Risks of Cocaine Use

People often try cocaine at parties or clubs, thinking it’s not harmful if they aren’t using it regularly. However, there are risks when using cocaine even for the first time. Cocaine can vary in potency due to unknown additives, and whoever gives you the drug may not be aware how strong a dose you are taking. Cocaine is usually taken intravenously or snorted so as to quickly feel the effects. If a person has never used cocaine before and takes a large enough dose, it can overwhelm the cardiovascular system or brain and cause heart attack or stroke.

When combined with alcohol or other drugs, the negative effects of each drug can be multiplied and there is a greater chance of overdose. Some people are naturally more susceptible to these negative effects due to allergic reactions or underlying health issues. Even if the first experience with cocaine has none of these side effects, when the effects wear off a person will experience rebound depression and intense cravings.

Risks of First Time or Short-Term Cocaine Use

Potential physical effects of:

• Increased heart rate
• Anxiety
• Nervousness
• Increased blood pressure
• Constricted blood vessels
• Depression as the effects wear off
• Intense cravings (even after the first use)

Along with these health risks, cocaine is very addictive and there is always the risk of developing long-term addiction. Some people go on cocaine binges, thinking it’s not hurting them as long as they aren’t using it all the time. Each time a person uses cocaine he is building tolerance and increasing his chances of developing full-blown addiction.

Effects of Cocaine Addiction

Many people that become addicted to cocaine don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late. They think they are only using it every now and then, but the nature of addiction is progressive. With each successive use more tolerance builds and changes are taking place in the reward center of the brain, until you need cocaine just to feel normal. Cocaine addiction is very powerful and it can change a person’s behavior and effect job performance, health, personal relationships, and mood.

Cocaine Abuse Help

Cocaine use can easily lead to addiction, even after only a few times using it. Get help now before it causes irreparable damage to your life. Call our toll-free helpline; we are available 24 hours a day.

Cocaine Addiction by the Numbers

Cocaine is an illegal drug that is widely available, but can be addictive and dangerous. The drug is a potent stimulant that affects the user’s central nervous system. Available in a variety of forms, cocaine can be snorted, injected or smoked. Among the risks of cocaine use are the following:

• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Seizure
• Sudden death

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) obtains information on the use of various drugs across America. According to NIDA’s 2009 survey, 4.8 million Americans age 12 and older abused cocaine in some form in the year prior to being polled. Fortunately, awareness about the dangers of cocaine is spreading and millions have also been able to find recovery.

Rehab Treatment for Cocaine Addiction

The NIDA statistics show that those battling cocaine addiction are not alone. The findings also demonstrate that cocaine addiction is not limited to one demographic. Whether prescription medications or street drugs like cocaine, drug addiction can affect people from all walks of life.

For those struggling with cocaine addiction, professional treatment can help. In a rehab facility, patients have access to 24-hour medical supervision, as well as therapy and counseling. The withdrawal symptoms associated with cocaine can be especially severe, so trying to quit without medical supervision can be dangerous. In a treatment center, medical professionals can safely mitigate these withdrawal symptoms while reducing the temptation to return to drug use.

Finding Help for Cocaine Addiction

If you are struggling with cocaine addiction, you are not alone. Millions have struggled with cocaine addiction and millions have found recovery through professional rehab. Please call our toll-free, 24 hour helpline today to speak with an addiction counselor who can answer any questions you might have about treatment and recovery. If you have concerns about the cost of treatment, we can offer a free analysis of your insurance coverage as well. Please call and start down the path to recovery today.

How Cocaine Addiction Works

As hard as it may be to think logically through addiction, self-medicating your problems with cocaine does not truly relieve problems. Cocaine and other drugs alter your body chemistry, creating a false sense of calm and emotional stability (although in many cases they can have the opposite effect). Even if drugs cause problems to fade for a time, when the buzz dissipates, they will be waiting for you again. This only drives you further into the cycle of addiction, where higher doses are required to attain what is at best a temporary relief. For many people this cycle goes on for years, but it can only truly end in one of two ways – overdose or recovery. The good news is you can choose your ending.

How Cocaine Addiction Rehabilitation Works

If you choose treatment, you can address the issues and struggles in your life at their root, instead of covering them up in a haze of cocaine abuse. At an addiction rehab facility, rehab professionals can supervise detox and safely treat the symptoms of withdrawal. In addition to a safer, more successful detox process, rehab allows you to engage in counseling and therapy sessions where you can truly address the issues that may have led to your addiction. By doing so, you can also prevent relapse in the future.

