Call 888-647-0579 to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.

Who Answers?

5 Signs Drug Treatment Centers are Your Only Hope

It’s hard to see addiction for what it is when its effects continue to influence a person’s perceptions. Making the decision to get needed treatment help also poses a tremendous challenge. Addiction operates as a chronic brain disease that impairs addicts socially, psychologically, physically and spiritually, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

After a certain point, it becomes harder and harder to deny the effects of addiction in one’s life. While attempts at self-imposed abstinence are definitely an option, multiple failed attempts are a sign a person needs drug treatment help.

Here are five signs drug treatment help may be your only hope for recovery:

1. Loss of Control

If you’ve lost control of your drug use and cannot stop on your own, treatment centers can help.

The effects of drugs on the brain over time best illustrate the disease aspect of addiction in a person’s life. Whether opiates or stimulants, the brain develops a physical dependence on addictive drugs as brain cell functions grow weaker with ongoing use.

In the process, the brain becomes less sensitive to drug effects, requiring increasingly larger doses along the way. As a result, addicts start to lose control of the amount of drugs they use in an attempt to meet the brain’s increasing demands.

2. Neglected Responsibilities

As the brain’s demand for more drugs increases, the time and money involved with procuring needed supplies start to take a toll in a person’s life. Personal relationships with friends and family lose significance making it that much easier to neglect important relationships.

Work responsibilities also start to pale in the face of the ongoing anticipation that surrounds the addict’s next “fix.” When left untreated, this behavior only worsens over time as drugs continue to warp a person’s perceptions and priorities.

3. Disregard for Negative Consequences

Probably the most glaring effects from long-term drug use lie in the way drugs change a person’s personality and character. Someone who normally lives by certain values, such as a strong work ethic, strong ties with family and abiding by the law starts to do things he or she wouldn’t normally do.

Driving under the influence, skipping work and insulting or offending others becomes commonplace occurrences. Negative consequences take on less importance as the drug takes over a person’s life.

4. Relationship Problems

As drugs wreak havoc on the brain’s chemical processes and functions, addicts start to experience mood swings on a frequent basis. Mood swings can take the form of extreme depression, elation or even outright hostility and violence.

These moods will no doubt damage the relationships a person has with others. Conflicts, fighting and an overall disregard for the feelings of others starts to drive those closest to the addict further and further away. While others can plainly see these changes, the addict often doesn’t.

5. Lifestyle Changes

Over time, what was once a normal everyday lifestyle turns into a drug-seeking, drug-using cycle that gradually destroys a person’s life. Addicts naturally transition into new social groups made up of other drug users. Once drugs become the number one priority, a person’s lifestyle inevitably revolve around getting and using drugs.

At this point, it’s all but impossible to just “kick the habit” and resume normal everyday life. The need for drug treatment centers is pretty much a given; especially when multiple attempts to quit using have failed.

More Treatment & Detox Articles

Could this pill Cure alcoholism?

Doctor drinking himself into an early grave tells of his ‘fairy tale’ recovery Alcoholism affects one in 20 adults and is notoriously difficult to treat. Leading American cardiologist Dr Olivier Ameisen was a compulsive drinker for years until he was ‘cured’, he says, by a drug commonly prescribed for muscle spasm. His claims have created….

Dangers of Prescription Drug Abuse

Prescription drug abuse is steadily worsening because as more pain, anxiety, or attention deficit disorder medications are disbursed for legitimate purposes, many are being diverted to sales on the street for profit. The prescription pill business is big business on the street with a vast amount of collaboration between users, dealers, and doctors. The rapid….

Recovering Alcoholic Mothers

There are more than two-and-a-half million women alcoholics in America, and many of them are mothers. Two bravely shared their struggles with ABC 7 in the hopes that other moms will get the help that can save them and their families Rebecca Zimmerman was 77 days sober when ABC 7’s Greta Kreuz visited her and….

Heavy drinkers may develop Alzheimer's earlier

Drinking or smoking heavily can speed up the development of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study. Scientists found that drinkers developed the disease almost five years earlier and heavy smokers just over two years earlier, after studying 938 people aged 60 or more who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Ranjan Duara, of the Mount….

How much is too much alcohol?

One night of binge drinking, while seemingly harmless, may end up killing you. Gastroenterologist Benny Ang said that most men can stomach two units of alcohol – two beers, two shots of whisky or two glasses of wine – a day. For most women, their limit is one unit of alcohol a day. Exceed that,and….