Looking At Addiction In The United States
Unfortunately, addiction of all kinds has become a rampant and ever growing problem here in the United States, to say the very least. Let’s first take a look at alcohol addiction, a problem since the dawn of time (or so it many feel). When we’re looking at alcohol addiction we see that the path of addiction is one that is relatively long, as those that ultimately do get help for their disease will typically only do so after about eight active years of being an alcoholic.
And alcoholism is much more common than the average person might even realize. For instance, up to nearly half of all patients seen in the typical emergency room will be intoxicated and under the influence of alcohol. Of these intoxicated patients, as many as three quarters of them will be what is considered a chronic alcoholic, often someone who is need of much more extensive therapy and treatment than any given urgent care center would ever be able to provide. And alcoholism is a killer when alcoholics are not given the therapy that they need. As of the current date and the time that this article was written, alcohol had long been the third most deadly disease in all the United States.
And alcohol addiction is not the only concern when it comes to matters of addiction. Opioid addiction rates, such as those surrounding prescription drug addiction and heroin addiction, have skyrocketed over the course of recent years and are only likely to climb ever higher in the years that are ahead of us. Unfortunately, data that was collected back in the year of 2015 showed that more than 20 million residents of the United States who were at or over the age of 12 had some kind of substance abuse issue. Of these people, more than three million had a problem with opioids.
Unfortunately, opioid addiction starts innocuously enough, often with a prescription painkiller prescription. Once the prescription is out, many have already become addicted and will seek out a high in whatever way that they can. Sadly, many such people will turn to heroin, as it is less expensive and typically much easier to obtain on a regular basis than prescription painkillers of any kind. In fact, the data backs up this claim, showing that up to 80% of all current heroin users actually once started by using prescription painkillers. By the time that they had made the switch to heroin, addiction had already taken root.
And addiction can be hard to break on your own. In fact, up to 95% of all those who try to withdraw on their own will end up failing and relapsing before the process of withdrawal is even complete. But in order to be accepted at any given rehab program in the United States, the process of detoxing must have already been completed. Fortunately, detox doctors have become more prevalent than ever in the United States.
A detox doctor can be found in just about every community, and working with detox doctors to pull back from a substance can be hugely beneficial to the entirety of the process. And while detox doctors won’t be found in a typical medical facility like a family practice center, your family practice doctor is more likely than not going to be able to recommend detox doctors who can help you with this specific problem. After all, detox doctors are trained in the process of the detox and it is therefore detox doctors who you should seek out before ever even considering starting such a process. Detox doctors can help you to keep your eyes on the prize – and detox doctors can help to get you into a rehab program of some sort once the detox has been completed.
At the end of the day, addiction is a terrible thing and an immensely difficult cycle to have to break. Fortunately, professionals like detox doctors can help to make sobriety a reality for you in a way that was never possible before. Getting clean is a reality for many a former addict, but it was through a detox doctor that it became this way in so many different cases.