Inevitably, when you stop using cocaine there will seem to be a temporary void in your life. But, through treatment you can learn to replace cocaine abuse with healthy, constructive activities that solve problems and not add to them.

Get Help for Cocaine Addiction

If you are struggling with drug addiction and want help for how you feel without using cocaine, call our toll-free 24 hour helpline today. Trained addiction counselors are waiting to take your call, answer questions you might have about treatment and assist you on your way to recovery. Self-medication is not a lasting solution. Get real help for the struggles in your life. Call now.

How Cocaine Impacts the Brain

Cocaine stimulates the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain, which causes intensely pleasurable feelings. Although the VTA is naturally stimulated by activities such as eating healthy food or socializing, cocaine acts in a faster and more aggressive manner, thus creating an overwhelming feeling of pleasure that soon becomes addictive.

Cocaine also impacts a user’s natural levels of dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical that naturally allows humans to feel good. Normally, dopamine is released by neurons which bind to receptors. Dopamine is then recycled by a special protein. However, when a person abuses cocaine, this ordinary, healthy process is inhibited and cocaine causes the levels of dopamine to increase to unusually high levels, which contributes to the overpowering, artificial sense of pleasure. Cocaine abusers soon crave this pleasure.

What Are the Dangers of Long-Term Cocaine Abuse?

Long term cocaine use leads to tolerance, which means that a user needs increasingly higher doses of the substance to feel the same amount of pleasure. When users go through a period of time without abusing cocaine, their memories of euphoria can cause unbearable cravings that lead to relapse. Long term cocaine abuse also leads to mental health problems such as paranoia and psychosis.

How Can Drug Rehabilitation Treatment Help Cocaine Addiction?

Cocaine addicts typically feel that they need the drug to function normally, because without it their bodies go into withdrawal. Drug rehab treatment offers cocaine addicts the support they need in a controlled environment that allows them to detox safely under medical supervision. After detox, cocaine rehab patients attend counseling sessions and may participate in holistic therapies, to help them address the root causes of their addiction and alter destructive behaviors.

Help Finding Cocaine Addiction Treatment

If you or someone you know is addicted to cocaine, please don’t hesitate to call our toll-free helpline for instant support from one of our trusted counselors. We can answer your questions, check your insurance information for your level of addiction treatment coverage, and direct you to the treatment program that best fits you or your loved one. Our call center is open 24 hours a day, so you can contact us at any time. All calls are free and confidential. You can begin the recovery process today. Just give us a call.

• Feel alert
• Have mental clarity
• Reduce fatigue
• Suppress appetite

These feelings are almost immediate and last for varying periods of time. This illegal narcotic is extremely addictive and will cause a person to seek out his or her next high as soon as stimulating feelings begin to diminish.

What Does Cocaine Rehabilitation Require?

Someone who is not addicted to cocaine can see the decision to quit using as quite straightforward, but for the cocaine addict the decision to get treatment does not seem so simple. Understanding treatment and rehab can help when it comes time to make the right choice.

The first step in any cocaine treatment program is detox which is designed to remove chemical toxins. The program then focuses on providing an environment in which a person can learn new behaviors. It is important to understand your old habits and learn how to counteract the triggers that compelled you to use cocaine. Through counseling you are given support to restructure your life, avoid triggers or learn new ways to respond to triggers. After an inpatient program, participation in post-treatment support groups is critical.

What Happens after Cocaine Rehabilitation?

Some addicts fear who they will be after they get sober from cocaine and what will they do with their lives. While these may initially be valid concerns, a quality inpatient rehab center will help you address these concerns and strategize ways to overcome them effectively. Recovering cocaine users learn to look at things with new eyes and find enjoyable activities or events. You can rid yourself of your former preconceived notions and greet life with a fresh and open mind. While you may not be able to maintain relationships with your former drug friends or visit your former hangouts, you are free to look for new experiences, new places and new relationships. Sobriety may seem scary at first, but take it one day at a time and don’t get into situations that you fear may overwhelm you.

Get Help to Maintain Your Cocaine Addiction Recovery

We know it is difficult to take the first step towards sobriety after cocaine addiction, but recovery is possible for anyone. We can help, so please call our 24 hour toll-free helpline today.

