Treatment of drug addiction and development of effective programme of drug addiction treatment.

Every year millions of inhabitants of Western and Eastern Europe appeal to specialized establishments (drug addiction centres, clinics, hospitals) with the same diagnosis: drug addiction. Many of them have recovered. Many of them require more then just treatment of drug addiction using standard scheme: organism detoxification (detox), short time hospitalization, outpatient treatment of drug addiction, rehabilitation. It is regrettable to admit, but it is hard to argue with statistics: the investigations held in 2006 have shown that more than 12 million of Europeans suffer from chemical (drug) addiction. About 9-9,5% suffer from chronic narcomania. For these people the desire to overcome drug addiction and realization of the fact that some of drug addiction treatment programmes are successful and other are not is a matter of life and death. Drug abuse ruins families and relationships. Drug addicts who do not resort to drug addiction treatment are destroying themselves from inside. As a result, they cannot find the purpose of life in anything except self-destruction by taking new ‘doses’ of desired drug. In the end drug addiction deprives people of human-like appearance; these persons do not see the light at the end of the tunnel and do not admit enjoyment of anything except intake of beloved poison. However, it should be noted that the degree of remissions for patients who have resorted for treatment to drug addiction clinics, centres, and hospitals is very high. The competent treatment of drug addiction returns a person freedom from the pernicious addiction and helps to open from the start own interests and aspirations which do not have anything in common with drugs.

In what way the treatment of drug addiction helps to achieve a long term remission, and why some programmes of narcomania treatment are successful and other are not?

The treatment of drug addiction must be entrusted to professionals. We at the ‘GROST’ Addiction Centre have devoted ourselves to this work since 1996. Our experts have colossal experience in the area of drug addiction treatment. During development of drug addiction treatment programmes we have set the task to achieve permanent result. In order to attain this object we work with our patients helping them to understand and to accept answers to following questions: ‘What does it mean to suffer from a drug addiction (or narcomania)?’, and ‘What does it mean to overcome this destructive addiction?’ All the aforementioned information is called to open for potential patients and their relatives the wider understanding of drug addiction treatment, and in what way the treatment programmes should be arranged, and which interaction is needed in the chain ‘relatives-patient-doctors’ in order to consolidate the result of drug addiction treatment forever and to minimize the probability of relapse. First of all it is necessary to note that the very understanding of drug addiction and its treatment is often interpreted wrongly by potential patients and they rarely realize and have clear notion about obstacles they encounter on social and personal level. Many people consider that drug addiction is a moral problem. It is wrong. Other think that drug addiction is a product of personal weakness and that drug addict is able to stop taking drugs independently. It is not absolutely true, it is only true on early stages of addiction. Patients at later stages of addiction, especially at serious and chronic stages, require qualified treatment of narcomania. Self-depended treatment or treatment without supervision of experts with respective qualification could ruinously affect patients’ physical condition and health, even to fatal outcome. Before the start of drug addiction treatment it is important to understand that narcomania is not a disease. It is not a personal weakness, bad education, or a choice. Quite the contrary, the narcomania is a product of specific reasons. To wide extent the roots of drug abuse problem have dual character: drug addiction or so called narcomania is a result of physical conditions on the one part and of psychological on the other. Physically narcomania becomes such dependence when an addict is forced to take drugs not only for pleasure, but in order to provide the normal metabolism in one’s organism. Continuous abuse of drugs leads to changes in organism on chemical level, so the intake of drugs becomes literally a question of survival for a patient. Psychological aspects of drug addiction are equally important and problematic for addicts. Taking of drugs becomes a necessary attribute for keeping of emotional balance. At the early stages of treatment you can often hear from patients suffering from chronic drug addiction that they feel ill at ease without the drug which is the object of their addiction.

How to identify the presence of drug addiction in each specific case and the necessity of respective treatment?

