Opiate Detox

Jump to:

1. Defining Opiates
2. Withdrawing From Opiates
3. What to Expect
4. Medication Therapies
5. The End of Detoxification

According to an article published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, about nine percent of the population in the United States is addicted to an opiate. While this number might seem high, it’s also not surprising. Opiates are some of the most addictive substances available to man, and the addictions they cause can be extremely hard to break.

Addictions like this aren’t caused by weakness or a moral failing. Instead, addictions are caused by a complex interaction of chemical changes and addict behavior. Both aspects of addiction must be treated in order for the addict to truly recover. Detoxification, which is considered the first step on the road to recovery, helps the addict deal with the chemical changes that have occurred as a result of the addiction. Here, the addict receives help while the drugs are purged from the addict’s system. Once this is complete, the addict can move on to addiction therapies that can create long-lasting changes. At Alta Mira, we provide thorough and complete detoxification programs for opiate addictions. If you or someone you know is struggling with an addiction, we encourage you to call us to find out more about what we can do to help.

Defining Opiates

There are several forms of opiates. Some are created from the seeds of a poppy plant, and others are created by chemists in a laboratory. Technically, the latter medications are called “opioids,” but they’re commonly lumped in with natural opiates by addiction professionals. Some opiates are legal medications prescribed for pain, and some are illegal drugs sold on the street by dealers. Common opiates include:

Sometimes, addicts who abuse prescription opiates tell themselves that their addiction is somehow more noble than an addiction to heroin. After all, these users may tell themselves, they’re not buying a drug from the street and sharing needles with other users. They’re buying their drugs from clean and bright pharmacies. The fact is, however, that both types of drugs work in the same way.

According to an article from Harvard Medical School, an opiate addiction follows a specific chemical pathway. When a user takes in an opiate, the drug heads to the brain, attaches to specific receptors and enhances the action of certain natural body chemicals. Over time, the body may reduce its own production of these chemicals, just to keep an overload of information from occurring. When the addict stops taking the drug, the body requires a few weeks or months to ramp back up to a normal level of production of these chemicals. During that time, the person feels a wide variety of horrible symptoms. This is known as withdrawal.

Withdrawing From Opiates

Withdrawal symptoms, in and of themselves, rarely cause death and they tend to go away on their own within about two weeks. Those two weeks can be horrible for the addict to endure, however, and many addicts will simply give up on detoxification if they’re asked to deal with these symptoms without help. Symptoms can include:

During detoxification, the addict is given a significant amount of help in order to ease symptoms and make them more tolerable. When the symptoms are under control, the addict has a clear head and the ability to truly think about the future. This ability is key to long-term success. After all, the addict has a series of major life changes to make, and will need energy and stamina in order to make those changes.

What to Expect

As a study in the journal Pharmacopsychiatry states, people who abuse prescription medications, including opiates, tend to abuse more than one drug. These people are at greater risk for complications during detoxification. For this reason, most addicts will need to submit a urine sample for testing as soon as they enter a detoxification program. It might seem invasive, but it certainly is necessary. Here, the medical staff can determine what, exactly, the person has been taking and at what dosage. Then they’ll be able to design an appropriate detoxification program.

In some cases, the addict can go through the detoxification process at home. New varieties of addiction medications are available by prescription, which allows the addict to take the pills at home, on his or her own schedule. In other cases, the addict must go through the detoxification process in a facility. This is often a good idea for people who have addictions to many drugs, or who have been through detoxification before. In an inpatient program, they’ll have access to constant monitoring and reliable medication schedules, and they’ll be removed from all sources of temptation.

Medication Therapies

During opiate detoxification, medications do the heavy lifting. These medications attach to the same opiate receptors and they “trick” the body into believing that it still has access to an opiate. As a result, the addict feels no painful withdrawal symptoms. There are two medications that are commonly used for opiate detoxification: buprenorphine and methadone. Both medications work in much the same way, but buprenorphine is often given in a tablet form and methadone is given as a liquid. Researchers have long tried to determine which form of medication was best, but the results have been a bit mixed. For example, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that methadone was more likely to be effective at keeping people in therapy, but buprenorphine was more likely to keep people from using other drugs. It might be that the drugs work slightly differently in some people than they do in others. The doctor will choose the proper medication based on the addict’s health and history of abuse.

Sometimes, people are able to start on a high dose of medication and then slowly taper down until they’re not taking any of the drug at all. Other times, people experience withdrawal symptoms and cravings when they taper. These people may need to stay on medications for months or even years in order to stay away from a relapse. Sometimes, doctors help these patients by providing a medication known as naltrexone. This medication blocks all forms of opiates from attaching, so if the person uses drugs while taking naltrexone, the drugs don’t work. This might be a suitable method to use for people who have tapered down to low doses of drugs yet remain convinced that they want to use drugs. According to a study published in the American Journal on Addictions, more than half of people stayed clear of drugs after detoxification when given naltrexone.

The End of Detoxification

The goal of a detoxification program is to prepare the addict to enter a treatment program. Detoxification alone can’t cure the addiction. Opiate addictions are strong, and the risk of relapse is always there. A study in the British Journal of Psychiatry makes this connection quite clear. Of 80 people who completed a program, 71 percent used drugs again when they were discharged, and most of them used those drugs within six weeks. These addicts didn’t necessarily revert to full-blown addiction, but they certainly felt free to experiment with the drugs once more when they were left on their own. Relapse is a common problem with opiate addictions, and it takes a significant amount of willpower and work on behalf of the addict to keep that relapse from occurring.

Addiction treatment programs help deal with behavior, helping the addict learn how to think and act in ways that do not support an addictive habit. Therapy, group meetings and medication support all have a role to play in addiction treatment programs. Ideally, the addiction treatment program and the detoxification program will overlap a bit. The addict will slowly move from focusing on medication to focusing on therapy. In fact, the addict may not even notice the transition. In this way, the addiction can truly be dealt with and the addict can recover. No momentum is lost with this method, and the work continues.