Category Archives: Addiction Courses

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Battling heroin addiction at family levels

September 15, 2016
Battling heroin addiction

Battling heroin addiction at family levels by exposing all it’s effects to help people make the right choices

Battling heroin addiction at family levels: Making the wrong choices

There are certain things that we do not because we want to but because we see our friends and relatives do. The motivation is to have the feelings they have upon using the things they use or doing what they do. In other words the sense of belonging is the reason why all these are happening. Take for instance in the world of drug addiction you will be amazed at what people do just not to be left out and in the process they find themselves into real problems not just in their health and peace of mind but also with the law enforcement agencies. Even though addiction cuts across and everyone is vulnerable, it hit the hardest at the family unit, which is why battling heroin addiction among other substances at family level is very important. We spoke to doctor Dalal Akoury the MD and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center about the battling heroin addiction in families and it is amazing seeing how simple desires can land us into real threats of addiction.

As a professional in this discipline doctor Akoury is going to shed some light on how influential heroin can be in your life no matter how you got introduced to it. She says that one morning while in her office a lady walked in and was very depressed. When she gave her time to share her problem she open up and poured out her heart on the battles she has with heroin addiction. For confidentiality we will call her Jimssy not her real name. Jimssy is a full-time housewife and mother hardly fits the stereotypical picture of a heroin addict. However for the past two of her adult life, she was obsessed with getting high on heroin a passion she shared with her husband, Jim not his real name who has been battled his own addiction for over two decades now.

Battling heroin addiction at family levels: Peer influence in addiction

Jim had been struggling with heroin addiction for years when his wife joined the league of shooting up heroin. Even though Jimssy was not ignorant of the effects of heroin on her husband, she voluntarily decided to test the water one day following an advice from her friend who informed her that using heroin would significantly relieve the pain of headache and muscular pains she had suffered from epileptic seizures she has been struggling with for more than 15 years now. It is amazing how friends can be very destructive to our wellbeing. This friend without any consideration of the know consequences, approached her friend with the news she knew Jimssy would be interested in, that is the solution to her struggle with pain. Jimssy acknowledges that, that was her first time and regret having such a friend in her life. She goes ahead to explain that her main reason for testing the waters even though she knew the struggles her husband, was to get better, the pain was becoming unbearable. What do you think about her decision? You may suggest that under the circumstances she was justified because she was looking for solutions about her pain. Nonetheless it is still not right, every advice you get from a friend must be confirmed by a medical doctor and that is why doctor Akoury founded this facility where you can get all the professional assistance concerning your health and addiction at any time of the day.

Battling heroin addiction at family levels: Making the wrong choices

 

 

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The pain of addiction

Parental duties in controlling drug addiction

September 15, 2016
Parental duties

Parental duties in controlling drug addiction inspires and motivates users to agree to medication

Parental duties in controlling drug addiction: Taming substance abuse

While looking at drug addiction experiences by parents caring for addicts in our previous article, we highlighted certain lesion points from what other parents have experience while exercising their parental duties in controlling drug addiction. It became clear that most of us have let our children plunge in to the intoxication of addiction, for very simple reasons like denial. Of the seven lessons we were able to address the first one and now with the help of doctor Dalal Akoury MD a veteran addiction expert and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center, we want to progress with the remaining lesions as we progress into this discussion as follows:

  1. I cannot fix this
  2. My addict is a liar
  3. My addict is a criminal
  4. Others don’t want them around
  5. Life will not be the same
  6. Homelessness may be the path he chooses

Parental duties in controlling drug addiction: I cannot fix this

Doctor Akoury has maintained that the first step in the addiction treatment is making self-acknowledgement that you have a problem which needs to be fixed. It is true that as loving parents we would always want to fix all the problems of our children irrespective of the challenges involved. However no one has access of our addict’s children’s minds besides themselves. This you can’t fix for them as a parent. All you can do is to be supportive and loving to them. Remember that no meaningful recovery program will succeed where the patient is in denial. Therefore any loving parent trying to force this decision on the children is likely to fail and get frustrated as they watch their children sink into addiction. Therefor parental duties in controlling drug abuse demands that we seek for help from the experts and doctor Akoury will be very helpful if only you can schedule for an appointment with her today.

Parental duties in controlling drug addiction: My addict is a liar

Traditionally addicts will often find something to hide their habits with and ensure that their real business is not exposed. It is possible that when they are making all these efforts of concealment, they may not be in their proper senses to tell exactly what they are doing. Normally their motive is sincere of trying to seek your approval of their deeds and not really for pride. It is also true that most addicts are not happy with themselves for their actions are only that they have no way out at least while still in that state of mind. At this point their only survival ways would be to seek for some approval by telling lies no matter the consequences.

