the future, people prefer not to contact clinics and centers. This is also facilitated by the desire to save money or simply limited funds. Some people underestimate psychological cravings, believing that they will cleanse themselves simply by overcoming “withdrawal.” Nevertheless, after the “withdrawal syndrome” he will be tormented for a long time by depression, anger, irritation, apathy, mood swings, negative thoughts and a broken state. Treating addiction at home is not the most effective way to deal with it. Nevertheless, some people succeeded, and these are people with great desire and determination to start a sober life. These are those who wanted to quit drugs for some other purpose (love, children, etc.). The position of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation is: “Drug addiction cannot be treated at home.”
Removing withdrawal symptoms
He just needs another dose of the drug, for this he is ready to do anything. Of course, there are cases when drug addicts wait out withdrawal at home without the support of a doctor. There are even treatment centers for drug addicts, where withdrawal symptoms are not relieved by medication. Such methods cause mixed reactions.
The best thing to do when withdrawal occurs is to seek medical help. First, the addict will not suffer as much from pain and excruciating withdrawal symptoms. Secondly, during this period he may experience critical conditions that require the help of specialists.
To relieve withdrawal symptoms, you can call a doctor at home , he will select a course of painkillers, anticonvulsants, antipyretics, which will significantly alleviate the patient’s condition. In addition, the doctor will normalize the condition of all organs and systems, give sedatives, and make prescriptions. The psychological state of a drug addict, especially during the period of withdrawal, is extremely unstable; depression can occur, so medications are often required to bring it back to normal.
Folk remedies
When you have already organized medical assistance: carried out drug detoxification and relieved the critical state of withdrawal, then you can use traditional methods of treating drug addiction. What home remedies help in this case:
- These can be herbal decoctions that are aimed at natural detoxification (diuretics), general strengthening of the body, enriching it with vitamins, and normalizing the functioning of internal organs. There are decoctions that calm the nervous system. For example, a decoction of mint or oregano, if drunk 2-3 times a day, will strengthen the body and have a calming effect on the central nervous system.
- Tinctures. They are usually made with alcohol, so you shouldn’t get too carried away with them.
- Proper nutrition. The diet should not contain a lot of fatty and sweet foods, priority is given to vegetables and fruits. They help restore the acid-base balance of the body and saturate it with natural vitamins.
Where does drug addiction treatment begin?
His intentions regarding healing must be firm. This is the only way to achieve positive results.
The support of loved ones and relatives plays a huge role in the treatment of the disease. If such a misfortune has affected your family, you should understand that you are the support for a drug addict.
Treatment of drug addiction with folk remedies
In the treatment of drug addiction with traditional medicine, all kinds of tinctures and decoctions are used. Medicines used to recover from drug addiction help:
- removal of toxic substances;
- restoration of metabolic processes;
- normalization of the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract,
- cardiovascular and nervous system.
Collection that helps to get rid of cravings for drugs
You will need the following plants: motherwort, tansy, mint, St. John's wort, calendula, string, licorice, rose hips, coriander, horsetail, bearberry, buckthorn, oak bark.
Finely chop all the ingredients, take five grams of raw materials, and pour a glass of boiled water. Leave in the thermos for at least ten minutes.
Pour the resulting infusion into another container. Use 100 milliliters of the product a couple of times a day, before meals. The duration of the course is three weeks. Do not throw away the remainder after straining; it can be reused.
Collection for cleansing the gastrointestinal tract and improving overall well-being
You will need: motherwort, licorice, shepherd's purse, chamomile, immortelle, yarrow, St. John's wort, rosehip, clover, capitol, nettle, hawthorn, valerian, milk thistle, orange zest, caraway, eleutherococcus.
A spoonful of dried and crushed raw materials is poured with boiling water and infused for twenty minutes. Then the product is filtered. Take half a glass of medicine no more than three times a day, before meals. The duration of treatment is half a month.
A collection that helps restore the functioning of the liver and pancreas
Chop celandine, eucalyptus, leuzea, valerian, oak bark, Chernobyl, grapefruit zest, hawthorn, sweet clover, and pour boiled water over a spoonful of the plant mixture. Leave to infuse for half an hour.
Filter and take 1/2 of the infusion three times a day, before each sitting at the table.
Collection to strengthen the immune system and normalize metabolic processes
Take the following plants: calamus, licorice, St. John's wort, string, chamomile, buckthorn, pomegranate, bearberry, sage, fireweed, motherwort, bloodroot, horsetail, sweet clover, oregano, immortelle, pour five grams of the mixture with boiling water.
Infuse the product in a thermos for thirty minutes. Take half a glass of medicine twice a day. The duration of treatment is thirty days.
A collection with blood purifying and soothing properties
Take geranium grass, goldenrod, hop cones and fireweed leaves.
