Education around addiction and substance use
What is Addiction?
Helping You Better
Understand Addiction
CKF Addiction Treatment specializes in understanding addiction and providing the care you need to address your addiction. Beginning recovery and managing a chronic illness long-term can be challenging, but we are here to make sure you have all the support you need along the way.
Here To Help With Addiction Education
1 in 10 Americans age 12 and older could be diagnosed with a substance use disorder. Only 1/10 of those individuals are actually gaining access and engagement to addiction health care services. Addiction is treatable and manageable, and the health care system must do a better job identifying those with addiction and assisting them along their path to better health and positive outcomes. CKF Addiction Treatment is here to help.
Recovery
Addiction is a chronic disease involving neurobiology of the brain centered around the reward pathway. As such, it is something that will have to be managed long-term similar to other chronic diseases such as asthma, hypertension, and diabetes. There is not a 'one size fits all' method to find your path to lasting recovery and health, however, there are tools that are commonly helpful for those managing addiction that focus on the biological, psychological, social, emotional, and spiritual processes. Some individuals even benefit from medications that accompany the therapeutic process of counseling.
Health
Addictions to drugs such as tobacco, alcohol, opiates, amphetamines, etc. are diagnosed as substance use disorders. Substance Use Disorders are treatable but often require initial addiction treatment as well as ongoing chronic disease management to stabilize health.
Dependence
Physical dependence and addiction are often used interchangeably and confused with one another in popular culture. Physical dependence to a substance in and of itself does not mean that a person is addicted to the substance. There are many medications that people take every day that they may be physically dependent upon but that they are definitely not addicted to.
Tolerance And Withdrawal
Physical dependence is reflected by tolerance and withdrawal which demonstrates that the body has adapted to the substance. Tolerance is measured by the amount of a substance a person has to take to achieve a certain effect. Withdrawal is the mental or physical symptoms experienced when a substance is stopped immediately.
Consequences
Addiction often involves physical dependence as a component of a much broader picture. That picture includes difficulty stopping substance use despite negative consequences occurring as a result. Those negative consequences and the chaos that results in the person’s life functioning around work, school, relationships, legal involvement, and health is the information considered when diagnosing an addiction.
health and wellbeing
What classifies as being healthy?
If an individual is physically dependent upon a prescribed medication that is providing a positive outcome for their health and wellbeing, that individual would not be diagnosed as having an addiction. However, if an individual is physically dependent upon a prescribed medication that is providing some positive outcomes but also leading to a number of negative outcomes in their life functioning, that would be cause for concern and further assessment for symptoms of addiction.
We are here to make your first step towards recovery a little bit easier.
For more information and support, please visit with a Recovery Coach by calling 785-825-6224 or by using Help Now.