Cocaine Addiction

A cocaine addiction is one that can cause much pain to the addict and everyone around them. It causes extreme emotional distress as well as physical consequences that can be damaging and sometime permanent. The money a cocaine addiction consumes can be overwhelming and add to the damaging effects on relationships and other aspects of life. Treatment for cocaine addictions varies in technique, and overcoming the addiction, though the most important, is only a part of the necessary treatment.

Overcoming a Cocaine Addiction

Overcoming a cocaine addiction is a difficult process. The body and mind are addicted to the substance, and when a physical addiction is present, the withdrawal process is not an easy one. Chemical changes have taken place in the body and mind, and reversing the damaging effects caused by a cocaine addiction can be time consuming and fairly traumatic. When deciding that treatment is in order to kick a cocaine addiction, one who has been using for an extended period of time, then suddenly stops the use of cocaine, will experience numerous side effects and withdrawal symptoms. These can include night sweats, panic attacks, fatigue, fevers, anxiety, sleeplessness, and heart palpitations. Medical supervision during detoxification is recommended, and practiced, at most cocaine addiction rehabilitation centers.

Cocaine addictions are different in every person, which often will mean different needs for each patient during the process of detoxification. That’s why it is important to provide medical staff to oversee this process and tend to any heart problems or pulmonary system issues that may exist in a patient. Friends and family members are also an important tool to help give strength and encouragement to the individual trying to overcome a cocaine addiction, and often are crucial to success.

Relapse of a Cocaine Addiction

Even after successful treatment for a cocaine addiction, relapses still do occur. Most of the time, when a relapse does occur, the biggest reason for the relapse is due to environmental or physical triggers. These triggers can be things such as a place or a person that reminds the person of their past drug use, and subsequently triggers the relapse. Being exposed to such triggers can remind the addict of how it felt to use cocaine, or how it tasted, and then their body reacts to these feelings and begins to crave cocaine.

Unfortunately, there is currently no single treatment for cocaine addiction that will eliminate the addiction all together. One of the possible reasons that researchers haven’t been completely successful in finding a miracle cure for cocaine addictions is because they do not fully take into account all of the social and biological factors that contribute to making it very difficult to completely quit using cocaine. There are however, drugs in development that are being researched for the purpose of blocking cocaine from being able to bind to the dopamine transporters, which allows for the reuptake of dopamine. Even if such a drug is developed and proven successful, this drug alone will not be sufficient in treating a cocaine addiction. Counseling and other methods of therapy would still need to be implemented in order to help a person fully recover from an addiction to cocaine.