Category: International

Changing Your Mindset as Part of Recovery

Changing Your Mindset as Part of Recovery

Articles, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

Recovery is all about change. The one thing you truly need to remember is that how you think is how you behave. This means if you behave like you have an addiction it may come out and cause a relapse, but changing your life so that you do not hang around with the same people and change your routine means you can overcome and move out of your addiction. There is only one way to start on this journey, one step at a time. You must look forward to the future and this is done with some pretty simple steps. While the steps are simplistic they can be overwhelming to undertake with all the other changes in recovery.

First you must set goals. These goals should be both measurable and attainable. This means that though the goals should be short term they should be something you need to put work into to achieve. This not only helps you work toward a goal, but to feel the accomplishment when that goal is met will propel you forward to meet other goals. Remember that we have full control of the choices we make and even if we have setbacks we need to choose to keep working toward our set goals. In fact, the biggest obstacle we face in life is our own minds. This leads to the second step.

The next step is to take control of your mind. Even if you are struggling and are facing obstacles, you need to work on finding a positive mindset. Taking a positive viewpoint can change how you achieve. As the old saying goes how you believe is how you achieve. Achievements are for those who never quit. You have goals and if you do not you can create goals that are worth achieving. Those who can overcome their mind can achieve anything.

So you now have some decisions to make.  What are your goals and dreams? What can you dare to dream about? Which goals will you allow yourself to set? In relation to recovery you must believe you have the power to stay clean and sober. One way to do this is to have self-efficacy. To build self-efficacy find someone who has achieved what you hope to achieve and model their behavior. Self-efficacy is simply believing that you can do what you set out to do in life. This is through small achievable goals. Additionally, find those who encourage you. This can be a support group, family, or any other form of supportive group you can find and maintain. Share your goals with them and share your achievements and set backs. Having these people on your side will help keep you moving forward, even when a setback occurs. You are able to achieve if you want to do so.

So now you must simply make up your mind and get started. If you are in recovery than you have already made one step. If you are considering recovery than you are on the verge of changing your life. Will you make the leap that is needed? You are in control.

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Designer and Synthetic Drugs

Designer and Synthetic Drugs

Articles, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

Designer and Synthetic Drugs. As if the long list of dangerous and illegal substances was not enough. There is now a whole host of synthetic chemicals which have flooded the Australia in recent years. Many of these substances have already established a foothold in the United States and Europe. Frequently lumped together under the name of “bath salts”. These synthetic and so-called designer drugs go by names like kronic, K2, spice and flakka, to name just a few.

These chemicals are synthetic compounds manufactured in China and Pakistan. They are designed to mimic the effects of more popular but illegal substances. Since the chemicals have not come under regulatory scrutiny, they are technically legal.

Collectively, the designer and synthetic drugs are meant to induce similar effects as cocaine, methamphetamine, and LSD. Since they are not tested or regulated in any way, their effects have turned out to be disastrous in many instances. There are numerous cases of young people committing suicide while under the influence of some of these drugs. The overall health effects are largely unknown. What is certain is that all of these synthetic drugs have proven to be dangerous to users and to the public.

The United Nations office of Drugs and Crime has taken notice of these synthetic drugs. The UNODC reported that there has been a “multitude of new psychoactive substances” that have emerged across the world in the last five years. They also stated that these drugs have spread rapidly as they find increasing markets worldwide. This same report stated that over 3000 new chemical substances has emerged to compete with illegal drugs which are difficult to obtain and are expensive. These synthetic designer drugs are also specifically engineered to circumvent existing drug laws and regulations.

Control of these substances is difficult. As one chemical becomes known and comes under regulatory scrutiny in any given nation, the manufacturers are able to alter a small part of the chemical makeup of these chemicals and render them undetectable again. This makes any kind of reasonable understanding of the chemicals impossible for the time being.

The nightmarish scenarios associated with these drugs are numerous. Cases of suicide and bizarre acts of violence have been attributed to the use of these drugs. The overall effect of most of the designer drugs is a combination of aggression, hyper-stimulation and hallucination and this is potentially deadly. Since these chemicals are not regulated, they are easy for young people to obtain. For this reason, younger people have been the victims of these drugs.

