Rapid Detox
Drug detoxification, or detox, is the process of clearing a substance abuser’s body of all traces of the alcohol or addictive drug. Most often, this is a managed process conducted as part of an overall drug treatment program. Designed to get a patient through the unpleasant withdrawal stage of recovery, it manages the often severe side effects and symptoms caused by sudden stoppage of the drug.
The standard method of detoxification is to gradually step the patient down from high levels of drug dependency by substituting other drugs like barbiturates or benzodiazepines to soothe the cravings during the process. Detox normally takes several days, accompanied by counseling to help the addict deal with the intense need for the drug.
Over the past several years, however, rapid detox has become an alternative method used for some drugs. Most commonly used for addictions to heroin or opiate painkillers like Oxycontin, it involves putting the patient under general anesthesia while flushing the system of all traces of the drug. There is currently a hot debate over the merits of rapid detox in producing a permanent cure. Any use of anesthesia has quite real risks, and to some, such a painless withdrawal method seems like a cheat. One of the merits of slower detoxification is that the patient does experience some unpleasantness, regardless of the care taken to manage it, which can serve as a powerful deterrent to relapse.
Rapid detox claims a much higher success rate than traditional methods with regard to relapse. One method produced a success rate of over 65% of patients who had stayed clean for one year after the procedure. However, some 80% of rapid detox patients in one study dropped out of follow-up care, which may indicate total success in blocking the cravings, or a false sense of security which will eventually lead to relapse. The debate rages.
It is true that rapid detox means a completely painless withdrawal process for the patient. It is also true that nearly all addictive drugs can produce intense cravings months, even years, after the drug is physically absent from the patient’s system. A good drug treatment program involves a fully-rounded approach to drug abuse, which is seldom a simple problem. Most drug abusers need help understanding why they have become dependent on the drug, and often have deep-seated emotional problems that made them susceptible in the first place. Rapid detox may eliminate cravings in the short term, but it will not necessarily remove the psychological dependency on the euphoria and insulation from the world’s problems found in the drugged state.
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Rapid detox is an inpatient procedure, and therefore more costly than some other types of drug detoxification. Anyone seeking help for a drug problem should inform themselves as to the merits of either approach and decide which is most likely to solve their abuse problem over the long term. In any case, detox is best left in the hands of qualified professionals at a drug treatment center specializing in the particular drug problem.
