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Tips For Dealing with Withdrawal

My personal tips for dealing with withdrawal In 2002, a friend of mine called me telling me he’d slept about a half an hour the last two nights.  He’d had to leave his job on a landscaping crew two days in a row.  He found that he was confused, that it seemed slightly dark in his apartment in the middle of the afternoon.  He said when he sat and thought about what was going on, how his resolution to quit drinking was going, he would start sweating.  His forehead would get this thick sheen of … [Read more...]

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How Long Is Withdrawal For Opiates?

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The key is to seek medication. The most common opiate is heroin.  Others include dilaudid, morphine, and codeine.  There’s also the infamous Oxycontin.  Oxycontin is a heavy-duty pain killer that works for 24-hours.  It’s available only by prescription, is a narcotic, and is often sold or given to someone who does not have the prescription.  In any case, whatever type of opiate you’ve decided to abuse, the withdrawals, as you’ve heard, are pretty nasty. Having withdrawals from these harsh … [Read more...]

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Should You Go Into Rehab For Depression

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Is Rehab for Depression? I’ve spent a lot of time writing about rehab, about various types of programs for getting past alcoholism.  But what about depression?  You know people who take Zoloft, Prozac, etc. for depression; and those who see a therapist for it.  You may also be aware of inpatient programs—rehab—for very severe depression. Let’s take a look at circumstances in which rehab may be the best option for depression, and what would happen from there. First, we should look at some … [Read more...]

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Your Hangover is Getting Worse as You Get Older

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This is due to many physiological factors. The body breaks down over time.  Everything gets slower and weaker and worse.  This is not front-page news.  Yet it’s not obvious to everyone that hangovers are part of this phenomenon.  A lot of friends of mine has said that they swear they are having a harder time getting over hangovers as they get into their late forties or fifties.  This is scientifically observable and proven phenomenon. Acetaldehyde OK, bear with me here—things are going to … [Read more...]

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5 Points I Learned Through Recovery

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What I learned through recovery The gambler can sit in a bar, stroke his beard, and mull over a life of lessons learned.  A sage old teacher can sit down and fill a notebook with observations gleaned in decades working with children.  And a recovered addict also has very specific lessons learned through his recovery.  These are things that make me feel wise and on par with anyone who has accumulated knowledge in any field.  And I’m more than happy to have these pearls, even if the process of … [Read more...]