Combine all ingredients and grind. Pour half a liter of boiling water over a couple of tablespoons of the vegetable mixture. Leave in a thermos overnight. Filter in the morning. Take a third of a glass of medicine daily. Before taking it, it is recommended to add rosehip syrup or honey to the infusion.
Preparation of healing tincture
Finely chop the oat shoots and pour vodka over them. For one hundred grams of plant shoots you will need half a liter of vodka. Let the product infuse for two weeks in a dark, warm place. Take a spoonful of tincture before meals.
Decoctions for the treatment of drug addiction
- Take wormwood, centaury and thyme, finely chop all the plants and fill a spoonful of raw materials with half a liter of water. Place on the stove and bring to a boil. Filter and take a couple of spoons of the decoction several times a day. The duration of treatment is 60 days.
- Grind St. John's wort and pour three tablespoons of raw material into half a liter of water, place in a water bath, and boil for twenty minutes. Take two spoons of the product twice a day.
- To prepare the next medicine you will need anise fruits. Pour 300 milliliters of water over a spoonful of fruit and boil for ten minutes. Drink 1/4 cup of the decoction before each meal.
- Pour a couple of spoons of bearberry into 200 milliliters of water and boil for 20 minutes. Take half a glass of decoction at least six times a day. The course of treatment is a month.
Tincture of valerian and motherwort
Combine the two ingredients and pour a couple of tablespoons of the plant mixture with half a glass of 96% alcohol. Leave to infuse for three days in a dark place. Take twenty drops of tincture three times a day.
Dietary recommendations
- It is also important to restore the immune system by consuming fortified foods: black currants, citrus fruits, cabbage, spinach, sea buckthorn.
- In addition, your diet should include apples, rice, fish, buckwheat and peas.
The undeniable advantage of using traditional medicine to cure drug addiction is that all medicines consist of natural ingredients. But this does not mean that you should neglect traditional methods of treatment and the help of qualified specialists.
If one of your relatives has taken this path, help him mentally overcome addiction. Support him. Believe me, only through joint efforts can we help an addicted person overcome this illness.
Psychological support in the treatment of drug addiction
As we noted above, when treating drug addiction you cannot do without the help of a psychologist. It may be needed at the stage of motivation for treatment, but it is also necessary during the course of treatment and rehabilitation.
Firstly, during the period of abstinence, drug addicts experience very severe depression, reaching the point of suicidal thoughts. Often the patient is not able to cope with this condition on his own; he needs outside help. Depending on the severity of the condition, the patient may need the help of a psychologist, psychotherapist or psychiatrist. Treatment can be either medication or in the form of therapeutic consultations. It is best to contact a specialist who works specifically with drug addicts, because this is a specific area of psychology where relevant experience is needed.
Stages of drug addiction treatment
When treating drug addiction, it is recommended to hire a narcologist, under whose supervision the patient will be treated. It is customary to distinguish 4 stages of effective drug treatment .
- Awareness of the problem and predicament. At the initial stage, the patient must realize that he is harming his health and can only get worse. There must be an understanding that life will be better without this addiction. This is a complex psychological process, the right decision in which is not easy. It's always difficult to leave your comfort zone. But without realizing the gravity of the situation, there will be no successful treatment, since the attitude towards the procedures will be dismissive.
- Complete Complete detachment from the outside world and detoxification. from the environment and detoxification. If the patient is being treated at the center, then this stage is carried out through hospitalization. But if the patient is trying to recover from addiction on his own, then in this case his every step must be monitored by family and friends interested in his recovery, as well as by a narcologist. It is necessary to exclude communication with the patient’s usual circle, be it live communication or communication via the Internet. The patient should not be influenced by the environment from which he is trying to leave. The patient may also exhibit drug withdrawal symptoms. They can be: aggression, nervousness, spasms, withdrawal, disruption of internal organs. To suppress these symptoms, you should consult with a narcologist who will prescribe appropriate medications. He will also prescribe medications for detoxification. When treating at home, you can use folk remedies such as herbal decoctions and various tinctures that work as sedatives.
- Psychological and moral support. At this stage, the patient needs to sign up for a long series of sessions with a psychologist specializing in issues of this type. Correct and qualified outside support is a good weapon in the fight against addiction. A psychologist will definitely put you in a positive mood and show you the benefits of living without drugs, which will certainly add motivation in the fight. You can also sign up for various psychological trainings or meetings of the same struggling people. There you can find inspiration by talking with people who have a similar problem and learning, for example, about their period of abstinence and improvement of life in society after giving up drugs. And also there you can talk about yourself and regularly share your achievements. The best way to make a problem easier to solve is to talk it out.
