Category Archives: Integrative Addiction Treatment for Physicians

Behavioral Addiction and Brain Function

Rejuvenating brain health

June 6, 2017
Rejuvenating brain health

Rejuvenating brain health as a way of fighting substance abuse

Rejuvenating brain health: Finding solutions of addiction from the brain

Life is directly connected to the brain. The moment the brain stops, death is registered. Life is not all about the heart beating but is all about rejuvenating brain health. Any distortion of the brain’s health brings all other things to a halt. To understand this better, we want to share with you the importance of keeping our brains’ healthy as a solution to drug addiction. As we engage the services of addiction expert doctor Dalal Akoury (MD) President and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center, let us take this journey together for the good of all of us. This facility was formed out of the deepest concern doctor Dalal Akoury after seeing and attending to many addicts of different substances. You can become a part of the solution to this problem by calling doctor Dalal Akoury for a more in-depth and professional redress.

Doctor Akoury reiterates that the concerns of many people are that for any addictive behavior, a good place to start the journey of recovery is and should always be at the end of your fork. Remember that any effort towards beating an addiction and staying committed to sustained recovery will heavily depend on your optimal and perfection of your mental health, besides that there is scientific evidence that your mental health will be affected powerfully by what you feed on. A path to recovery from destructive addictions, including those to drugs, alcohol, compulsive eating or gambling, could start at your next meal. It is therefore very important that no time is wasted in dealing with all manner of addiction. The moment you notice signs of addiction, it is only fear that you seek treatment immediately before it is too late to make any significance change.

Rejuvenating brain health: Effects of relapse

Over the decades working with patients, I have seen how the 12-step approach can be very effective when the patient is willing to recover. Alongside that, I have also established that without dietary changes being implemented on the part of the victim, any attempt of abstinence and recovery is needlessly more vulnerable to relapse. At the heart of the problem are a new set of dietary choices. And because many people are currently feeding on highly-processed foods, foods which are not originally designed by nature but designed in the laboratories, this can cause life to be very complicated in the long run. Remember that the main ingredients of such foods are sugar, refined carbohydrates, and vegetable oils and besides, the producers of such foods have designed them primary to taste good and appealing to the eye for the purpose of luring the client into more consumption that is to say they are more of profit oriented than health.

Professionally doctor Akoury is of the opinion that feeding on this kind of food will only succeed in lighting up the same pleasure-rewards areas in our brains that are activated by drugs like cocaine and heroin as well as by a variety of addictive behaviors. Ingesting dopamine-triggering foods, in other words, subjecting your brain to the ups and downs, highs and lows, of any addictive substance or activity since you are stirring the same neurochemical pot (no pun intended).

Rejuvenating brain health: Finding solutions of addiction from the brain

 

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drug addiction treatment

Unseen addiction craving challenges

June 6, 2017
Unseen addiction craving

Unseen addiction craving challenges can be avoided by engaging in meaningful activities

Unseen addiction craving challenges: Using self-talk

For many patients, a variety of automatic thoughts accompany craving but are so deeply established that patients are not aware of them. Automatic thoughts associated with all the hidden or unseen addiction craving challenges often have a sense of urgency and exaggerated dire consequences. Some of those automatic thoughts may include the following:

  • I have to use now
  • I’ll die if I don’t use or
  • I can’t do anything else until I use.

According to the expert opinion of doctor Dalal Akoury MD and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center in coping with craving, it is important that both the patient and the therapist should collectively recognize the automatic thoughts and take measures of encountering them effectively. To help patients recognize their automatic thoughts, therapists can point out cognitive distortions that occur during your sessions with the client. Like for instances, your therapist could point out that a few times today you’ve said you feel like you have to use the drug and then the question would follow that,  while you were having that feelings were you really aware of those thoughts when you mentioned them? That is just one strategy and the other strategy could be when you are using a tape recorder, you could help your patients by slowing down the tape to recognize cognitions.

Unseen addiction craving challenges: The benefits of recording therapy sessions

The good thing about recording the session is because it can be replayed over and over. Like for instance, the patient may have said something and so you could play it again saying “when you decided to go out last night, you said that you really weren’t aware of thinking about using cocaine.” That is when he/she said but in your own professional evaluation you think otherwise, in situations like that you could play the tape again and help the user to try to remember what the night was like, sort of play it back like a movie in slow motion, we could find a couple of examples of things you said to yourself, maybe without even realizing it, that led to cocaine use.

