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over the counter drug abuse

Various signs and symptoms of substance abuse

Various signs

Various signs and symptoms of substance abuse could be disturbing but worth knowing for lasting solutions

Various signs and symptoms of substance abuse: First is addressing denial

The very first point of action is addressing any element of denial. And having done so, doctor Dalal Akoury MD, a veteran addiction expert and also the founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Health Resource Center says that, the next step is to move further and trace the various signs and symptoms of substance abuse in your life. In other words if you’re wondering whether you have a substance abuse problem, then the following questions may help. Depending on how you respond to them will give an indication whether you have drinking problem or your drug use is a problem. In other words, when your response has more yes than no then chances are that you have a problem which needs to be fixed immediately.

  • Do you ever feel bad, guilty, or ashamed about your drinking or drug use?
  • Do you ever tell lies about how much or how often you drink or use drugs?
  • Has you alcohol or drug use gotten you into trouble at work or with the law?
  • Has your alcohol or drug use caused problems in your relationships, as in marriage, work place?
  • Have members of your family or friends showed concern about your alcohol or drug use?
  • Have you ever blacked out from drinking or drug use?
  • Have you ever felt you should cut down on your drinking or drug use?
  • Have you tried to cut back, but just couldn’t?
  • On more than one occasion, have you done or said something while drunk or high that you later regretted and wished you didn’t?

Various signs and symptoms of substance abuse: Co-occurring disorders and depression

The mental health problems that most commonly co-occur with substance abuse are depression, anxiety disorders, and bipolar disorder. The others may include:

  • Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness
  • Loss of interest in daily activities
  • Inability to experience pleasure
  • Appetite or weight changes
  • Sleep changes
  • Loss of energy
  • Strong feelings of worthlessness or guilt
  • Concentration problems
  • Anger, physical pain, and reckless behavior (especially in men)

Various signs and symptoms of substance abuse: Mania in bipolar disorder

  • Feelings of euphoria or extreme irritability
  • Unrealistic, grandiose beliefs
  • Decreased need for sleep
  • Increased energy
  • Rapid speech and racing thoughts
  • Impaired judgment and impulsivity
  • Hyperactivity
  • Anger or rage

Various signs and symptoms of substance abuse: Anxiety

  • Excessive tension and worry
  • Feeling restless or jumpy
  • Irritability or feeling “on edge”
  • Racing heart or shortness of breath
  • Nausea, trembling, or dizziness
  • Muscle tension, headaches
  • Trouble concentrating
  • Insomnia

Finally it amazes me how we often get the best information and fail to implement them. We all want to live healthy lives free from all manner of addictions and mental health complications but on the other hand we find it difficult to conform to certain standards of life that is deemed healthy and productive. That really amazes me, however knowing that these drugs are very addictive, we have a duty to change things professionally. When you visit us at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center, we will evaluate your individual conditions and professionally administer treatment to your individual needs that will live you full of life free from addiction and ready to go places. You can talk to us today by calling doctor Dalal Akoury to schedule for you appointment.  

Various signs and symptoms of substance abuse: First is addressing denial

 

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Addiction consequences

Adolescent addiction did you contribute

Adolescent addiction

Adolescent addiction did you contribute? Irrespective of how you respond consider residential addiction treatment for your loved ones

Adolescent addiction did you contribute: I would have learnt to listen?

Listening is very important not just in the prevention of adolescent addiction but in all matters of health and beyond. Experts from AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under the able leadership of doctor Dalal Akoury MD, says that listening is always the very first thing we must all chose to do. Listen to your children when they speak to us. Many times we often brash off what they say arguing that an addict doesn’t have anything worth listening to. Like in this case of doctor’s client, she says her son told her that there was nothing she could do to fix his problem. As a parent when you are told this, you may dispute it right away after all it is your duty to fix your children’s issues. Listening is very important because if she had done so, she would have sought the services of a professional. No addiction can be treated if the addict is in denial, and denial is one thing that only the addict can fix. So when this boy alluded to the fact that nothing could be done in his case, someone needed to have listen.

Adolescent addiction did you contribute: Listening is not seeking for answers

Professional advice are very important, parents must listen to them and apply their guidelines to the letter. It is very important to note that listening is different from looking for answers. Getting answers to questions or “what to do” solutions assume that there is a single answer or methodology that will awaken not just you but also your addicted loved one from this nightmare.

