Medical Detox Centers in Newport News, VA

If you're addicted, and you've decided that you will accept treatment, it's a wonderful decision to have arrived at. Not many people affected by addiction possess the clarity of mind necessary. Once you get to this point, however, there are more decisions to make. For instance, what kind of treatment do you need: should you look for comprehensive rehab from medical detox centers in Newport News?

While it takes some professional diagnosis to determine which of these choices is appropriate, it's possible to start with an educated guess.

What Is Addiction Treatment?

When you are addicted to a drug, it's important to seek a more specific idea of the condition. The term addiction is usually a vague catch-all -- your condition may come from physical dependency alone on drugs, or it may include psychological dependency, as well.

When you're psychologically dependent on drugs, you experience a deep, psychological attachment to use of drugs. This means that you are unable to accept the fact that there are harmful effects to continuing with this habit and take logical measures to stop. While you may be able to think clearly when you're sober and unaffected by cravings, you will usually be unable to hold on to this thought when the cravings take over. Such psychological dependence occurs when drugs bring about harmful change to the way your brain works. Psychological dependence requires psychological therapy to treat.

Physical dependence is a different matter. If you're physically dependent on a drug, you may not actually feel an attachment to it. You may truly want to quit and you may manage to stay consistent at all times, but you may find that you can't because attempting it comes with physical pain. Pain does come with physical dependence. When addictive drugs course through the system on a regular basis, the brain recalibrates levels of internal neurotransmitters, hormones and other natural brain chemicals to accommodate their effects. When blood concentration of drugs falls between hits, the brain isn't able to adapt its chemical levels quickly enough to continue normal function; it experiences the effects of chemical imbalance. These effects are called withdrawal symptoms.

Withdrawal symptoms can be painful, or even dangerous. Pain and nausea are common. With drugs such as heroin and alcohol, one may experience seizures and cardiac arrest. Psychological effects abound with other drugs. Anxiety, insomnia, irritability, and panic are often seen. If a hit of an addictive substance isn't taken to assuage these symptoms, they can last for days or even weeks.

It's important to treat physical dependence with medical care. Failure to do so often proves disastrous. Not only is there a great danger of personal harm or even death, people usually give up on their idea of quitting drugs for reasons of extreme pain or discomfort.

How Do You Know What Kind of Treatment You Need?

Different drugs affect the brain in different ways. In general, addictions to alcohol, heroin, methadone, and street drugs such as cocaine, all need both medical detox for physical dependence and psychotherapy afterward for psychological dependence.

Drugs such as OxyContin, methadone, and morphine can cause physical dependence alone -- when these drugs are used according to a doctor's prescription. They cause physical dependence issues, but there is usually no psychological dependence. Medical detox alone suffices in these cases.

When these very drugs are used in excess, they may cause full-blown psychological dependence, as well. In these cases, they may require both medical addiction treatment in Newport News for medical detox and psychological rehabilitation.

How Does Medical Detox Really Help?

In concept, drug and alcohol medical detox is a simple-enough treatment process -- it aims to treat patients symptomatically for the withdrawal symptoms that they experience. When there is pain, they receive pain medication; where there are cardiac inconsistencies, they are administered beta-blockers or other cardiovascular medications; when there are seizures, there are antiepileptics; when there are is panic or anxiety, benzodiazepines help. Medical Detox Centers in Newport News, as well as drug treatment in Newport News, can help you overcome your addiction.

In cases where psychological dependence is part of the mix, patients receive medications such as methadone or Suboxone to help with cravings.

Medical detox centers, in short, help patients go through the detox process with less pain or other discomforts. Ensuring that each patient receives the right medications at the times, however, can be a challenge.

Addictions are rarely straightforward. Often, for example, people who are addicted, come in, having used more than one drug. The withdrawal symptoms to such multi-drug addictions can be unpredictable. Other areas of unpredictability can involve the patient's physical or mental health. It's possible for patients seeking addiction to be uncooperative, to impulsively decide to quit treatment or to simply experience unexpected pain. The form of addiction treatment chosen needs to address these complications.

Looking for the Right Kind of Medical Detox Centers in Newport News

You will usually be offered the choice between outpatient and inpatient medical detox centers in Newport News. A good rule of thumb to go by is to consider outpatient rehab if the patient experiences mild addiction and if the patient is someone who has never been ambivalent about seeking treatment. In outpatient rehab, the patient lives at home; such treatment is possible if there are no complications of any kind. Every other form of the addictive condition requires inpatient medical detox. With a quick search, you should be able to identify the best choices available to you. Call Newport News Drug Rehab Centers now for help (877) 804-1531.