Why in drug rehab, do doctors use drugs to kick the addiction? How does it work?
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They don’t use drugs to make a person not be addicted. It sounds like what you’re talking about is a detox. That’s where doctors supervise someone who is coming off drugs they are addicted to and help manage the side effects of the withdrawal. When you take certain drugs for long enough your body adapts to the effects they have and stopping the drug means your system is all out of balance suddenly. That leads to side effects like nausea, pain, anxiety, and many others. In the detox stage doctors can use drugs to manage the side effects so the person can through the withdrawal period (which only lasts a few days). Some withdrawals can be fatal, so doctors are just doing what they can to help the person get through it. The rest of the rehabilitation process is done with therapy, not drugs.
Stopping certain drugs when someone’s been using regularly cold turkey can be risky in both the physical sense (withdrawal can put huge strain on the body) and the mental sense (it’s incredibly unpleasant, and someone who’s addicted to a drug is strongly incentivized to do the drug when they’re feeling awful because they know it’ll alleviate the awful feeling).
If you keep someone using the drug (or a very similar drug that mostly scratches the same itch) but keep tapering the dose lower and lower it brings them in for a ‘soft landing’ as it were.
they’re used to stabilize an individual who may be going through painful physical or mental withdrawal (withdrawal from benzos, alc and opioids can actually lead to death). introducing a drug in small doses can aid the person to sobriety rather than letting them feel all of the symptoms of withdrawal which can lead to relapse. buprenorphine is an opioid antagonist used to treat opioid addiction…it’s still an opioid but a very small dosage which will make the person going through withdrawal feel less intense symptoms. like others have said, drugs used to aid in withdrawal/addiction are monitored by a doctor and taken with counseling and therapy.
There are various drugs used for various reasons.
Sometimes you need similar drugs to stop the person from dying from withdrawal symptoms, other drugs help lessen withdrawal symptoms making it easier to kick the drug, then finally some drugs help stop the person from wanting to do the drugs in the first place.
If a person is addicted to something that is physically addictive, then if they just stop they will get really bad physical withdrawal and with things like alcohol or benzos that can kill you. So to help you stop using that drug often they use a similar drug to help them ween off that drug. While heroin withdrawal isn’t deadly often another opiate methadone is used to prevent severe withdrawal symptoms while not giving as much of a high.
There are also drugs that can be given to help lessen withdrawal symptoms. Stuff like benzos can be used with lessen lots of withdrawal symptoms. This isn’t always a good idea because benzo’s are probably the worst drug to be addicted to, some even think it’s worse than being addicted to heroin. But short term use is probably fine.
There are also psychoactive drugs which have shown lots of promise in getting someone to stop using drugs. These change the way someone thinks about things, so stop’s someone wanting or acting on any desires to use these drugs.
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