Early intervention or treatment is required to stop progression within the same class of drugs for example – from mild nicotine use to severe nicotine use, from mild cannabis use to severe cannabis use, from mild alcohol use to severe alcohol use, from occasional use to regular use.
When someone already using these drugs in a regular manner, treatment aim is to quit at this stage and to stop progression to one or more other hardcore drugs such as - yaba (meth), heroin, phensidyl and injection.
When someone is addicted treatment aim is to restore brains normal function, management of withdrawal symptoms and psychosocial treatment for the prevention of further relapse and reduce the genetic influence on the addicted person.
Brain’s normal function will automatically re-establish if someone get appropriate and time length treatment.
After admission into the hospital, first treatment is pharmacological or giving medication for controlling the withdrawal symptoms –for some drugs controlling these withdrawal symptoms are vital because they are life threatening. So qualified drug addiction specialist and trained ancillary staffs are required to overcome this stage safely. This is called detoxification or short term management of drug addiction. Some people use to say they are treating without medication –these people are dangerous, ignorant, non-professional and dangerous for patients. They use these terms to hide their inefficiency and ignorance.
2nd stage of treatment is the psychosocial treatment, at this stage need base medication or medication required for other co morbid conditions are required. If someone is getting treatment to quit his substance use little or no medication is required at this stage for his addiction. Aim of psychological treatment is to bolster patient motivation to change from use to no use, keep engaged the patient for long term treatment and follow up, giving the patient skill training to gain confidence on himself not to use drugs in drug using high risk situations.Drug addiction psychosocial treatment also focus on family therapy, marital& couple therapy, problem solving, anger management, relaxation therapy, career planning etc.
These treatments are provided after detoxification or short term management, approximately 3-4 weeks after admission in a structured way by experienced and qualified professionals. Counseling is a common term of psychological treatment for many different conditions. For drug addiction many people other than drug addiction specialist can usually give common sense advice, these are not counseling. Drug addiction counseling are many different types, specifically drug related and only possible to deliver by knowledgeable drug addiction specialist and workers. After detoxification, continuing treatment or rehabilitation stage lasts from 6 months to 2 years depending on patient’s condition. At this rehabilitation stage of in house treatment these intensive psychosocial treatments are provided along with other structured in house programs.
At the end of this stage, patients are discharged from the hospital, given advice for follow up care. In follow up care patient gets assessments and test urine sample if required by the physicians to check his addiction status and get counseling and support to maintain his abstinence condition. This period also focus patient’s career, family management, social engagement etc.
