Opiate Addiction and Treatment
1-800-315-2391 | April 14th
Opiates come from the poppy plant and are made from opium. There are many beneficial uses for opiate drugs in the medical field today. Opiates can be found in cough medications which are very useful for suppressing coughs. Opiate's are also used as very necessary and useful painkillers and sometimes used to control diarrhea. Vicodin and morphine for example are potent pain pills and codeine can be found in many cough medications. Other examples of opiate drugs include Dilaudid and Methadone.
Unfortunately many people choose to misuse pain medications and abuse them to get high. Codeine is also abused for the euphoric effects produced when using codeine cough syrups to get high. When opiate prescription painkillers and codeine are used for medical purposes, they're extremely useful for treating the patient's medical needs but when they're abused they can cause life threatening problems.
Prescription pain pills like Vicodin and Morphine are becoming more abused every day. People of all ages use these pain medications to get high and sometimes combine them with other drugs or alcohol to intensify the effects. There are serious consequences associated with misusing them and can even lead to overdose and death.
Opiate drugs like Vicodin and morphine are sometimes crushed and the opiate user snorts the pain pills to get high. Some people ingest painkillers orally while others liquefy the crushed power and inject it. OxyContin is another opioid drug that's designed as a controlled release pain medication.
When an individual abuses OxyContin they usually do so in high doses. They're putting them self at risk of an overdose because of the extreme amount of medication that gets into their bloodstream at one time.
Opiate pain pills and codeine are very dangerous when misused and can lead to dependency and possible overdose. Opioid drugs can cause drowsiness and when they're misused in high doses this can cause respiratory depression or death.
Heroin is another opiate drug that's manufactured from morphine. Heroin is abused throughout the world by people of all ages and the consequences are very serious. Heroin is usually a white or brown powder but can also be found as black tar heroin which is a sticky black substance. There are various ways people use heroin and they're all equally dangerous.
Heroin users snort, smoke or inject the drug to get high. No matter what way heroin is administered the drug is highly addictive and the user is risking serious health issues including overdose or death.
When a person abuses opiate drugs for any length of time they become tolerant and need to increase their dose in order to experience the high they're looking for. When this happens the opiate user has become dependent on the drug and if they stop using it they experience withdrawal symptoms.
Opiate Withdrawal Symptoms
- Drug craving
- Anxiety
- Nervousness
- Achy muscles
- Watery eyes
- Sleeplessness
- Runny nose
- Perspiring
- Yawning
- Stomach cramping
- Diarrhea
- Pupil dilations
- Nausea
- Vomiting
Methadone, Buprenorphine and Naltrexone are all effective medications used for treating opiate drug addiction. Combining comprehensive behavioral therapy treatment that's individualized for each patient along with medications that help relieve cravings and withdrawal symptoms, the opiate user is able to successfully recover from opiate addiction.