Education seems to be the most effective way of combatting the use of these chemicals. An untested and chemical is simply dangerous. No matter the how “legal” the drug may be, it is an unknown and unregulated mind-altering chemical and should be avoided.

The simple conclusion regarding designer and synthetic drugs is avoid them. There is no such thing as a safe drug. Even aspirin has side effects and to imagine that a chemical designed to induce intense stimulation and hallucinations is safe is just not reasonable.

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Cocaine Addiction

New Information on Cocaine Addiction

Articles, Australia, Celebrity Rehab, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

It is widely known and understood that cocaine is dangerously addictive. Cocaine addiction can be fatal. Prolonged abuse of cocaine causes heart attacks, among other catastrophic consequences. The long term health problems associated with cocaine use are devastating. Once thought to be the “harmless” recreational drug, cocaine emerged after the 1980s as especially deadly and addictive. New research suggests that cocaine is even more addictive the people once thought.

Even now, there are those who believe they can use cocaine more or less recreational. That casual use of cocaine is not necessarily addiction to cocaine. A recent study at McGill University in Montreal, Canada has shown that signs of addiction to cocaine arise as early as the first use.

Researchers demonstrated even after using cocaine one time, subjects of the study responded to visual cues of cocaine use with the same responses as those who were fully addicted. When casual cocaine users were shown visual signs of cocaine, the presence of the drug for instance, their bodies released dopamine in the areas to the brain responsible for driving cravings.

Dopamines are the pleasure-inducing chemicals which drugs generally stimulate in our brains and nervous systems. For people who are addicted to certain types of drugs such as cocaine, the release of dopamine in the brain plays a massive part in the cycle of craving and increased drug use. Thus the cycle of addiction is a circuit of release and craving stimulated by dopamine. That casual users of cocaine exhibited this response is reason for concern.

It is generally accepted that cocaine users, those who have not become fully over-run by the cycle of addiction, are safe with respect to sign of addiction. That a cocaine user can stop using the drug until they have consciously decided to use again generally indicates that this person is not addicted. This study by McGill University forces us to question this assumption.

 At this stage, this study does not suggest that casual users of cocaine are necessarily dependent on the drug. What the study does show is that the patterns of addiction are in place long before people begin to show more obvious signs of addiction. The real benefit to this study is to facilitate a more heightened awareness of just how addictive cocaine can be.

Those who feel they may have a trouble managing the so-called recreational aspect of cocaine may wish to consider that dependence may be taking hold more quickly than they once thought. Certainly those who provide treatment for cocaine addiction would need to consider this study as they evaluate how far advanced a patient’s addiction may be. It seems likely that, where we once may have assumed a short out-patient treatment would have been sufficient, a more long-term and comprehensive in-patient treatment could be warranted in more cases than previously thought.

The simple conclusion to all of this is that cocaine is far more addictive than anyone realized. Far from the “safe” drug of the 1970s, cocaine is insidious in the way it manipulates brain chemistry, and it creates addictive patterns much easier than anyone imagined.

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Violence and Ice Addiction

Violence and Ice Addiction

Articles, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

Ice, or methamphetamine, remains a persistent problem in Australia. The epidemic numbers of people addicted to ice in Australia has created a plethora of social issues beyond the obvious health crisis these drugs cause. The impact on families and communities branches into all aspects of life. Of the many problems that attend ice addiction, the tendency for some addicts to become violent is a very real worry.

The violence associated with ice abuse and addiction stems in some measure from the desperation of the drug addict who struggles to maintain his or her dependency as their resources dwindle. This can be true of all addiction, especially addiction to illegal street drugs. Yet, ice seems to have a stigma at least of being associated with violent behavior.

Some of this violent behavior is attributable to the particular nature of methamphetamine. Ice has the effect of depriving users of sleep to such an extreme degree that the psychological toll can become on the order of psychotic episodes. Being sleep deprived for days at a time, coupled with the manic effects of the drug itself has fueled psychological problems which inevitably turn violent.

