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Heroin Addiction

According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, over 600,000 people have become addicted to heroin in the United States, and that number is continuing to rise. This drug, which is a part of the opiate family, is one of the most abused drugs on the market and runs rampant on our city streets.

Recently, an article by U.S. News referenced studies indicating that the rate of heroin use is up 60%, and heroin overdoses are up by 300%. For those of you who may not have realized the severity of heroin use, these numbers should give you some idea of why many treatment centers — Enlightened Solutions in Atlantic City included — equip themselves to provide care for those who are struggling with addiction to this drug. Treatment centers in New Jersey may also provide specialized heroin detox care to help individuals get through these drugs’ notoriously difficult withdrawal symptoms.

Many people who are addicted to prescription painkillers are at high risk of developing a serious addiction to opiates. Many users of prescription pain medications that can no longer fill prescriptions through a physician or steal them from friends will find other ways to soothe their addiction cravings. Heroin produces the same numbing effects as other opiates, but is easier to get than prescription drugs because it’s readily available in various forms that all deliver the same chemically boosted feelings of euphoria as prescription opiates.

What happens to people when they take heroin?

The most common way heroin is used is through injections. The drug is injected directly into your veins, so it’s fast acting and gets right through the bloodstream and up to the brain in no time. There are special receptors for drugs like heroin — these receptors are like tiny sockets in certain cells all over the brain and body that bind with heroin. When these painkilling heroin molecules connect to your receptors, pleasurable effects cascade throughout your body with numbing, sleepy sensations. They also slow your physical and mental processes, including your breathing, your heart rate, your ability to process information, and your functional movement. The duration of the high itself is short, but the after-effects can last for hours or days, and long term heroin use can damage the brain and body for years to come.

Signs of heroin use:

  • Needle marks (typically on the arms)
  • Rapid weight loss and muscle reduction
  • Nose bleeds or chronic nasal irritation
  • Mood swings from energized to fatigued
  • Cold sweats or chills
  • Fever
  • Intestinal or digestion problems
  • No appetite
  • Depression
  • Memory issues
  • Heart pain

What’s dangerous about these effects?

When heroin makes its way through the body, the pleasurable effects cause the user to become dependent on the drug. As they use more and more, the tolerance threshold is consistently raised, so that each time they use heroin, they’ll need to increase the amount they smoke, inject or dissolve in liquids. So many deaths attributed to heroin are because overdosing is easy to do when a user doesn’t know when enough is enough. Many people that have survived regular use of this drug and have gone through recovery say that each time, the high is never enough. Overdose happens because you’ve taken too much of a drug whose primary function is shutting everything in your body down, and you’ve given it plenty of ammunition to do its job.

In addition, since the mental and physical effects of heroin are so intense, withdrawal from heroin and other opiates is known for being particularly unpleasant. Flu-like symptoms, nausea, anxiety, paranoia, body tremors and more are commonly experienced by individuals who are addicted to heroin when they can’t access the drug or try to stop using. The severity of these symptoms is a major reason that addiction to heroin is so hard to overcome — users will often do anything out of desperation to avoid feeling withdrawal. Choosing professional treatment with medically supervised detox is the best way to get through withdrawal safely and to prevent these symptoms from drawing you back into addiction time and again — the longer the cycle persists, the more heroin use will change your priorities, behaviors, health and grasp on reality

At Enlightened Solutions, we want to help you recover from this dangerous addiction that cripples the mind, body and soul. We offer a range of programs for treating heroin addiction, including monitored detox and inpatient and outpatient care. Our signature approach to treatment in Atlantic City, New Jersey relies on helping you overcome the cycle of addiction and heal from the harmful effects of heroin abuse.

How We Treat Heroin Addiction in New Jersey at Enlightened Solutions

If you’re reading this page now, it means that you’re willing to seek treatment for heroin addiction — and at Enlightened Solutions, we are ready to help you defeat this dangerous problem. Whatever causes people to begin using these drugs (whether it’s depression, feelings of inadequacy, chronic pain, severe mental illness or otherwise), at Enlightened Solutions, we can work with you to overcome your past. We begin by providing safe, medically supervised detoxification programs to start you on the road to recovery. After detox, we work on a dual diagnosis, and begin individual therapy to find out just what you need before starting work with our other holistic and evidence-based treatments. We offer treatments that will open up your heart so that you can understand and work through the issues that kept you addicted to heroin. True joy is found within you, not through the substances you’ve grown dependent on, so let us show you how to find true happiness with our custom recovery programs. It’s our goal to connect all of our holistic treatment mediums and modalities to the things that really make you feel whole. Sobriety is the key to happiness, not dulling your feelings, so we work to create natural mood boosting effects throughout the body by finding true happiness and joy in your everyday life through recovery.

People take heroin to numb their feelings and find some type of happiness in those brief moments when the drug attaches to the brain’s receptors and creates dopamine boosts. We want to show our clients that you don’t need this drug like you believe you do. We provide specialized heroin detox to help you cleanse your body of the chemicals that trap you in the cycle of addiction. We offer therapies where clients can experience and understand what they’ve been missing in their everyday lives. When you can key into those treatments that open up your chakras and reveal freedom through enjoyment and meaning, you will be free to explore everything that is natural and feeds your heart. We offer equine therapy, art and music therapy, acupuncture to reduce stresses, herbal therapy, family constellation therapy aligned with yoga and meditation. Contact Enlightened Solutions in Atlantic City, New Jersey today at 833-801-LIVE to learn how to find peace in addiction through our recovery programs.

People take heroin to numb their feelings and find some type of happiness in those brief moments when the drug attaches to the brain’s receptors and creates dopamine boosts. We want to show our clients that you don’t need this drug like you believe you do. We offer therapies where clients can experience and understand what they’ve been missing in their everyday lives. When you can key into those treatments that open up your chakras and reveal freedom through enjoyment and meaning, you will be free to explore everything that is natural and feeds your heart. We offer equine therapy, art and music therapy, acupuncture to reduce stresses, herbal therapy, family constellation therapy aligned with yoga and meditation. Call Enlightened Solutions today at 833-801-LIVE to learn how to find peace in addiction through our recovery programs.

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