Effects of Cocaine

Even when taken in small amounts cocaine creates the following feelings:

• Stimulation
• Reduced fatigue
• Mental clarity
• Euphoria

As a result, users may become talkative and exhibit energetic behaviors. In addition, users experience elevated sensations of sight, sound, and touch.

How Cocaine Affects People

As a stimulant, cocaine often creates a false sense of empowerment. Users may behave fearlessly and recklessly. It is in this state that things such as fighting, drinking in excess or taking physical risks can have significant ramifications. Cocaine can make others feel gregarious and energized. Actions can result in accidents and injuries.

These are just some of the mistakes that a person can make while high on cocaine. Unfortunately, with repeated cocaine use, the body becomes tolerant to the drug, resulting in a user having to increase her dosage to regain the intense feelings she originally experienced. This behavior, in turn, puts the abuser at greater risk for making mistakes. However, the biggest mistake about cocaine use is that no one can tell what amount and what frequency of use could cause death.

Cocaine Addiction Treatment

Breaking a person’s relationship with cocaine is complicated by how cocaine changes a user’s brain. While a person can be stabilized through an effective detox to remove the overwhelming chemical toxins, detox does not sever the tie between the brain and cocaine. In effect, treatment becomes a matter of retraining the brain to work effectively without the presence of cocaine. Users need to understand the old habits and behaviors that might trigger cravings, and then learn new behaviors and patterns to avoid these cravings. It is difficult to restructure your lifestyle to avoid these triggers, so therapy not only focuses on rewiring the brain, but it also teaches strategies to help addicts cope with any problem associated with addiction.

Cocaine Addiction Help

Don’t continue to make mistakes about your cocaine abuse. If you need help finding the right treatment program for your cocaine addiction, call our toll-free helpline today. We are available 24 hours a day to answer any questions you might have about cocaine addiction treatment. We are here to help.

• Now that you are not buying cocaine, you will have more money
• Now that your time is not consumed by cocaine, you have options for hobbies and activities
• Now that your mind is not clouded by drugs, you can reconnect with the people closest to you
• Now that you are clean from cocaine, you have a chance to further your recovery

Staying Involved in Your Cocaine Addiction Recovery

The best thing you can do once you get out of rehab is continue treatment for cocaine addiction. Maintain your connections to peers in recovery and rehab professionals, and participate in aftercare. Aftercare is any follow-up treatment after primary care, and it usually involves regular meetings with counselors and support groups. Going to alumni events is a good way to further cocaine recovery efforts, because you get a chance to positively impact the lives of other recovering individuals still in rehab. Continuing with less strict and more flexible treatment after cocaine addiction rehab will help keep you on track and prevent relapse.

Making Good Choices to Maintain Your Cocaine Addiction Recovery

You made the right choice in coming to rehab. Don’t let yourself fall into the same old patterns and reverse your hard work. Remember all the helpful information you learned in rehab and use it. Stay away from enabling people and environments. Make new friends and focus on growing those relationships. If you were diagnosed with a mental health issues, such as depression or anxiety disorder, remember to take care of yourself. Go in for regular checkups and therapy sessions, and talk with someone anytime you feel the need to express what’s on your mind.

Further Your Cocaine Addiction Recovery

If you feel the need to use again, call someone. You can talk with a friend, family member, loved one or rehab counselor anytime and be reminded of all the reasons you decided to quit cocaine. Stay busy and start something new. Find new hobbies and activities you enjoy. Set achievable goals and reach them. Getting a job, getting a place of your own and finishing school are all possibilities now that you are clean. Replace urges to relapse with options such as the following:

• Exercise
• Meditation
• Yoga
• Recreational sports
• Volunteer work
• Art
• Hanging out with sober friends
• Cooking healthy foods
• Hiking

Call to Find or Further Cocaine Recovery

You can call our toll-free helpline 24 hours a day. We can talk with you about getting or staying clean from cocaine, and we can help you find the resources that will match your individual needs.

How Cocaine Relapse Works

Although there are a number of reasons that people may relapse, the heart of the matter is that people recovering from cocaine addiction have significant cravings for the drug. These cravings can be both physically and psychologically based. On the physical level, cravings occur because users’ brains have been changed, both by the drug and by the body’s adaptation to it.