As parents we will be laid to whether it is an innocent lie or not, it will still remain to be a lie. Like in my case when my addicted son tells me that he is not abusing drugs, I don’t buy that and instead I tell him repeatedly that “my eyes can hear even better than my ears” because ideally what they say is not what is really happening.  It is therefore very important that we make efforts of finding facts for ourselves and not relying on what the children tell us.

Parental duties in controlling drug addiction: Taming substance abuse

 

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Career and drugs

Heroin assignment in the brain

September 9, 2016
Heroin assignment

Heroin assignment in the brain are never good for human health in general

Heroin assignment in the brain: Facts about heroin addiction

When you ask me this question how does heroin work in the brain? I will respond to help you not get confused as to whether heroin is good for your health or otherwise. You cannot gamble with your life and most importantly your health. For your information, this I the most valuable asset one can ever possess in life. When experts at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center say that your health is your health, it is not a gimmick. It is a confirmed fact and you can attest to it even as a layman. Heroin as a drug has nothing to offer in the protection to this most valuable yet priceless asset called health. And just to erase the confusion from your mind if any, doctor Dalal Akoury the MD and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center explains that, under normal circumstance the heroin assignment in the brain generally human body is to naturally produce its own opiate-like substances and uses them as neurotransmitters.

As we progress into the discussion about heroin assignment in the brain, let me make emphasis that in a different way, I have not just singled out heroin but substances like opiate. Meaning that some of the substances am alluding to may include endorphins, enkephalins and dynorphin and collectively they are commonly known as endogenous opioids. Endogenous opioids modulate our reactions to painful stimuli and this is where many go wrong and are attempting to associate heroin with proper functionality of the brain. That aside these endogenous also regulate vital functions such as hunger and thirst and are involved in mood control, immune response, and other processes.

Heroin assignment in the brain: Exogenous substances

And now as to the reason why opiates like heroin and morphine are affecting us so powerfully is that, these exogenous substances bind to the same receptors as our endogenous opioids. There are three kinds of receptors widely distributed throughout the brain including the mu, delta, and kappa receptors.
These receptors through the second messengers, influences the likelihood that ion channels will open, which in certain cases reduces the excitability of neurons. This reduced excitability is the likely source of the euphoric effect of opiates and appears to be mediated by the mu and delta receptors.

This euphoric effect also appears to involve another mechanism in which the GABA-inhibitory interneurons of the ventral tegmental area come into play. By attaching to their mu receptors, exogenous opioids reduce the amount of GABA released. Remember that under normal circumstances, GABA reduces the amount of dopamine released in the nucleus accumbens. By inhibiting this inhibitor, the opiates ultimately increase the amount of dopamine produced and the amount of pleasure felt. Besides that doctor Akoury says that the chronic consumption of opiates inhibits the production of cAMP. However this inhibition will be offset in the long run by other cAMP production mechanisms. When no opiates are available, this increased cAMP production capacity comes to the fore and results in neural hyperactivity and the sensation of craving the drug. And with craving you can easily continue in the addiction life. Doctor Dalal Akoury MD, wants to help you defeat all these and set you free from all manner of addiction. You can call her today to schedule for that important appointment.

Heroin assignment in the brain: Facts about heroin addiction

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Exposing heroin and opium effects

September 9, 2016
Exposing heroin

Exposing heroin and opium effects to make people make the right choices

Exposing heroin and opium effects: What is Heroin and Opium?

Before we can settle into the discussion of exposing heroine and opium effects, we want to first understand the definitions of the two substances. A lot has been said about heroin across the globe and one very important point is that heroin like all other substances of abuse has got nothing beneficial to human health. They can only be associated with disasters like poor health, suffering and death to the extreme further begging the question “what really are these dangerous and devastating substances?”

Heroin is derived from the morphine alkaloid found in opium and is roughly 2-3 times more potent. A highly addictive drug, heroin exhibits euphoric (“rush”), anxiolytic and analgesic central nervous system properties. Heroin is classified as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 and as such has no acceptable medical use in the United States. Pure heroin is a white powder with a bitter taste. Most illicit heroin is sold as a white or brownish powder and is usually “cut” with other drugs or with substances such as sugar, starch, powdered milk, or quinine. It can also be cut with strychnine or other poisons. Because heroin abusers do not know the actual strength of the drug or its true contents, they are at risk of overdose or death and that is why exposing heroin effects is very necessary. Another form of heroin known as “black tar” may be sticky, like roofing tar, or hard, like coal. Its color may vary from dark brown to black. Heroin has some funny street names include smack, H, skag, junk, brown sugar, horse, and black tar.