Another lesson we would be learning to listen to your own internal with what you are told by your son. Take time and evaluate in this order; what have you heard, what do you feel and why are you being scared? Any emotional reactions you may have will be as a result of all your unresolved internal struggles.

Finally, from this question, you can also pick this lesion as a parent. It is necessary that you learn to listen to your heart and your mind. Take time to reconcile what the two are saying. Like for instance your heart will tell you that where there is life, there is always hope. It allows you to love someone even if their actions may seem to be communicating otherwise. On the other hand your mind will speak the realities of life and tell you facts about drug addiction. It is important to appreciate those matters of the heart and the mind is not about winning or losing the argument. Your heart and your mind must be reconciled to work together in unity.

It is possible for your heart to accept that your son may die and in the same way it is also possible for your mind to understand that there may not be an answer for addiction and loving for just today is all you get. With those insights I appreciate that sometimes listening can be very difficult, but if this will help you get help to your children, then if am asked again what I wish I had done differently. Then I will give a straight answer that I wish I had learned how to listen to my children sooner. And now that you are a listening parent schedule for an appointment with doctor Akoury today to listen and apply some of her professional treatment options available for your addicted children.

Adolescent addiction did you contribute: I would have learnt to listen?

 

 

 

 

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porn addiction

Addiction recovery process is never easy

Addiction recovery process

Addiction recovery process is never easy and breaking its chain need real time commitment to the process

Addiction recovery process is never easy: Embracing love to teenage addicts

For some times now we have been following up on a story about the rough road of quitting heroin addiction in the previous article and for sure life as an addict is not everyone cup of tea. There is no peace in drug addiction and even during addiction recovery process you will still experience very strange things happening. In more than two decades of her medical practice in the line of addiction, doctor Dalal Akoury MD met this client and who recovered from heroin addiction the hard way. In her introduction in the previous article we show how she become homeless from time to time, running out of cash and wasting her life in less valuable activities. We want to further the discussion with a view of using this story to impact positively in the lives of many young people and also to seek for lasting solutions.

Addiction recovery process is never easy: Being homeless

At one point during the stay with my friend the story continues, I got word that my parents were coming for a vacation in the neighboring country and this trip could not have come at the right time. After being accommodated all this while, my friend had just given me notice that her roommate needed the couch for her guests who were visiting with her soon. This would have meant that I was going to be homeless again. The good news to me is that my parents were not just coming for me to have a roof over my head, but also at a time when the addiction healing process was picking up well. And so to play safe, I told my parents that I will be joining them for the vacation but am down with a very bad flu and needed a place to crush for sometimes.

Even though I was making this lie, my parents knew the truth because they had seen me go through it several times in the past even though they never commented about it. And with the assurance of getting accommodation and the love of my parents, I threw away all my bags and needles and headed to join them. I spent the next few weeks there shacked up in their bedroom, sleeping on an air mattress and refusing to leave the room. By and by the physical pain started to recede paving the way for mental anguish to hit like a train and this time I couldn’t move. I cried a lot struggling to hide the real thing from my parents but it was pointless and I just didn’t care.

Realizing that I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar, I figured what is the difference between this and a depressive episode, anyway? So I rode it out like anyone else. So many things crossed my mind including suicide but I just didn’t have the strength to follow through with any of my half assessed plans. I thought about trying to find dope in this city however hard it could be but I was so depressed that the idea of trying to get out of bed was exhausting enough, let alone getting dressed and leaving the house. Besides, I had no money and I knew my parents didn’t trust me so what was I going to do? Steal money? Forget it. I didn’t have the strength. Are you following how addiction recovery process comes at a price? Why wait to this point if you can easily be helped by doctor Dalal Akoury who is just a phone call away? Choose wisely today.