Cocaine produces most of its effects by increasing the levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. It affects dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. When people use cocaine habitually, the body adapts to the increased levels of these chemicals, thereby it feels out of balance when the drug isn’t present. It craves the higher levels of neurotransmitters and therefore craves the drug that will produce that effect.

Fortunately, the brain is an adaptable organ that can heal with time. As it heals, the cravings will weaken. Although recovering addicts must remain vigilant against relapse, the longer one is abstinent from drugs, the easier abstinence becomes to maintain. After three years, the likelihood of relapse drops substantially.

Treatment Options after Cocaine Relapse

After a relapse it’s wise to evaluate whether a return to some sort of treatment is needed. Some people may need a full course of treatment in a residential facility, while others may need outpatient treatment or simply some extra sessions with an aftercare counselor. Use relapse as a learning experience to determine what can be done differently in the future. Some actions that may be needed after a relapse include the following:

• Participating in a support group
• Finding new drug-free hobbies and activities
• Improving personal relationships with friends and family
• Keeping a journal to help determine if there is a pattern to your drug cravings
• Determining if there’s a co-occurring mental health condition that needs to be treated

Cocaine Relapse Help

If you’ve relapsed on cocaine and are ready to resume your recovery process, we can help. Call our toll-free helpline, available 24 hours a day, and talk with us about treatment options for your situation. We can check your insurance coverage if you wish at no cost or obligation. A relapse is a bump in the road to recovery, not a dead end. Call today.

Cocaine Addiction Hurts Everyone

Cocaine addiction takes a toll on your relationships at home with your spouse or children, with other relatives and friends and with your co-workers. Cocaine addiction changes the way you act, causes you to tell lies, and results in illogical behavior. When you become addicted to cocaine, you put a wall up between you and the rest of the world. You do not believe anyone understands what you’re going through, and you don’t want anyone to know about your addiction. Even when your loved ones know about your addiction, the wall is still in place. The only way to rebuild your relationships is to quit cocaine and get rid of the emotional barrier between you and your loved ones.

Getting Over Cocaine Addiction

There are rehab and recovery programs available that will help you and your loved ones deal with your cocaine addiction. Cocaine rehab will get you on the right path by helping you deal with the physical addiction while also helping you address the other aspects of your cocaine addiction. You will begin healing from your addiction while coming to an understanding of what caused it and the impact it has had on yourself and your loved ones. Many rehab centers offer family therapy, so you can talk through any problems you have with your loved ones in order to preserve relationships.

Cocaine Addiction Help

Getting help with your cocaine addiction is easy, and we can direct you to an effective rehab center that will meet your recovery needs. Call our toll-free helpline today, and we will talk with you about what happens in cocaine rehab and let you know if your health insurance will pay for cocaine addiction treatment. We are here 24 hours a day, and this call could be the most important call you’ve ever made. Please don’t put it off.

What Happens during Cocaine Detoxification?

Detox will help you get rid of the withdrawal symptoms that you’re dealing with as a result of cocaine abuse (some of these symptoms are headaches, anxiety, and insomnia). During detox, you should be medically supervised while you allow all cocaine and other toxins to exit your body. After detox you won’t feel any physical withdrawal symptoms and you’ll be prepared to undergo further treatment for your addiction. Cocaine addiction treatment cannot stop after detox, because if you stop then you’re highly likely to relapse. Relapsing will put you right back where you started, so it’s crucial to continue your addiction treatment.

What Happens after Cocaine Detoxification?

Following cocaine detox you should check into a cocaine addiction treatment center, whether it’s an inpatient rehab clinic or a luxury rehab clinic. It’s important to continue treatment in order to prevent a continuation of your addiction. Cocaine rehab will give you all the confidence and tools you need to ensure that you never have a need for cocaine abuse again. When in rehab, you should expect plenty of one-on-one time with a therapist both to get to the bottom of your addiction, and also to learn new ways to avoid cocaine abuse. You should also receive group therapy, be able to participate in support groups or group forums, and possibly receive aftercare treatment such as follow-up appointments with your therapist.

Help for Cocaine Addiction

Cocaine addiction is a real problem that won’t go away on its own. If you’re suffering from cocaine addiction, we’re always here to help you find the right treatment for you. Give us a call today at our toll-free helpline and let us tell you about the types of treatment available. We can even direct you to an effective treatment center today. Our helpline is available 24 hours a day, and we’re always here to let you know if your health insurance will pay for cocaine rehab. Pick up the phone now and start cocaine addiction treatment today.