Drug Side Effects

Drug side effects are becoming more and more of an issue for addiction professionals. This is especially true in light of the epidemic rise in the abuse of and addiction to prescription painkillers, anti-depressants, and anti-psychotics. These often have life threatening side effects when taken as prescribed, let alone at abusive or addictive levels. More and more individuals seeking drug treatment for addiction to some sort of street drug are also reporting abusive and addictive use of prescription drugs at the same time. This is an explosive and potentially deadly combination. In this culture, at this time, one should always suspect more substances are being used than what is being reported.

Narconon Arrowhead is an adult drug rehab, meaning the minimum age for enrollment in our program is 18 years old. Other than that age limitation, individuals come from varied backgrounds and experiences. We range in age from 18 to 80; individuals hail from all around the world, and run the entire gamut of educational, financial, and career backgrounds. We find the melting pot to be extremely advantageous in handling the addiction problem. Addicts and alcoholic are generally very selfish and self centered at the height of their addictions. As the new person moves through our program they find addicts helping addicts, which is a very strong force, as nobody knows the condition better than someone who has been there. Gaining the ability and desire to help another is a key point in extroverting the addict once again in preparing them to re-enter home or society.

MDMA or "ecstasy" is a Schedule I synthetic, psychoactive drug possessing stimulant and hallucinogenic properties. MDMA possesses chemical variations of the stimulant amphetamine or methamphetamine and a hallucinogen, most often mescaline. MDMA can cause adverse effects including nausea, hallucinations, chills, sweating, increases in body temperature, tremors, involuntary teeth clenching, muscle cramping, and blurred vision. MDMA users also report after-effects of anxiety, paranoia, and depression. An MDMA overdose is characterized by high blood pressure, faintness, panic attacks, and, in more severe cases, loss of consciousness, seizures, and a drastic rise in body temperature. MDMA overdoses can be fatal, as they may result in heart failure or extreme heat stroke.

Effective drug or alcohol rehab starts with really understanding exactly what rehabilitation is. Rehabilitate in its broad sense means to restore to a previous condition. Any rehab to be effective needs to address the three factors which lead up to and cause addiction to continue. These are mental and physical cravings, quilt, and depression. Drug and alcohol abuse stems from mental or physical pain an individual does not wish to confront or deal with. The drugs or alcohol only appear to alleviate these conditions and after a time contribute to them as well as creating new sources in and endless cycle and trap known as addiction. Confronting and effectively handling the conditions brought about by cravings, quilt, and depression allows the addicted individual to truly ‘rehab’ him or herself and so be restored to a previous condition or at least as close as possible. Narconon Arrowhead is much more than a detox center where the individual simply quits using for a period. Narconon Arrowhead drug rehab methodologies fully handle the above factors allowing one to truly rehabilitate a previous condition and so remove the need for further drug or alcohol use as a false solution to living the life they want.

There are various forms and methods of ingesting drugs and toxins. Orally, nasally, injecting, and smoking are a few of these. The effects from smoking drugs as opposed to orally ingesting them or nasally generally creates a more intense effect faster. This is one of the factors that make crack cocaine a tougher addiction to break than powder cocaine. Drugs like Oxycontin are often ground up and mixed with other drugs and smoked for faster more intense highs as well. Also many times the harder drugs like heroin are smoked under the misunderstanding that the risk of addiction is lower and this is definitely not true. Addiction is addiction, some methods of taking drugs will take you to addiction faster and with more devastating effects.