- Help from family and friends. For the entire course of treatment, and in principle, you need to surround yourself with people who are interested in your recovery. Those who will provide both physical and moral support. Motivate and inspire. It’s definitely worth protecting yourself from interacting with your old social circle once and for all. Despite this, getting rid of drug addiction on your own is very difficult and achieving a positive result is almost impossible, no matter how much willpower, desire and zeal the patient has. Based on all the available information, we can conclude that you can only recover from physical addiction on your own, after which there will be a psychological one, for help with the treatment of which you should turn to specialists in specialized institutions.
Rehabilitation after drug addiction
If you are treating drug addiction at home, then just like during treatment in a hospital, the patient after detoxification needs rehabilitation - a recovery period.
Psychological rehabilitation is aimed at identifying and eliminating the psychological causes of drug addiction. If such causes are not eliminated, the disease will most likely return. In home treatment, you can organize both psychotherapeutic sessions at home and visits for the patient to a psychologist’s office. This is an important stage that should never be neglected, otherwise all your previous efforts aimed at getting rid of drug addiction may be in vain.
In psychotherapy for drug addicts at the rehabilitation stage, great importance is attached to group therapy. Therefore, it is important that your loved one attends group classes at a clinic or center at least several times. This gives a great therapeutic effect and powerful emotional support from communicating with other people who are also overcoming the disease.
It is important that after completing a course of medication and getting rid of physical, after liberation from psychological addiction, the recovering person receives the right support on the path to the future. A psychologist helps a person not only free himself from old bad habits of thinking, fears and beliefs. With the support of a specialist, the patient will be able to restore his value-semantic sphere of life, plan the future, gain strength and motivation to achieve his goals.
Tips on how to get rid of drug addiction. Forum. Experiences and reviews of former drug addicts
Is it possible to get rid of drug addiction forever?
This is the main question that worries those who are trying to survive drug withdrawal. This is not the most difficult thing. Then comes a moment of remission, after which almost 100% of drug addicts relapse again. The question is why. Because life remains exactly the same. And also because drug addicts cannot adapt normally to society. It’s impossible not to talk about your past: after all, someone wants to open their soul. And when they open their souls, drug addicts face negative reactions from others. It is as if drug addicts are under an invisible “curse” of society. And you have to live with this burden. This does not contribute to recovery at all. Social adaptation, in essence, is an attempt to get used to a normal life with ordinary (non-drug dependent) people.
Let us repeat that this requires a partner, a friend who can influence you and loves you. He himself should be more established in society, extend his hand to you and show you the possibilities of living better. In principle, this could be a psychologist, if you are willing to pay, or a paid narcologist. And this is a very effective measure. But it’s better if it’s just a loving person who, step by step, with little things, will begin to tell you how you can live better.
Today you will change your clothes and look better. Tomorrow go visit your friends. Gradually it will turn out that there are many interesting things in life that bring pleasure. There are goals that you want to achieve. This is precisely the process of adaptation: life should be interesting and enjoyable. And pleasure should be achievable. So that there is a thirst for victory, achievements, discoveries. Satisfaction from your victories.
In this sense, computer games are an alternative way to occupy your psyche. But this is a surrogate and the same addiction, although without drugs. It’s also not easy to wean yourself off from gaming, but it’s still easier than from drug addiction, where there is also dependence at the physiological level.
Support from loved ones
Support from loved ones is very important for a recovering drug addict. Those who have recovered from drug addiction have spoken about this more than once. It is important for a person that someone believes in him, helps him in difficult times, and does not leave him alone.
But here, too, everything is not so smooth, because in many families relations are not very good. Even loving people do not always know how to communicate in a way that brings joy to each other. Moreover, not everyone knows how to communicate with a newly recovered drug addict, so as to support him and not provoke him to relapse. Therefore, it is best for family members of an addict to receive a series of consultations with a psychologist in person or attend group classes for relatives at a clinic or center.
After completing the course of treatment, it is best for a former drug addict to be observed by a narcologist who treated you at home for several months, meet with a psychotherapist, and attend support groups at a center for drug addicts. As a result of the correct course of treatment and rehabilitation, the patient gets rid of cravings for drugs.
Ways to get rid of drug addiction at home
If the addiction is not severe, if the person has not yet completely lost his good and valuable qualities, there are several ways to help:
- Vitamins and minerals. Drugs destroy these beneficial substances, and they are vital. Take them in higher doses.
- Complete and nutritious food. Vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, cereals, nuts, dried fruits and other nutrient-rich foods will help the body recover and a person feel better mentally.
- Walks. Walk (for an hour or several hours) and look around: at houses, trees, benches, cars, etc. Turn off your phone and direct your attention to the outside world. This will also help improve sleep.
We warn you against using antidepressants and other similar drugs: this can change one addiction to another. There may be some benefit from attending Narcotics Anonymous groups.