As a destructive addiction, drug use impacts the body in extremely negative ways, and various drugs cause everything from permanent changes in behavior to organ failure to death. Unfortunately, sometimes the threat of death isn’t enough to cause someone to make the decision to attempt recovery since the withdrawal symptoms from some drugs are terrible and almost unbearable. Most people addicted to drugs must undergo a detox program to quit drugs because the process itself may cause health problems and the feelings of withdrawal can cause someone to relapse quickly.
Different withdrawal symptoms may result from addiction to depressants, stimulants, or opioids, so a medical professional will often create specific types of detox plans (sometimes called withdrawal therapy) depending on the type of addiction. The effects of withdrawal are often the exact opposite of the type of experience a person would have while abusing the drug. This means that the naturally addictive properties of drugs are made much worse because of the reversal of a person’s “high” into a type of unbearable pain. It is particularly common for drug addicts to avoid recovery just to avoid withdrawal symptoms. The National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine offers some startling timelines regarding when withdrawal symptoms may impact the body. The effects of withdrawal may begin anywhere from a few hours after the last use, such as with stimulants like cocaine, or after a few days, such as with hallucinogenic drugs like marijuana.
Depressants
Different types of depressants include drugs like barbiturates (Phenobarbital and Nembutal), alcohol (ethanol), gamma hydroxybutyric acid (sleeping pills), and benzodiazepines (Xanax and Valium). Side effects from withdrawal range from minor to extreme. Some of the lesser types of withdrawal symptoms include:
- Anxiety
- Insomnia
- Sweating
There are also a variety of much worse symptoms that heavy addiction to depressants will cause on the body during the detoxification process and those symptoms often include:
- Hallucinations
- Tremors
- Seizures
Opioids
Whenever someone is prescribed a drug for pain after surgery or after an accident, the drug offered will be opioids. Different types of opioids to which people commonly become addicted include Oxycontin, codeine, and morphine. Heroin is also a type of opioid although it hasn’t been used for medicinal purposes for over a hundred years since it was declared a harmful narcotic by the United States government with the 1914 Harrison Narcotic Act. The impact of opioid withdrawal is always severe and will begin within 24 hours of the last use of the drug. Some of the less stressful types of withdrawal symptoms for opioids include:
- Anxiety
- Cravings
- Sweating
The most severe symptoms are extensive and extreme and mean that quitting this type of drug represents one of the hardest types of detoxification. Severe symptoms include:
- High Blood Pressure
- Diarrhea
- Insomnia
- Stomach Cramps
- Vomiting
Stimulants
As the name would suggest, stimulants increase the level of alertness within the body, and one of the most destructive elements of stimulant addiction is that the body experiences an increased tolerance for the drug over time. This means addicts must take higher concentrations of drugs during a long addiction. Different types of stimulants include drugs like cocaine, ephedrine (common as a herbal supplement), and even caffeine. Some of the basic symptoms of withdrawal from stimulants, like cocaine, include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Fatigue
More advanced symptoms of withdrawal that come during the recovery process include:
- Paranoia
- Psychosis
- Thoughts of Suicide
The best way to avoid having to experience withdrawal symptoms is to avoid addiction in the first place. Unfortunately, millions of people are addicted to various types of drugs and must undergo an extraordinarily difficult detoxification filled with unbearable pain and withdrawal. The rates of drug abuse are climbing each year, which means more people than ever will have to go through withdrawal in order to quit a drug addiction. It’s important to have a strong support system during any attempts to recover from drug addiction.
Medical Detoxification 