Pennsylvania Heroin Addiction Treatment

Heroin is an illegal opiate drug listed as a Schedule I drug in the Controlled Substances Act, which means that it has no medical value and is highly addictive. Heroin is derived from morphine, which is found in the seed pod of the Asian poppy plant.

Heroin can be injected, smoked, or snorted. Around 23% of people who use heroin become addicted to it, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Heroin addiction carries numerous risks, including overdose, and it’s tough to beat. But with the right treatment, many people with even a severe heroin addiction recover successfully for the long-term.

If you or someone you love is addicted to heroin, there is hope. Examining heroin addiction and how treatment helps is beneficial in stopping the use of heroin and can empower you to improve your life on many fronts.

Heroin has a long history in America, starting with its synthesis in 1895. Bayer Company marketed this miracle drug as a cure for everything from a bad cough to menstrual woes. It was used in infant sleep aids and teething powders, headache cures, and elixirs for nerves. It was also used to treat morphine addiction, which exploded after the Civil War. Touted as a safe substitute for morphine, heroin was widely considered to be non-addictive. That is, until heroin addiction became a serious problem in the U.S., particularly in northern states.

In the early 20th century, opium and morphine addiction were rampant, and in 1914, the Harrison Narcotic Tax Act was passed and heavily taxed everyone who manufactured, imported, sold, or distributed opioids. The law made it clear that opioid addiction was a moral issue rather than the medical condition it’s known to be today, and it barred physicians from using opioid medications to treat morphine and opium addiction.

In 1924, Congress passed the Heroin Act, which outlawed heroin-laced over-the-counter drugs. The heroin free-for-all ended, but that didn’t prevent use.

In the 1930s and 1940s, injecting heroin became hip among theHarlem jazz scene crowd, and then among the beatniks of the 1950s. This led to the country’s first heroin epidemic.

The second epidemic occurred between 1971 and 1977 when 15% of Vietnam War soldiers developed an addiction to it. After the Vietnam War, addiction was largely limited to large cities and primarily affected minority males.

The first two heroin epidemics largely resolved themselves through a lack of pure heroin and the rising cost of the drug.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 80% of people who are currently addicted to heroin started out abusing prescription opioid painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin.

Several factors have led to the current heroin epidemic, including:

According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 591,000 Americans were addicted to heroin in 2015.

Addiction almost always has underlying causes that lead to the substance abuse. Common underlying causes of addiction include a history of trauma, mental illness, and chronic stress.

Trauma

Trauma, especially when it occurs early in life, changes the brain in important ways. It increases activity in the brain region responsible for fear, stress, and anxiety, and it reduces activity in the region associated with emotional regulation, decision making, and memory formation. People with a history of trauma may develop post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, insomnia, anger, fear, and flashbacks. Many people with a history of trauma – including sexual or physical abuse, surviving a natural disaster, or being a victim of or witness to violence – use heroin to numb emotional pain, alleviate negative emotions, prevent nightmares, or cope with fear and anger.

Mental Illness

It’s common for people who have a mental illness to self-medicate their symptoms with drugs or alcohol. When this occurs, it’s known as co-occurring disorders or dual diagnosis. Around half of all people who abuse drugs or alcohol have a co-occurring mental illness. Sometimes, the mental illness led to substance abuse as a way to cope. Other times, the drug abuse led to the mental illness as the result of brain changes associated with heavy abuse.

Either way, when a mental illness like anxiety or depression co-occurs with a substance use disorder, it requires specialized treatment, known as dual diagnosis treatment, which treats the mental illness in the context of the substance abuse and vice-versa.

Heroin is highly addictive for two main reasons. First, it produces an intense euphoria that makes people want to keep using it. Secondly, it produces a high level of tolerance almost immediately, which means that you need larger doses to get the desired effects.

Heroin addiction and dependence aren’t the same things, although they most often occur together.

Dependence

Dependence is the result of brain changes, which occur as the brain attempts to maintain normal function by altering its chemical function. These brain changes may begin to occur the first time you use heroin.

The unnaturally massive dopamine rush produced by heroin leads the brain to compensate by reducing the production of dopamine or by reducing the number of dopamine receptors. This occurs with other neurotransmitters affected by heroin as well, and it produces tolerance, which means that increasingly larger doses of heroin are needed to get the desired effects. But the more use occurs, the more the brain continues to compensate.

At some point, brain function may shift so that it starts operating more comfortably when heroin is present. When you try to quit using heroin cold-turkey, normal brain function rebounds. Neurotransmitters that were suppressed now flood the brain, and those that were increased now slow down. This causes physical withdrawal symptoms, which can be extremely intense.