The opium definition

Opium is also a highly addictive narcotic drug which comes in dried latex form from the opium poppy seed pod. Customarily the pods which have not ripened are slit open and their sap seeds out and dries on the outer surface of the pod. The product realized will be yellow-brown latex, which is then scraped off of the pod; it is bitter in taste and contains varying amounts of alkaloids such as morphine, codeine, thebaine and papaverine.

And now back to exposing the effects of opium and heroin in both the short-term and the long-term, can be overwhelming in a number of different ways. The euphoria experienced in the short-term can overtake the senses, making the patient incoherent, unresponsive and unable to focus. In the long-term, the health effects can erode major organ systems and cause infections that can be life threatening. The good news is that when you schedule for an appointment with doctor Dalal Akoury MD and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center, you will be attended to professionally in all your addiction related concerns.

Exposing heroin and opium effects: Short term effects

The short-term effects of opium and heroin are generally the reason why people use opiates in the first place. This is when you experience the high or euphoric rush associated with the drug.

  • Less than 10 seconds after intravenous injection, opiate users will feel a rush while an intramuscular injection provides a high in less than 10 minutes.
  • For those who snort or smoke the drug, the euphoria takes up to 15 minutes.
  • Other short-term effects of heroin and opium include dry mouth, a warm feeling, and heavy arms and legs.
  • When heroin is cut with poisons or dangerous drugs like Fentanyl or when too much heroin is taken, a short-term effect of the drug can be overdose or death.

Exposing heroin and opium effects: What is Heroin and Opium?

 

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Strong central nervous system stimulant

September 7, 2016
Strong central nervous system

Strong central nervous system stimulant that can destroy the brain system and the well-being of the body

Strong central nervous system stimulant: Crack cocaine

Without missing the words, cocaine is a strong central nervous system stimulant that raises the levels of dopamine. Doctor Dalal Akoury MD, President and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center explains that this is a brain chemical which is associated with pleasure and movement, in the brain’s reward circuit. And since dopamine facilitates communication in some brain cell commonly known as neurons, which are released by neurons to respond to signals like the smell or taste of good food and then it is recycled back into the cell that releases it which in return will shut off the signal between neurons.

Cocaine acts by preventing the dopamine from being recycled, causing excessive amounts of dopamine to build up, amplifying the message, and ultimately disrupting normal communication. It is this excess of dopamine that is responsible for cocaine’s euphoric effects. With repeated use, cocaine can cause long-term changes in the brain’s reward system and in other brain systems as well, which may eventually lead to addiction.

Strong central nervous system stimulant: Health consequences

There is no doubt that cocaine abuse impact on health negatively in very many ways. Doctor Akoury explains that among many other consequences, the following are outstanding:

Being a strong central nervous system stimulant, it can also cause headaches and gastrointestinal complications such as abdominal pain and nausea. Alongside that, it is worth noting that since cocaine tends to decrease appetite, chronic users can become malnourished as well.

Strong central nervous system stimulant: Effects associated with mode of administration

Even though the dangers remain the same, it will interest you to note that these modes of administration of cocaine (smoking, snorting, injestion and injection) can produce different adverse effects including the following:

  • Regularly snorting cocaine, can lead to loss of the sense of smell, nose bleeding, problems with swallowing, hoarseness and a chronically runny nose.
  • Ingesting cocaine can cause severe bowel gangrene as a result of reduced blood flow.
  • Injecting cocaine can bring about severe allergic reactions and increased risk for contracting HIV and other blood-borne diseases.
  • Binge patterns of use may lead to irritability, restlessness, anxiety, and paranoia.
  • Cocaine abusers can suffer a temporary state of full-blown paranoid psychosis, in which they lose touch with reality and experience auditory hallucinations.

In conclusion doctor Akoury is making emphasis that it doesn’t matter how it is administered or the frequency of cocaine use, in all these users can experience acute cardiovascular or cerebrovascular emergencies, such as a heart attack or stroke, which may cause sudden death. Remember that most cocaine-related deaths are often as result of cardiac arrest or seizure followed by respiratory arrest. All these can be brought to manageable levels if we all pool together and begin doing the right things. You may not know conclusively what to do and that is why doctor Akoury founded this health facility to help you stay healthy. You can schedule for an appointment with doctor Dalal Akoury and together with her team of experts they will professionally offer lasting solution to your individual conditions.

Strong central nervous system stimulant: Crack cocaine

 

 

 

 

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