Drug Detox Centers in Chesapeake, VA

The process by which addiction puts in roots takes months or even years of substance abuse. As you send greater quantities of a drug into your system each day, it affects the way your brain, a chemical-sensitive organ, is able to work. Over time, your brain adapts to these harmful chemicals; when you wish to stop, your brain needs weeks or months to adjust. Sudden chemical changes are simply unacceptable to the brain; they can cause pain, injury or even death. Detox is the gradual process of helping your brain re-adapt to functioning without drugs. Professional drug detox centers in Chesapeake can help with the process.

Understanding Why the Detox Process Becomes Dangerous

While computer processors are called hardware, the brain is called wetware -- its functions occur through signals transmitted chemically. Addictive drugs work because they happen to be able to mimic the effects of certain brain chemicals that control pleasure and learning.

Control of pleasure is a critical function; the brain precisely measures the amount of chemical signaling to deliver to the pleasure and learning center to encourage life-sustaining activities and to deepen attachment to those activities. When drugs and mimic these functions, they not only deliver an excess of pleasure all at once and create an attachment to the drug taking habit, they make it hard for the brain's control systems to perform their tasks.

At first, the brain does try to shut down external interference from drugs, but it rarely works, because the user always takes more and more drugs to overcome the brain's defenses. As the brain's control mechanism gets pushed into the background and this chemically disruptive environment, it withdraws from active function to enter a dormant state. Soon, the pleasure and learning functions become entirely dependent on the presence of drugs for stimulation.

With the brain's control systems in dormancy and with drugs in use for critical internal functions, drugs become critically important. If you attempt to stop taking drugs, it throws the brain into turmoil; it is as if an essential internal chemical becomes missing. The brain certainly does try to reassert internal control at this stage, but it's a process that can take time. Over the days or weeks that it takes the brain to get control back online, it can go through chemical -- often experienced as seizures, anxiety, pain, anger or even heart attacks.

At professional drug detox centers in Chesapeake, you receive careful treatment to make sure that these symptoms do not hurt you in any way.

DIY Detox Is an Ill-Advised Move

Dangerous symptoms such as cardiac arrest don't happen to everyone. They only occur in withdrawal from addictions to alcohol, heroin and some other drugs, and only when the patient has remained in deep addiction to large quantities of the substance, and for a long time. If these conditions do not describe your particular addiction, would it be safe for you to try to detox on your own?

Here, as well, the answer is in the negative. Detox is simply never a good idea to try on your own. There are many good, scientific reasons why this should be so.

The Pain and Discomfort Can Overwhelm

Withdrawal symptoms are often not life-threatening on their own; they can simply be very painful and uncomfortable. This doesn't make them safer, however. In many cases, people who finally arrive at professional drug detox centers in Chesapeake have been through many cycles of self-directed detox and failure -- detox done on one's own is often simply too painful, and tends to quickly end in an abandonment of all plans to quit. Such detox programs can also be life-threatening in a way -- it's possible for people attempting to throw in the towel, to make their comeback a big one. They often end up with an overdose.

Rather than accept extreme levels of pain and discomfort, the idea should be to accept detox with the greatest amount of support and comfort possible. Inpatient addiction treatment in Chesapeake is usually recommended over outpatient treatment for this reason. It's important to remember -- many people take to using drugs or alcohol simply because they find life too challenging to handle on their own. Trying to accept the vast challenge of giving up drugs all on one's own, then, doesn't make much sense.

The Cravings Can Overwhelm

Withdrawing from addiction, it's important to remember, isn't simply about withdrawal symptoms; there are cravings, as well. Treating cravings is the most critical part of detox rehab programs; treatment for the symptom of addiction simply cannot be done at home. The cravings can become maddening, and make going on impossible. In detox, patients receive replacement drugs and drugs to help tamp down cravings.

Look for Treatment That Can Help You Win

When you look for drug detox centers in Chesapeake, it's important to keep in mind the fact that there's always a range of quality for everything -- from high-level of evidence-based treatment to treatment based on unscientific ideas. The idea should be to read up and understand before you find a program. When you do this, the chances are that you will win your fight. Call Chesapeake Alcohol Rehab Centers. (877) 804-1531