Prescription Drug Treatment

Prescription drugs are rapidly becoming the favorite drugs of abuse by Middle America. Today’s medicine cabinets are full of various medications prescribed for the most common maladies. Physicians are freely prescribing “pills” for anything including headaches, back pain, and insomnia, the list goes on. Patient’s that go to the doctor feel cheated if they leave the office without a prescription. The common feeling seems to be “Doc gave me a prescription so he helped me get better”. Psychiatrists are notoriously guilty of prescribing medications to justify their fees rather that sit and listen to their patients for an hour.

The most commonly abused prescription drugs include:

• Opioids, used for treating pain.
• CNS depressants, which are used for the treatment of anxiety and sleep-disorders.
• Stimulants, used to treat narcolepsy (sleep disorder), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and obesity.

Treatment

Opioids and CNS depressants are two classes of drugs that abusers can become physically addicted. Stimulants as a rule are more difficult to acquire a physical dependence upon. While causing harm to the human body, most insurance companies refuse to pay for any type of detoxification for stimulant dependence. They view stimulants as more of a mental dependence with few physical symptoms while withdrawing.

Opioids and CNS depressants react considerably different on the human body. Sudden, abrupt stoppages of these medications will produce significant withdrawal symptoms, seizures, and sometimes even death.

Opioids come in various types of medications such as percocet, codeine, morphine, and dilaudid. Withdrawal symptoms from these medications consist of runny nose, sweats, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, restlessness, and insomnia.

CNS depressants include the drugs xanax, valium, librium, percocet, morphine, and the barbiturates mephobarbital and Nembutal. Withdrawal symptoms from these medications include nausea, racing mind and thoughts, anxiety, tremors, possible seizures and other harmful consequences.

Addiction treatment for the above mentioned drugs usually requires an inpatient stay at an approved detox center. There clients are seen by a physician and safely tapered off of their respective drugs of abuse. This process usually takes a period of 7-10 days. Ambrosia has several relationships with reputable detox programs in the area and can make the proper arrangements if necessary. Upon completion of detox, clients are transferred to Ambrosia Treatment Center. Here they are greeted by the staff and made to feel as comfortable as possible. They are hand-picked a counselor who will be the best fit for them. From there clients will participate in group and individual therapy. They will gain understanding of their disease through our multitude of educational lectures and groups. If clinically necessary they will treated by Holistic Interventions which consist of full-body detox, massage, acupuncture, and hydro-therapy. Our psychiatrist will do a full psychiatric evaluation and follow-up with them on a weekly basis. Clients will also participate in recreational therapy either by participation in a workout routine at the gym, swimming in our Olympic size pool, or play tennis on our tennis courts. During free time clients are encouraged to take advantage of our sunshine & beaches by attending a group outing to the beach, maybe go bowling or to the movies. We encourage social interaction as addiction is basically a disease of loneliness, thus we discourage isolation. For those seeking a spiritual path we encourage participation in “Celebrate Recovery” which provides a non-denominational, reality based Christian slant on the 12-Step recovery process. Outside 12-Step (AA & NA) meetings are attended daily be each client. We do all this with the approach that “Recovery is a gift, not a punishment”.

Aftercare plans are developed for each client at Ambrosia with input from the client, his referral source, his family, and the primary counselor. If necessary, we have relationships with many halfway houses in the area for clients not ready to return home.

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