Methamphetamine Information & Treatment Options
Scottsdale Recovery Center® offers a comprehensive treatment program targeted at overcoming methamphetamine addiction that works!
What Is Meth?
Meth (Methamphetamine) is a powerfully addictive stimulant that dramatically affects the central nervous system. The drug is made easily in clandestine laboratories with relatively inexpensive over-the-counter ingredients. These factors combine to make methamphetamine a drug with high potential for widespread abuse.
Short-term effects of Meth use can include:
- Increased wakefulness
- Increased respiration
- Hyperthermia
- Increased heart rate and blood pressure
- Irregular heartbeat
- Cardiovascular collapse
- A feeling of alertness and sharpened senses
- Reduced need for sleep, insomnia
- Increase physical activity
- Reduced appetite
- Increased self-confidence
- Exhilaration, talkativeness, restlessness, irritability
- Increased metabolism
- Impairment of judgment and reduced inhibitions in some cases leading to outright recklessness
- Initially, heightened sense of sexuality. After a long time of abuse, however, the sexual drive decreases
Long-term effects of Meth use can include:
- Psychotic behavior
- Auditory hallucinations
- Mood disturbances
- Delusions and paranoia
- Homicidal or suicidal thoughts
- Hallucinations
- Disorganized lifestyle
- Violent and aggressive behavior
- Permanent psychological problems
- Behavior resembling paranoid schizophrenia
- Poor coping abilities
- Disturbance of personality development
- Lowered resistance to illnesses
- Possible brain damage
Meth Addiction
The most disturbing sign of meth addiction is the classic meth-user look of a wounded face and a collapsed jaw. Because Meth is a super Sudafed, it dries out the skin completely.
Meth users suffer the same addiction cycle and withdrawal symptoms as do crack cocaine users. Both drugs lead to binging – consuming the drug continuously for three or more days without sleep. While cocaine binges rarely last longer than 72-hours, Meth binges can last up to two weeks. The user is then driven into a severe depression followed by paranoia and aggression (known as tweaking). When heavy cocaine users experience paranoia, it almost always disappears once the binge ends. With Meth, severe mood disturbances, bizarre thoughts and behavior may last for days – sometimes weeks – and the user lose a grip on reality.
All addiction recovery faces the effects of withdrawals; the same is true for methamphetamine recovery. The meth user at the onset of withdrawal experiences an extreme inability to feel pleasure. This is due to the fact that meth affects the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is the control hormone for happiness. When methamphetamine enters the body it tells the brain to releases high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which stimulates brain cells, enhancing mood and body movement.
Meth use causes both short- and long-term affects – physical as well as mental. Some people mistakenly believe Meth is less harmful than crack, cocaine or heroin, but because of the ingredients used in its manufacturing, there is a greater chance of suffering a heart attack, stroke or serious brain damage with Meth than with other drugs. It is far more dangerous than the Meth which was popular back in the 1950s and ’60s. Today’s ephedrine-based Meth can kill you.
Meth Treatment Options
Meth treatment is not entirely different from other substance abuse treatment options. What seems to make a difference in methamphetamine treatment is time; this is because meth stays in the body from six to twelve months. Treatment is difficult and uncertain due to the unusually intense addiction the substance induces. Meth addiction recovery is acutely difficult, because of how meth affects the brain chemicals. Here are some therapies that can work for methamphetamine treatment:
Behavioral modification: This therapy helps the addict replace dangerous and undesirable behaviors with new habits. Addicts may also undergo cognitive conditioning, learning to apply deep breathing and meditation techniques, in order to help them overcome. Behavioral modification helps addicts find other activities to help them take their minds off of the meth, and gradually works toward getting them away from a dependence on the drug.
Pharmacological methamphetamine treatment: In many cases, methamphetamine treatment involves drugs. Drug therapies use less dangerous relatives of meth to help addicts gradually step down. Physicians currently prefer dextroamphetamine and phenteramine as ways to help alleviate cravings and slowly wean the body away from meth addiction. However, there are still debates over the effectiveness of this method, and many agree that without a behavioral modification component, drug therapy alone is less likely to succeed.
Our expert staff of doctors, therapists and counselors are experienced in helping people overcome methamphetamine addiction and they have developed treatment programs that work. Scottsdale Recovery Center’s program includes alternative programs to promote a patient’s mental and emotional healing during the process, ensuring that the underlying addiction issues are addressed, not simply the symptoms of methamphetamine addiction.
Our methamphetamine addiction program includes:
- Alternative programs such as recovery based yoga, meditation, massage therapy and equine therapy
- IOP – Group therapy and individual counseling
- Daily relapse prevention workshops
- Family counseling
- Trauma Therapy (EMDR)
While the programs represent a solid foundation for success, Scottsdale Recovery Center® believes that individual attention is a key to permanently breaking methamphetamine addiction. Each patient undergoes an initial assessment and is assigned to a primary therapist that works with the patient throughout his or her treatment.
Furthermore and most importantly, we provide Evidence Based Practices in our group therapy and individual treatment sessions to get to the underlying issues of why one continuously relapses and uses drugs and alcohol.
Call us today at 602.346.9142 for more information and please, don’t wait any longer, as things will get worse without treatment.