Addiction

Heroin addiction is characterized by compulsive heroin abuse despite the negative consequences it causes in your life. Many heroin users experience legal, financial, physical, mental health, and relationship problems. If you’re addicted to heroin, you’ll find it extraordinarily difficult to stop using on your own.

One of the neurotransmitters heroin acts on is dopamine, which is responsible for feelings of pleasure. Dopamine plays a key role in the memory, learning, and reward centers of the brain. It’s designed to keep the species alive by making us want to engage in activities that feel good, like exercising and eating food. Heroin hijacks the brain’s reward system by producing a dopamine release 10 times bigger than what occurs with natural pleasures. This produces mind-boggling euphoria.

When you use heroin, your brain records a memory of the use and the pleasure it produces. It also records a memory of the environmental cues that are present when you use, such as people you use with, places you use, or your mental state right before you use. These environmental cues become triggers for cravings once you develop an addiction.

Repeated heroin use causes the nerve cells in the brain’s reward center to begin communicating with the nerve cells in the areas of the brain responsible for planning and executing tasks. This leads the brain to equate liking heroin with wanting it, and the result is intense cravings and compulsive drug-seeking behaviors.

Addiction also leads to dysfunctional thought and behavior patterns. Even if heroin leads to serious problems in your life, once you develop an addiction, you’ll continue to use it anyway. You’ll likely minimize the problems or withdraw from them and avoid them. You may even be in denial that your heroin abuse is a problem. You may become paranoid, angry, or anxious – but use may continue even if you want or try to cut down or quit.

Heroin addiction and dependence are diagnosed under the umbrella of “opioid use disorder,” or OUD. 11 criteria are used to diagnose an OUD, which will be categorized as mild, moderate, or severe depending on how many criteria are met.

DSM-V Criteria

These are the criteria that cover past-year use. Meeting two or three criteria indicates a mild OUD. Meeting four or five indicates a moderate OUD. An OUD is classified as severe if six or more criteria are met.

DSM-V criteria include:

Some of the signs that someone you love may be using heroin include:

Many people with an addiction will become defensive and angry if you try to bring it up. They may lie about the extent of the problem, or they may be in denial that there is a problem. An intervention planned and executed with the help of a professional interventionist can help your loved one get the professional help they need to end the addiction for good.

The withdrawal symptoms associated with heroin dependence can be excruciating, but they’re not particularly dangerous, with some rare exceptions. Not everyone will experience all the withdrawal symptoms associated with heroin detox, and symptoms can range from mild to severe.

The symptoms of heroin withdrawal are flu-like in nature and include:

Most people who try to detox from heroin on their own go back to using very quickly, if only to end withdrawal. For people who are dependent on heroin, medical detox or medication-assisted treatment can ease or prevent withdrawal symptoms and restore brain function.

Medical detox helps people get through the entire detox process relatively unscathed. It’s supervised by medical and mental health personnel who administer medications as needed to reduce the severity of withdrawal symptoms and shorten the time it takes to detox.

During medical detox, you’ll enjoy a high level of support from staff and peers in recovery. A variety of holistic therapies are offered in high-quality programs and help reduce stress and increase feelings of well-being. These include restorative yoga, massage therapy, acupuncture, and nutritional therapy.

Silvermist Recovery partners with licensed medical detox providers, helping to minimize discomfort throughout every stage of the detox process. Once patients complete the detox process, they can complete the next stage of their care through Silvermist Recovery.

It can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks or longer before symptoms subside. The length of time it takes for you depends on a number of factors, including:

Once withdrawal symptoms are under control, a variety of assessments arm providers with information about your physical and mental health, the severity of the addiction, and the problems in your life that were either caused by the addiction or contributed to it. These assessments guide the development of a comprehensive treatment plan.

Detox gives you an opportunity to unplug from the stressors in your life and begin the healing process in a calm, nurturing environment. You’ll work with a dedicated treatment team – at a licensed detox location partnered with Silvermist Recovery – to identify your own personal motivations for wanting to recover and develop an individualized recovery plan that will help you end the addiction once and for all.

Medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, is the gold standard for treating opioid use disorders. MAT is a combination of medication and therapy that has been shown to be effective for helping people recover from an opioid addiction for the long-term.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, research shows that MAT:

The medications used with MAT have a variety of functions, including:

There are three medications that have been approved for use with MAT: Methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone.