One thing is to know academic definition of words ‘drug addiction’ and other to identify its manifestations in yourself or anyone of your kin. It is obvious that drug addiction treatment process could work even when an addict does not admit presence of the addiction in cases when he (she) is compulsory placed in drug addiction clinic, hospital or centre in one or other way. However in this case terms of treatment at such clinic, hospital or centre significantly increase and effectiveness drops. Therefore the important element of effective treatment of drug addiction is patient’s recognition of the fact of own disease, impossibility to overcome this disease and necessity of entrance to a medical establishment (drug addiction hospital, clinic or centre) and to undergo the course of treatment. Per se, there is no difference when a patient takes drugs several times per day and he (she) is a chronic addict, or drugs are taken occasionally several times per week or month. Both such persons suffer from addiction being drug addicts and they both demand some kind of medical intervention. The difference is only in heaviness of changes in psychological and physical state of a patient. The other difference consists in patient’s attitude to his disease. Whereas in the first aforementioned example a patient most likely understands presence of pernicious addiction and its influence on own life, in the second example a patient is absolutely sure that it is only a momentary liking and he (she) is able to stop at any time and just does not want to do this. It is more difficult to treat the first case from the medical point of view, because the metabolism of such patient’s organism has been changed significantly, and the second example assumes continuous work with psychologist in order to remove desire for relapse.

Determination of method and programme of drug addiction treatment.

It goes without saying that treatment of drug addiction is directed towards combating drugs in all forms and manifestations. Since drug abuse is a ‘double-headed disease’, the methods of treatment or the programmes of drug addiction treatment should be carried out in two directions: physiological and psychological. On the one hand, the treatment of drug addiction is directed towards removing of physical dependence and its side effects typical for narcomania. Since severe and chronic drug abuse implies changes in patient’s organism as stated above, the treatment of addiction at early stages could be very painful for a patient. During the procedures of organism detoxification, also called detox, the personnel of drug addiction clinic seeks to remove or minimize physical symptoms after sudden discontinuation of drug taking. When detoxification (detox) process is arranged correctly, the early stages of drug addiction treatment, even in severe and chronic forms, do not impair physical and moral condition of a patient. As stated above, the drug addiction is not only a physical, but also a psychological disease, therefore apart from removal of physical addiction and its consequences, the work focused on change of moral and spiritual values of a patient, interference in cause and effect relations leading to drug taking, for total eradication of drug addiction.

A choice of addiction centre, clinic, or hospital.

There is a vast majority of medical establishments of this specialization practicing various methods of fight against drug addiction and narcomania treatment. Though as stated above, the treatment of drug addiction must be carried out by professionals. ‘GROST’ Addiction Clinic has worked since 1996. More than 5000 patients have been relieved by our experts of the named ailment on different stages of addiction with virtually hundred-per-cent remission (recovery).

If any person lose the ability to control taking of drugs, this person will never find it again. But abstaining from drugs could return virtually everything lost in the past and even help to achieve higher level of emotional and spiritual perfection.

For this it is crucial to understand that drug addiction is a combination of physical, mental and social dependence. Therefore it is needed to fight with this dependence step-by-step: restore an organism physically, remove psychological effect of drug taking, consolidate the attitude for the renunciation of drugs and start a new life.

‘GROST’ Addiction Centre offers the most modern approaches to treatment of drug and toxic substance addiction among which are following:

- rapid (Ultra-rapid) detoxification;

- lytic detoxification;

- normalization of psycho-emotional condition;

- disintoxication therapy and treatment of concomitant somatic pathology;

- physiotherapeutic procedures, massage, ozone therapy;

- implantation of anti-alcohol medicines with continuous effect (prophylaxis of ‘breakdowns’);

- immunotherapy;

- psychotherapeutic rehabilitation programmes.

Many of recovering addicts affirm the effectiveness of these approaches, nevertheless, in order to obtain apparent result a patient has to accept the fact that he (she) needs help and wants to change own life.