Holding on to hope during an opioid drug detox recovery can be a struggle. Most of us have tried to stop cold-turkey but the withdrawal pains were so difficult we reverted back to the opioids just to find some physical relief. It’s understandable, but the good news is that the physical aspects of opioid dependency improve after a supervised medical detox. The ‘struggle’ then becomes more about PAWS, post-acute withdrawal syndrome, which psychological addiction, cravings, and temptations that can last for years, and in some cases PAWS can last a lifetime.
Thankfully there are many tools to help with the PAWS part of drug abuse recovery. Remember that in order to stay on the path to a healthy, clean and sober life takes practice. Many people slip or relapse, and none of us are perfect. There are also those of us who go through drug detox and never pick up again. We do this by finding loving and supportive relationships and a strong emotional resilience. In truth though, we need all the help we can get.
I think the most important aspect is to work hard at understanding the connections between drug addiction and stress. To not pay attention to this is to do a disservice to your addiction recovery. Mainly this is how it works. Typically people who have experienced some type of stress or trauma at an early age are more than likely to become addicted to drugs. Child abuse is often found synonymous with addiction, period. There are also others who suffer from undiagnosed health conditions like depression, anxiety, bi-polar, and manic-depression. More times than not, this second group will pick up prescription drugs or others to help deal with the mood swings and the emotional pain. Once entering a drug detox these people need to address the situation, get stabilized, and then work on their recovery.
To make matters even worse for this group is that opioid addiction tends to create lasting changes in the brain’s coping mechanism. There is a sense of overreaction response to stress even well after completing a drug detox.
The key for recovery is to learn methods to better deal with stress.
For more on this, please stay tuned.
Recovery Rob BIO
Recovery Rob is a 48-year-old man who has more than twenty years of sobriety, whose drugs of choice at one time were alcohol and drugs, and he has worked in and around the field of addiction for more than 30 years. Having just recently launched his own website, www.askrecoveryrob.com, he hopes to reach out and continue to help others who work through their process of addiction and recovery. Recovery Rob is a professional writer who has published two novels and is currently working on his third. He has been writing and working as Pat Moore Foundation’s premiere blogger and content writer, which helps keeps Pat Moore Foundation’s addiction and recovery blog top-rated.