In addition to the side effects of prolonged sleep deprivation. Ice directly and negatively effects the function of the limbic system which plays a role in controlling anger. Methamphetamine seriously compromises the proper function of the limbic system so that ice users, who are already in a severely debilitated state, have little control over their responses to stress and frustration. All of this obviously tends to lead to violent outbursts.

However, the general problem of violence and ice addiction is largely due to the direct effects of the drug itself. Methamphetamine is simply dangerous on all counts and leads to psychotic and violent behavior. One study showed that as many as one fourth of ice users had experienced psychotic episodes while using the drug or coming down form the drug in the last year. These episodes are characterized by extreme paranoia and desperation. Many of them leading to acts of violence.  

Authorities throughout Australia have expressed concern over the violence which attends widespread ice addiction. Just the sheer drive to keep using the drug seems to fuel the violence associated with it. Dealing with the violence remains one challenge among many but these are the effects of the drug. Treating addiction to methamphetamine would interrupt the problem altogether.

Methamphetamine is dangerously addictive. But there are highly effective treatment programs available to get people out of the nightmare of this drug. Beginning with medically assisted withdrawal regimens designed to alleviate the complex of withdrawal symptoms, to a long-term program of recovery, effective treatments are easily accessible to Australians.

DARA Drug and Alcohol Rehab of Thailand is easily reached from Australia. Working with state of the art and medically proven techniques for full treatment, DARA helps people break the cycle of ice addiction and guides people to life free of addiction. The best way to stop the violence associated with ice addiction is to treat the addiction.

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Methamphetamine - The Return of Meth

The Return of Meth

Articles, Australia, Education, International, Malaysia, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom

A recent article in the New York Times reported that methamphetamine is making a serious come-back. They reported that as meth became widely available in its first turn as a dangerous and destructive recreational drug. Measures to stop the manufacture of methamphetamine stepped up to stop its availability. From the start, one of the most dangerous features of meth was its ease of manufacture. With a few simple items and some over the counter cold medicine, people were able to make the drug in home labs. This of course led to another series of problems. The state of Oregon began requiring people to obtain a prescription to purchase the main cold medications needed to manufacture meth, and this more or less shut meth down as a readily available drug.

However, where there is demand, a supply will eventually materialize and so it has. Drug cartels form south of the U.S. border have begun filling the demand for meth and the drug is making a rapid return. Overdoses from methamphetamine increased 11% over the last year. This is a dramatic rise. Users are no longer just smoking and snorting the drug. They are shooting up meth along with heroin. It seems the heroin epidemic has helped amplify the dangers of meth use and abuse.

The problem of the rise of meth is not isolated to the United States. Australia and New Zealand have seen a substantial increase in the amount of the drug and the widespread use of meth. Authorities in New Zealand recently seized a half ton of methamphetamine coming from Hawaii. Authorities stated that this was more than all of the meth taken in during the entire year of 2015. Customs officials seized approximately 700 million dollars worth of meth in Sydney smuggled in bras and art supplies.

The demand for meth, it would seem, never went away even as the rate of use decreased with the availability of the drug. Meth is a highly addictive drug. There is no safe way to use meth and people who use it, in any form, rapidly become addicted. The general physical destruction of the body which meth users experience is profound.

With this kind of increase of availability of meth in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, we are bound to see a rapid increase in the number of people who are addicted to the drug. While some people may benefit from outpatient rehab and recovery programs. The severity of meth addiction is such that most users will likely require more long term care. Meth addiction is so severe, its physical and mental toll so pronounced, that inpatient rehab is generally required to interrupt and recover. Inpatient rehab for meth addiction generally consists of a range of medical treatment to alleviate the symptoms of withdrawal. Followed by a full emotional, psychological, and physical treatment program.

DARA Drug and Alcohol Rehab in Thailand is fully equipped to handle meth addiction. This is not a 12 step program. Rather, DARA utilizes the most recent scientifically verified methods for treating all addiction including methamphetamine addiction.

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