Opioid Abuse Treatment Programs in Pompano Beach

Sunny Pompano Beach is home to many people who struggle with opioid abuse. The fact that opioid painkillers are prescription medications doesn’t make them any safer than street drugs. Broward County public records show that opioid overdoses from drugs other than heroin resulted in 564 admissions in the year 2017. Fentanyl and other opioids were responsible for 209 overdose deaths. These drugs accounted for 10 percent of all the emergency room admissions related to opioid abuse in the county that year.

If you struggle with opioid substance abuse problems and need rehab, Legacy Healing Center in Pompano Beach can help.

Call Legacy Healing Center 24/7 to speak with an intake specialist. Calls are completely confidential.

The history of opioid addiction

The opioid addiction epidemic around the country occurred in three stages. It began in the year 1991. Up to that point, opioid painkillers were restricted to patients who experienced painful symptoms of cancer. Around this time, however, some pharmaceutical corporations took up marketing opioid painkillers for painful conditions that were much less serious, as well. Doctors were reassured that these drugs were safe to prescribe for everything from migraines to sprains. By the year 1999, about four out of five patients who were given prescriptions for these opioid painkillers began to receive them for pain unrelated to cancer.

The second stage of the opioid epidemic began around the year 2010. As the medical community began to notice that prescription opioid painkillers could be addictive, initial efforts began toward scaling back on prescriptions. When prescription opioids became harder to obtain, people from every socioeconomic group began to switch to illegal heroin, instead. Between the years 2002 and 2013, heroin overdoses shot up by about 285 percent. Four out of five heroin users reported to transitioning to heroin after using prescription opioids first. Heroin is an injectable; the common use of contaminated needles made the occurrence of serious skin infections, blood infections, HIV, and hepatitis more common.

The third phase of the epidemic got its start in the year 2013 as synthetic opioids like fentanyl began to become available. The year 2016, alone, saw synthetic opioid overdoses kill 20,000 people around the country. The increase in fentanyl overdoses is linked to illegal manufacture and sale of the drug, rather than to diversion of legal supplies.

In response to the fentanyl epidemic, the CDC issued guidelines to help doctors regulate the way they prescribed opioid painkillers for conditions unrelated to cancer. Opioid painkillers were designated the pain-relief measure of last resort.

Call Legacy Healing Center 24/7 to speak with an intake specialist. Calls are completely confidential.

How to detox from opioids

If you do find yourself abusing prescription opioids or opioids of another description, it’s critical that you recognize the dangers inherent in the habit. Overdoses occur because it is hard for people to judge how much of a drug they can use without sending their respiratory systems into a catastrophic collapse. Abusing drugs, apart from the potential for life-ruining addiction, can cause death by unintentional overdose.

Breaking free of an opioid abuse habit requires much more than just willpower. Addictive habits directly affect the brain’s ability to recognize when a pattern of use is harmful. This means that you cannot rely on rational intelligence as you normally would when it comes to seeing yourself through a detoxification attempt. You need professional help.

When you quit using opioids, you tend to be hit with intolerable cravings, abdominal pain, anxiety, agitation, nausea, unpleasant chills and goosebumps (the term cold turkey is said to have originated from the last two symptoms). These effects are likely to last up to ten days. When you accept medical detox at Legacy Healing Centers in Pompano Beach, experts with medical training help ease these symptoms.

They may prescribe methadone or buprenorphine to ease the cravings, naltrexone to help make opioids unrewarding to use even if you do use them, and other medications to help make the symptoms more bearable.

Many people attempt to detox on their own and put themselves through the pain and suffering that detoxification entails. Some do succeed. It doesn’t make much sense to skip professional medical assistance for the detox part of quitting, however, when you will need professional attention for the rehab phase that follows. Detox only helps your body free itself from the immediate physical symptoms of quitting. Addiction is a brain disorder that permanently affects the brain’s ability to view drug use as harmful. These effects outlast detoxification. The only way to truly quit addiction long-term is to take up rehabilitation therapy — cognitive-behavioral therapy, family therapy, and group therapy — after detox.

What opioid rehab is like

Many believe that people who sign up for rehab are forced to stay. This isn’t true, however. Unless a patient is in rehab under court order, their stay tends to be voluntary. In most cases, voluntary cooperation is important to finding success with treatment.

Once detox completes successfully, you speak with a mental health professional or an addiction counselor, who builds you a profile of your specific case. They look at your patterns of substance abuse in the past, previous attempts at quitting, your history of relapses, the possibility of the co-existence of mental disorders such as depression, anxiety or schizophrenia, and the role played in your substance abuse by the presence of cognitive or sensory disabilities. Each one of these factors has a role to play in a substance abuse habit and needs to be addressed with therapy or psychiatric care if you are to be successful long-term in staying away from drugs.

Therapy in rehab tends to take up several hours each day. Individual therapy helps you understand that environmental triggers set off urges to consume drugs, and can be sidestepped by careful avoidance techniques. Psychologists in individual therapy also help patients gain better control over their emotions so that they can avoid turning to drugs when they experience emotional difficulties. Group counseling helps you practice social skills in a sober environment, and family therapy helps you make amends correcting strained family relationships.

Call Legacy Healing Center 24/7 to speak with an intake specialist. Calls are completely confidential.

How long does rehab last?

Rehab programs are designed to last 30, 60, or 90 days. Intensive therapy of different kinds is undertaken over these durations. It takes time to learn new habits, recognize emotional and psychological difficulties, and to address them. The longer a rehab program runs, the greater are the chances of long-term sobriety. In some cases, once rehab concludes, patients are advised to attend aftercare treatment where they gradually become accustomed to regular life again.

Before you choose a rehab program, it’s important to look for the following: 

• Individualized treatment plans 
• Evidence-based therapeutic programs 
• Personnel with experience treating the specific addictions that you suffer from 
• Staff who are trained in the sensitive, compassionate, nonjudgmental treatment 

Finding the right opioid rehab plan for your needs can greatly improve your chances of lifelong sobriety.

Sober-friendly attractions near Pompano Beach

Beautiful Pompano Beach offers a wide variety of sights and activities. When you finish with your responsibilities at rehab each day, you can have a wonderful time exploring all that the city has to offer. Butterfly World, at the Tradewinds Park and Stables, in Coconut Creek, is a couple of miles away and is not to be missed. It is the world’s largest butterfly park, housing 20,000 beautiful examples. The park is also home to a large number of horses and farm animals. If you love animals and find that they calm you, this is a location to not miss. If you’d like to blow off steam with a bit of physical fun, you should try the Off-the-Wall Trampoline Fun Center, a place where you can try out trampoline basketball, trampoline dodgeball, and other fun activities. There is a great deal of fun to be had in Pompano Beach when you’re ready to embrace life.

Legacy Healing Center -Alcohol & Drug Rehab Pompano
803 NW 2nd Ave
Pompano Beach, FL 33060

(954) 388-8029

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