Addiction recovery process is never easy: Embracing love to teenage addicts

 

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outpatient-drug-treatment-relapse-prevention

Challenging relapse experience during recovery

Challenging relapse experience

Challenging relapse experience during recovery when defeated makes patients even much committed to the recovery program

Challenging relapse experience during recovery: The process is never easy

When we said that addiction recovery process isn’t easy you can appreciate that from the story of this client. Having been on treatment, she is now facing all the challenging relapse experiences. And in her own words she says that, “the next thing that came in my mind now that am that weak is to go online hoping to connect with people who might be able to help but no luck there. I ended up reaching out to the guy whom I had dated shortly for like a week before I move to another town. As fate would have it, he had also been kicked out of his house around the same time and had left the state. But he missed me a lot and wanted to come back. Because I needed company of a friend, I requested my mother if my “boyfriend” could stay with us for a while and like a loving mother to her only daughter she agreed. So he hopped the first plane over here. And that’s how my real life started, I suppose.”

I ended up marrying that guy and having a child and then divorcing him almost immediately and now we are working things out or whatever. But the most important thing is that we don’t do heroin any more. And we don’t use needles. We are both well aware of the pain and the consequences of the drug. Still we seem to have different views. I feel like there is a junkie living in my head and it will never go away. For this reason, I think of myself as forever an addict and I don’t trust that I will turn down a shot if offered. He claims to feel no desire for the drug at all but he was not as hard into it as I was. He didn’t even know how to shoot up on his own; I remember at some point I had shot him up a few times and clearly he wasn’t as much an addict as I was. That may be good for him but I will never rid myself of that voice in my head, my inner junkie. She is locked away in the back of my mind but she is always screaming and begging to be let out. There’s always that suggestion of just one time. Just one hit for fun this time. I’m in control because I have chosen to. Those are some of the challenging relapse experience during recovery.

Challenging relapse experience during recovery: Cold turkey heroin

Finally, if you ask me what cold turkey heroin withdrawal does to a person, I will tell you that it searches deep within the reaches of your mind for any shred of hope and joy  or anything resembling such and destroys it completely, killing it brutally and mercilessly. It leaves you just as a shadow of your former self. And for some, it never ends. In some form or another, it stays with you for life. That is why doctor Dalal Akoury founded AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center to help you cope with all these withdrawal challenges. You can call doctor Akoury today to book for an appointment with her for a more professional recovery treatment process.

Challenging relapse experience during recovery: The process is never easy

 

 

 

 

 

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Drug administaration

Drug addiction experiences by parents caring for addicts

Drug addiction experiences

Drug addiction experiences by parents caring for addicts has given serious lesions to be emulated

Drug addiction experiences by parents caring for addicts: Lesions learnt

If you have been with us for a while you must be aware of the story of these couple whose child was struggling with heroin addiction. The following are some of the lesions they learnt and from their child’s drug addiction experiences which you too can benefit form:

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

Drug addiction experiences by parents caring for addicts: Parents are enablers

I believe that just like we love our children you also do the same. For our case we would do anything to ease the pain he was going through. Take away the addiction. Smooth the road. In fact we would give our life if it would help protect our son from the sufferings of addiction. In one of my communication with my son over his addiction and to bring my message home I made it simpler using the illustration of a moving train and him standing on the railroad. In this illustration, the train represented the drugs. Encouraging him that it was my duty as a father to take care of him by pushing him off the danger and take his place. Of course that is what you would have done too. However, I now understand how wrong I was since all that would only save his life and risk mine on the tracks and thereafter he would repeat the same thing again. His mind set shall have not been changed and I will be dead not being there to take my role as a good father I am.

Even though we are bringing up our children in the best way we can, it does not guarantee that they will forever be that way. In those unforeseen circumstances, they will often take the wrong railroad. I realize that we can only support them and give them the opportunities to make another decision. It may not be easy but that is why there are professionals who are well trained in such disciplines. It does not mean that they will be taking our roles as parents but professionals like experts at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center including recovering addicts, police officers, probation officers, corrections officers, pastors, counselors, all these people can do a better job than we can in showing our addict the correct path. I appreciate that this may be very difficult to some because no one loves our children like we do but, then a gain we must also be flexible and accept that we cannot do what the experts can do and more importantly what our children need and when they need it. That is why we are only enablers we do our part and let the others do the rest with our full support. If you are looking for such experts to help your child, look no further for doctor Dalal Akoury is all you need and all your addiction related concerns will be addressed professionally.

Drug addiction experiences by parents caring for addicts: Lesions learnt

 

 

 

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