Addiction Solution Source

The National Institute on Drug Abuse, a federal agency that is part of the National Institutes of Health, issued 13 principles of effective treatment for drug addiction in 1999. These principles call for the treatment of the whole person:

1. No single treatment is appropriate for all individuals.

2. Treatment needs to be readily available.

3. Effective treatment attends to multiple needs of the individual, not just his or her drug use.

4. An individual’s treatment and services plan must be assessed continually and modified as necessary to ensure that the plan meets the person’s changing needs.

5. Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical for treatment effectiveness.

6. Individual or group counseling and other behavioral therapies are critical components of effective treatment for addiction.

Delirium Tremens (also called the "DTs" or "the shakes") is a dramatic and dangerous complication of alcoholism which can occur during a period of alcohol withdrawal especially when the person does not eat enough food.

Toxic substances such as prescription drugs, street drugs and recreational drugs causes our body to become acidic and out of balance which can lead to disease.

To help your body return to a more ideal state, increase your intake of alkaline-forming foods and reduce the intake of acid-forming foods.

Acid-forming foods (examples):

• Sugar (soft drinks)
• Meat (beef, chicken, fish)
• Dairy products (milk, cheese, ice cream)
• Most grains (wheat, oats, corn, rice and their flours)
• Coffee
• Alcohol
• Peanuts
• Chocolate 
• Corn Oil

Alkaline-forming foods (examples):

Drug misuse is one of the major social, legal, and public-health challenges in the world. The total burden of drug misuse, in terms of health, social, and crime-related costs, is in the billions of dollars every year.

Recent research conducted in the UK has found that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs / street drugs. Tobacco is estimated to cause 40 percent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is a factor in more than half of all visits to hospital emergency rooms.

Research Categories of Harm

There were three main factors that together determined the harm associated with any drug of potential abuse:

1- the physical harm to the individual user caused by the drug
2- the tendency of the drug to induce dependence
3- the effect of drug use on families, communities, and society

Two independent groups of experts were asked to do the ratings on the various drugs.

Results of the research:

According to Joan Mathews Larson, Ph.D., author of Seven Weeks To Sobriety, alcoholism is not just a psychological disorder or a sign of emotional weakness or flawed character that can be resolved with talk therapy but a physical disease.

Holistic medicine encompasses all safe and appropriate modalities of diagnosis and treatment.

The American Psychiatric Association says that a person is addicted if their pattern of substance use leads to clinically significant impairment or distress shown by three or more of the following in a 12-month period:

1. Tolerance as defined by any of the following:

* a need for markedly increased amounts of the substance to achieve intoxication or desired effect
* markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of the substance

2. Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following:

* the characteristic withdrawal symptom of the substance
* the same or a closely related substance is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms

3. The substance is often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended (loss of control)

4. There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control substance use (loss of control)

Two of the symptoms of drug addiction usually include mood swings and irrational behavior.

Did you see the CBS 60 minutes show on Sunday April 1st? In one of their segments they showed how the drug industry lobbyists have immense power in influencing our Congressman and getting the votes favorable for the pharmaceutical companies.

Street drugs refers to illegal drugs that people buy on the "street" from friends or dealers.