Methadone

Methadone has been used in MAT since the Narcotic Addict Treatment Act of 1974 allowed for the establishment of federally licensed methadone detox and maintenance clinics. A synthetic opioid agonist, methadone acts on the same receptors that painkillers and heroin do, but its effects are more gradual and less intense than those of other opiates. It prevents withdrawal from setting in, including the intense cravings that can drive you to distraction and back to using.

Since methadone has a high potential for abuse, it’s only available as a daily dose that must be administered at a licensed facility. For this reason, it can be hard to stay on methadone. But if you miss a dose, withdrawal will begin, and relapse is highly likely once symptoms start.

Buprenorphine

Buprenorphine is a semi-synthetic opiate approved by the FDA in 2002 to use with MAT. A partial opioid agonist, buprenorphine will produce the same effects as full agonists like methadone and heroin, but the effects are far weaker.

Buprenorphine has a ceiling effect, so larger doses won’t increase its effects. For this reason, it can be prescribed by a physician and taken at home, precluding the need for a trip to the clinic.

Suboxone

Suboxone is the most commonly used buprenorphine drug. It’s a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, the overdose reversal drug. If Suboxone is taken in larger doses than prescribed, or if it’s crushed and snorted, the naloxone will kick in, preventing the euphoric effects and sending you into withdrawal.

Naltrexone

Naltrexone has been used since 2010 when it was approved by the FDA for MAT. Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist, which means it blocks the effects of opioids if you take them while on naltrexone. It also reduces cravings.

Naltrexone can be taken as a daily pill or a monthly injection. Unlike buprenorphine and methadone, which can be started at any time in the recovery process, naltrexone can’t be taken until all traces of opioids are out of your system. Therefore, MAT with naltrexone requires that you go through detox before starting on it.

The medication component of MAT can last for as long as it’s needed. The purpose of MAT is to reduce cravings and help restore normal brain function so that you can focus on treatment and develop the skills, strategies, and lifestyle changes that support long-term recovery.

Some people will stay on their medication for just a few months while others will stay on it for years. Some will take medication for the rest of their lives.

The counseling component of medication-assisted treatment should last at least 90 days, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

While some treatment centers may offer shorter programs, such as four- and eight-week programs, anything less than 90 days is of limited effectiveness. That’s because addiction is far more complex than dependence, and effectively treating it takes time.

Detox and medication alone won’t do much to address an addiction, which is far more complex than dependence. Without treatment, the risk of relapse after detox or during MATis very high. One study published in the Irish Medical Journal found that 91% of patients relapsed after detox – 59% of them within a week. Those who participated in a short treatment program after detox either didn’t relapse or had significantly delayed relapse.

Many people, including many of those who are addicted to heroin, believe that relapse is a sign of a lack of willpower. However, the National Institute on Drug Abuse stresses that good intentions and willpower are rarely enough to end an addiction for good.

That’s because heroin addiction almost always:

Ending an addiction is about more than simply quitting using. It’s about addressing underlying causes and developing the skills and strategies you need to cope with physical or mental pain, negative emotions, cravings, stress, and other powerful relapse triggers. It’s about helping you identify your strengths and values and find purpose and meaning in life. These are what lead to successful recovery because they remove the need and desire to use heroin.

Holistic Treatments

A holistic treatment program that addresses issues of body, mind, and spirit offer the best possible outcomes of treatment, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. A holistic approach to treatment involves a variety of traditional complementary therapies along with other services and interventions that address an individual’s unique needs and issues.

These help people in recovery:

Traditional Therapies

Traditional therapies are research-based therapies known to be effective for treating addiction. They mostly consist of psychotherapies, or “talk” therapies.

These include:

Other Services & Interventions

Addressing the individual’s multiple needs is essential for a successful recovery. A variety of services and interventions are used as needed to help restore function to every aspect of your life.

These include:

Hope is the foundation of recovery, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Hope is the belief that a better life is possible – and it is possible. Many people recover from heroin addiction – even a severe one – and go on to live happy, productive lives.

Recovery isn’t easy, but neither is being addicted to heroin. Treatment can help you end a heroin addiction for the long-haul while improving your life on every front. A better life is possible, and our heroin addiction treatment in Pennsylvania can help you live it.

Resources:

1. What is Heroin?
2. Prescription Opioids and Heroin
3. Overdose Deaths Involving Opioids, Cocaine, and Psychostimulants
4. The terrible toll of the opioid crisis is even worse for women
5. Medication and Counseling Treatment
6. Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide (Third Edition)
7. Lapse and relapse following inpatient treatment of opiate dependence.
8. Understanding Drug Use and Addiction