When you develop a physical drug dependency, you can experience painful and serious withdrawal symptoms that require treatment from a South Florida drug detox center. However, what is drug detox, and how can drug detox centers help you recover from addiction?
Drugs and alcohol are both physically and psychologically addictive. Since addiction is a chronic, incurable, and progressive disease, symptoms can become disabling and leave you wondering how to turn your life around. When drugs and alcohol control your life, you neglect other responsibilities and obligations. Addiction and substance abuse disorders can become life-threatening, as drug overdoses are the leading cause of death among Americans under the age of 50.
How Addiction Works
Addiction causes you to compulsively abuse substances even if you want to stop. When your pleasure and reward center connects illicit substances with pleasure, your brain rewards your substance use and punishes abstinence by controlling the release of neurotransmitters. Once the effects of the substance wear off, you are suddenly left with a significant neurotransmitter imbalance.
As your addiction worsens, you can develop a high tolerance and deal with troubling withdrawal symptoms when you don’t use it. Withdrawal symptoms can begin within hours of your last use and can become severe enough that drug and alcohol detox programs become necessary.
Withdrawal symptoms vary in severity and intensity depending on what substance you are addicted to but can include:
Anxiety and depressionStomach aches, nausea, and vomitingShakes, tremors, chills, and seizuresInsomnia and exhaustionDisorientation, confusion, and delirium
Sometimes, withdrawal symptoms like delirium tremors can be life-threatening, requiring immediate medical treatment.