The Opioid Help Blog

Addiction

Recovery, Daily Routine, and the Power of Intentionality

After Addiction Comes a Vacuum For many of us, the final stages of our addictive behavior found us unable to incorporate any real structure into our daily lives. Very little about our lifestyle and relationships resembled living intentionally or with any real feeling of ownership or empowerment. Substances and compulsive behaviors drove our bus for … Continued

Expert Advice

Personal Motivations in Recovery

External and Internal Motivations for Treatment Many people enter treatment for co-occurring disorders with motivations from external pressure. A person might experience pressure to start treatment from the legal system, significant others, family, friends, employers, housing authorities, child protective services, and doctors. In other words, there is usually the handprint on someone’s back pushing a … Continued

Expert Advice

Changing Behaviors

Change Is Inevitable, but Positive Behavior Change Takes Work Change is rarely something a person does willingly. It’s human nature that doing things in a certain way becomes comfortable. A person tends to choose familiar over the unfamiliar and the known over the unknown. Even when a person is doing things that aren’t healthy, those … Continued

Expert Advice

10 Tips for Getting Off Opioids

How Do I Get Off of Opioids? Opioids, also known as Opiates, are pain-relieving, mood-altering chemicals that can be either prescribed by a physician for pain management, or used illicitly, such as Heroin. Opioids target the brain’s reward system by flooding the circuit with a neurotransmitter, dopamine, which is present in regions of the brain … Continued

Expert Advice

The Partner’s Plea

What Is the Partner’s Plea? Many of us who have entered the rooms of recovery and accumulated some days and months of sobriety may often find ourselves bemoaning the lack of enthusiasm or “buy-in” on the part of our partners, spouses, and family members. We often lament that their reluctance to pull up a chair … Continued

Addiction

The Increasing Frequency of Addiction and Co-Occurring Disorders

How Common Are Co-Occurring Disorders? Individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders are presenting in increasing numbers in a variety of treatment settings. Why is that? The increase can be traced by several reasons; first, there is an increase awareness of co-occurring disorders in addiction treatment. To some extent new information and a … Continued

Expert Advice

The Brain and Body Connection

What Is the Brain and Body Connection? The brain and body connection is like in marriage, “in sickness and in health.” The brain doesn’t get sick without involving the body, and the body doesn’t become ill without affecting the brain. A person can’t effectively work a recovery program on just one, the brain or the … Continued

Addiction

Access to Naloxone & Reducing Stigma Vital to Saving Lives

Study Shows Naloxone Availability Vital to Saving Lives In the nation’s capital, emergency room visits involving a suspected Heroin overdose fell by 67.5% between 2017 and 2018. Alongside the District of Columbia, ten states (a majority on the eastern half of the US) saw declines in their Heroin-related ER visits. These encouraging numbers come as … Continued

Addiction

How Are Opioids and Sleep Disorders Related?

Can Opioid Addiction Negatively Affect Sleep Habits? According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), individuals that have a Substance Use Disorder are 5 to 10 times more likely to also have a co-morbid sleep disorder. Long-term substance abuse physically changes the brain’s sleep architecture, disrupting both sleep patterns and quality. This causes people … Continued