Finally, once automatic thoughts are identified, it then becomes much easier to counter or confront them using positive rather than negative self-talk which may include cognitions such as challenging the thought like “I won’t really die if I don’t have cocaine” and normalizing craving which can be very uncomfortable if not handled professionally. Remember that if you are having any concerns about craving for any drug and you are wondering where to begin from, you can call on doctor Dalal Akoury today for the commencement of your treatment today.

Unseen addiction craving challenges: Using self-talk

 

 

 

 

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Cigarette

Health protection processes against tobacco use

June 6, 2017
Health protection processes

Health protection processes against tobacco use is essential in all dimensions

Health protection processes against tobacco use: Overcoming nicotine addiction

When it comes to health safety measures, there can never be any compromise. This is the most valuable asset one can ever have and anything causing it harm in anyway must be treated in good time. The rot in this generation is causing healthcare givers great concerns today. The world is saturated with very toxic substances and life is constantly under threat thereby demanding the need to have health protection processes against the use of tobacco and other substances taken seriously. It will interest you to note that tobacco is one of the substances that causes serious health concerns to humanity. And so from a professional point of view, doctor Dalal Akoury MD President and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center encourages that quitting cigarette smoking must be prioritized. This is important because it has a direct and immediate health benefits in many ways.

Like for instance, each times smokers choose to quit smoking and in just under 24 hours of quitting, all the complications that are associated with blood pressure go down and chances of heart attack decreases immensely. Besides the immediate benefits, we also have the long-term benefits of quitting which may include lower risk of stroke, lung and other cancers, and coronary heart disease. This can only mean that if you are struggling with this kind of addiction, the best you may consider doing is to seek immediate professional help by reaching out for doctor Dalal Akoury to schedule an appointment so that you could have your addiction condition dually addressed professionally.

Health protection processes against tobacco use: Treating withdrawal from nicotine

  • Nicotine withdrawal symptoms include irritability, craving, cognitive and attention deficits, sleep disturbances, and increased appetite.
  • To reduce the symptoms, nicotine replacements gum, patches, sprays, and inhalers are used. Another medication works on other areas of the brain to control craving.
  • Newer medications under study act on nicotine receptors directly. Studies have also shown that medications have better and long-term success when combined with behavioral treatment.

Finally, dear reader, it is never too late to seek help if you have been struggling with this problem of addiction. Actually, you may have been in greater denial over the past years but this should not be the reason for you to shy away from seeking help. Remember that doctor Dalal Akoury cares a lot for you to the point of creating a medical center whose main objective is to transform each individual’s life through increasing awareness about health and wellness and by empowering individuals to find their own inner healing power. Dr. Akoury’s practice focuses on personalized medicine through healthy lifestyle choices that deal with primary prevention and underlying causes instead of patching up symptoms. Therefore, be encouraged that you are not alone and by calling doctor Akoury on telephone number 843 213 1480 to schedule your appointment with her and all your addiction concerns will be dealt with professionally.

Health protection processes against tobacco use: Overcoming nicotine addiction

 

 

 

 

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smoking 1

Safeguarding life from tobacco addiction

June 6, 2017
Safeguarding life

Safeguarding life from tobacco addiction by quitting smoking

Safeguarding life from tobacco addiction: The duty of care we owe one another

While the authorities who’re charged with the duty of safeguarding life from the effects of tobacco and cigarette addiction are busy licensing more manufacturing firms and their distributors in the market, very innocent consumers of the substances continue to suffer disease and sickness across the globe. For how long shall we be in this bondage of addiction? Must we out of our actions be introducing our children to the drug by sending them to the shops for our supplies? Is it fair for our mothers to intoxicate their unborn children with nicotine while still in the womb? What about the association we have husbands and wife where one is smoking and the other is not should we be intimate, by way of kissing and risk contracting complications out of secondhand smoke? Ideally, there are very fundamental questions that we must address boldly by taking health precautions against the effects of tobacco addiction in the current generation.

