Are Recreational Drugs Ever Safe
Oxycodone, an opioid, poses a severe addiction risk since it can give you a powerful sense of euphoria which you will want to repeat. While a prescription drug, the wide availability of this relative of morphine and heroin — both legally and illegally — makes this potent pain-killer a popular target of abuse and a very difficult addiction to conquer, especially on one’s own.
Recent studies show that opioids including oxycodone account for nearly two million cases of prescription abuse in the United States alone, with one in four Americans potentially exhibiting signs of addiction. The life-threatening results of abuse, addiction, and unsupervised detox make a clinical approach to separation from this drug highly necessary.
Symptoms of Oxycodone Abuse
In addition to the beneficial pain-killing effects for which doctors prescribe it, many life-threatening side effects accompany the illegal use of oxycodone.
Oxycodone abuse symptoms include:
- slowed or difficulty breathing
- constipation
- nausea and/or vomiting
- confusion and/or disorientation
- irritability, being easily frustrated
- restlessness, agitation
- negative impact on sleep, and mixed sleep and consciousness
Long-term Consequences of Oxycodone Abuse
Long-term abuse of oxycodone can cause even greater threats to your health, including adverse changes to your personality and sex life.
Continue use of oxycodone may produce:
- circulatory problems and low blood pressure
- liver damage
- mood swings
- dramatic personality changes
- isolation, and abandonment of family, friends, and hobbies
- sexual dysfunction and/or reduced libido
- unethical behavior to obtain drugs
- increased erratic behaviors that threaten your personal and work relationships and financial life
Symptoms of Withdrawal from Oxycodone
Oxycodone withdrawal can produce many severe physical, mental, and psychological symptoms including discomfort, trauma as well as serious medical conditions.
- depression
- panic attacks
- anxiety
- diarrhea and gastrointestinal problems, like nausea and cramping
- muscle weakness
- shakiness and tremors
- fever
- excessive perspiration
- flu-like symptoms like chills and shivering
- greater sensitivity to pain
- restlessness, agitation, and/or sleeplessness
- seizures
- suicidal ideations
Why You Need a Supervised Oxycodone Detox
Oxycodone abuse and withdrawal from oxycodone can produce life-threatening symptoms and cause permanent health damage. To safely detox from oxycodone, you will require a medically-supervised detox including 24×7 monitoring of your physical and emotional health that includes medications to help ease the pain and discomfort you will experience. Clinical care will make your treatment more tolerable, more comfortable and increase the likelihood that you will see your detox through to completion.
Since a successful detox is required before undertaking additional addiction treatment, and since it greatly increases the success of your follow-up therapies, a full detox can be one of the most important steps in your recovery, and one you will want to go as smoothly as possible. A failed detox can lead to relapse and additional damage to your health and can also increase your risk of overdose and accidental death.
The Serenity Recovery Center’s Integrated Approach to Oxycodone Detox
Unfortunately, many addictions begin with the legal use of powerful drugs through prescription. However, many other factors fuel the continued use of the drug, including past traumas, current stress, and also genetic and social factors. Addiction is rarely just a clinical problem. To combat addiction effectively, you have to address each of its contributing factors, and a holistic approach to addiction recovery does that.
By identifying and dealing with the reasons for your use through professionally-guided individual and group therapy sessions and through personal interactions with our counselors and your peers, you can begin to identify problems, learn new and healthy skills, and practice them in a safe, judgment-free environment so you can heal quickly, increase your confidence and prepare to face life after treatment.
The same compassionate approach which guides our medically-supervised detox and addiction treatment will guide all aspects of your stay at The Serenity Recovery Center. The care which treats all aspects of you as a human being not only makes your recovery a more humane experience, but it encourages many self-care skills which you will need and come to rely on after your treatment. Self-forgiveness and self-confidence will have a major impact on your long-term sobriety, and The Serenity Recovery Center wants to help you build that foundation so you can stay sober. You can beat addiction, and you deserve a drug-free life.