Substance Abuse Disorder
- Ailish Stein
- Oct 2, 2020
- 2 min read
Substance Abuse Disorder is "a disease that affects a person's brain and behavior and leads to an inability to control the use of legal or illegal drugs or medication".
Substance Abuse can begin by taking a drug recreationally and increasing the frequency or amount over time. It can also begin (particularly talking about opiates) with a prescribed dose of a medication, and becoming dependent on that substance over time. As time passes, you need more of the drug to continue to get high. After that, you need the drug just to continue to feel OK during the day.
Diagnosis and Treatment: Diagnosis of Substance Abuse Disorder is a full evaluation done by (typically) a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a drug and alcohol licensed counselor. A full panel (blood, urine, and other tests) are used to assess drug usage, but are not a diagnostic test to diagnose addiction.
Treatment Options:
Many times treatment options include the following:
- Individual, group, or family therapy sessions
- A focus on understanding the nature of addiction
- The type of facility depending on the patients needs, inpatient, outpatient, or residential
An example of a possible detoxification room.
Detoxification: A typical detox from opioids or highly addictive substances will require the patient to take a lesser dose of the drug, rather than going completely without. This can prevent seizures, comas, and organ failures while the patient is trying to recover.
TW - SELF HARM
Symptoms include:
- Excessive hunger, fatigue, lethargy, loss of appetite, night sweats, shakiness, clammy skin, cravings, feeling cold, sweating
- agitation, crying, excitability, irritability, restlessness
- delirium, depression, hallucination, paranoia, severe anxiety
- gagging, nausea, vomiting, flatulence, stomach cramps
- disorientation, mental confusion, racing thoughts, slowness in activity
- boredom, feeling detached from self, loss of interest in activities, nervousness
- insomnia, nightmares, sleepiness, or sleeping difficulties
- congestion, runny nose, dilated pupils, watery eyes
More severe symptoms:
- Self harm
- Seizures
- Coma
- Tremors
- Severe dehydration
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