How then should we begin? We sought the expert opinion of professionals from the home of addiction solutions at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under the able leadership of doctor Dalal Akoury (MD) and also the founder of the facility. Doctor Akoury says that when it comes to all addictive substances and particularly the cigarette addiction, the only way to fully protect yourself and your loved ones from the dangerous chemicals in both the actual cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke is through embracing100% smoke-free environments. In one of the forums when lecturing some clients, one of them asked, how possible is that? From an addict point of view this could be a challenge, however professionally this is possible you could start by opening the windows for easy circulation of air; sitting in a separate area with smokers and avoiding designated area for smoking; or using ventilation, air conditioning, or a fan these strategies, however, will only succeed in reducing the concentration of the cigarette smoke but may not necessarily eliminate secondhand smoke exposure completely. It, therefore, means that if you are a smoker, the single best way to protect your family is to quit smoking.

Safeguarding life from tobacco addiction: Latest research findings

Addiction is a developmental disorder that begins in adolescence, and sometimes as early as childhood. Recent advances have provided more insight into why teens put themselves at risk for addiction through risk-taking and thrill-seeking behaviors. These behaviors are likely to happen due to the fact that the part of the brain responsible for judgment, decision-making, and control of emotional responses the prefrontal cortex is the last area of the brain to mature. But there may be other factors. Dr. Dalal Akoury and her team of experts have established that a chemical in tobacco smoke, acetaldehyde, may play a role in addicting adolescents to smoking. In the study, adolescent laboratory rats increased their intake of nicotine when it was combined with acetaldehyde while the adult rats did not. That is just a hint of why health precautions against the effects of tobacco use are very important. You may want to consult further with doctor Akoury in any other pending concerns you have.

Safeguarding life from tobacco addiction: The duty of care we owe one another

 

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SUDs

Taking hazardous drugs and alcohol

June 6, 2017
Taking hazardous drugs

Taking hazardous drugs and alcohol is paving the way for health catastrophic events

Taking hazardous drugs and alcohol: Marijuana and Other Drugs

Have you ever known that by taking hazardous drugs together with alcohol, you are endangering your own life? Take for instances, marijuana can prevent you from feeling nauseous or from throwing up, meaning that it can potentially prevent you from throwing up alcohol if your body needs to. This can make the extra alcohol stay in your body and may cause alcohol poisoning. The mixture of these two drugs can cause a number of effects on the body including:

  • Feeling like you’re spinning
  • Paranoia
  • Trouble concentrating
  • Throwing up
  • Trouble using your body

Taking hazardous drugs and alcohol: Alcohol and prescription drugs

Whether or not you have a prescription for a prescription medication, mixing it with alcohol can be dangerous. It’s important to talk to your doctor about whether you can have alcohol with your prescription medicines, and if so, if you should limit the use to a certain amount. If you are using a prescription medication that wasn’t prescribed to you or using it in a way that it wasn’t prescribed for, you are abusing the medication. Compounding this abuse with drinking alcohol only magnifies the risks of the abusive behavior.

Alcohol shouldn’t be mixed with most prescription medications because the combination can lead to severe side effects. Although you should specifically check on any medication you are taking, some medications that can cause a problem with alcohol include:

  • Painkillers like aspirin and acetaminophen
  • Antihistamines
  • Central nervous system depressants, like sleep medications, sedatives, and drugs for anxiety
  • Antidepressants, like Elavil, Sinequan and MAO inhibitors
  • Diabetes drugs
  • Drugs for infection, including antibiotics
  • Many specific medications, including Catapres for high blood pressure, Verapamil for chest pain, Tagamet for gastrointestinal issues, and Adderall for ADHD or narcolepsy

Taking hazardous drugs and alcohol: Additional drugs that can mix badly with alcohol

There is an endless list of drugs that can have negative effects on your body when you take them with alcohol. Some of the many that you should be cautious about include Amphetamines, Mushrooms, Ecstasy, Caffeine, LSD, GHB, and PCP. The list is actually endless meaning that what we have here may not be as conclusive as it should be. In this regard doctor, Akoury recommends that everyone must ensure that they are aware of all the potential consequences of drinking alcohol while taking any kind of drug irrespective of whether it’s a prescription drug or an illegal street drug.

Finally, dear reader, this is not something that you can comfortably handle on your own without the help of the experts. Therefore if you or anyone you know is struggling with alcohol or any other drug or both at the same time, we will always be there for you at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center. All you need to do is to schedule an appointment with the expert (Doctor Dalal Akoury) and she will be of great help to you in the best and more professional way than you can ever imagine.

Taking hazardous drugs and alcohol: Marijuana and Other Drugs

 

 

 

 

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