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Drugs, Alcohol and Pain Relief
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1 888-488-8434
Referral Service to
Private Treatment Centers in Canada
So often, we hear about the aches & pains related to those addicted to drugs or alcohol when they attempt to quit. Yet, all over the place, you can read about how pain is relieved with drugs.
A person with a headache is told to take Advil; for muscle aches, you are told to take Tylenol; chronic pains are dealt with by prescription drugs such as Oxycodone, Fentanyl or some other drug that suppresses pain. But rarely will you find anything written about what pain is and the source of it. However, accident pain is an obvious source.
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When a person can recognize the source of an unwanted condition, something can normally be done about it without resorting to addictive drugs. It is understandable that when a person undergoes some form of corrective operation to mend a broken limb or to extract a bad tooth, it can be quite uncomfortable.
Thanks to the invention of anesthetics, people can be treated with minimal discomfort. While this works well for the period to take care of the immediate issue, these actions have lingering effects.
The body is made up of nerve channels that run throughout the body. These can be considered perception channels. For example, when you are close to a source of extreme heat, the nerve channels send a warning sign that says to move away. That explains why the reaction is very swift when the body encounters a source of pain.
Pain is a warning sign of danger to an individual’s survival. But this is physical pain; how about emotional pain? When a husband or wife betrays the marriage agreement, the partner who is betrayed is emotionally hurt. If the person knew at that moment exactly how to deal with such an incident, they probably would not resort to alcohol or some form of chemical suppressant.
Pain, emotional or physical, has a source. Something caused it to happen. When we fail to recognize the source, we only feel the effect: pain, heartache, distress, etc. Drugs cause a numbing effect. They block off the perceptions of the person to the feeling of pain. Alcohol acts in the same manner.
Death is a wonderful place to associate pain and alcohol. Drinking alcohol suppresses the painful memory of a loss, making it more difficult to perceive. But let’s not kid ourselves. Memory is what humans use to run every instant of our daily lives. People drive cars because of the stored memory of our driving course and instructions; experience has made it automatic. We don’t think about driving; we simply drive.
All our education is based on receiving information from some source and storing it in memory. Some memories are wonderful—the birth of a child, the wedding, first love, winning a sports medal, etc. Other memories are painful—being laughed at as a child, our first fall from a bicycle, being bullied or abused by an adult, or the death of a family pet. All these have painful emotions. Some we can live with, others we can’t.
When a person has a bad memory stored, and the pain is too much. And there is no proper mental therapy at hand. Drugs will block the pain. Prescription pain medication is used to block pain, not vanish it. But when drugs and alcohol are used to block emotional pain, that pain returns when the drug wears off.
The solution is more drugs; eventually, the body becomes accustomed to the dose, and larger doses are required for the same effect, commonly called tolerance. It can soon develop into a dependency, and the person becomes more and more numb. As addiction enters the person’s life, they start to be less and less aware of the change, and the downward spiral exacerbates.
Drugs & alcohol are not solutions; good, honest, and helpful communication will go further in aiding a person than any chemical substance will. Mental therapies exist to help people overcome their distress. Life coaches can be a great alternative to chemical compounds.
Those who were unable to avoid drugs and alcohol to address their pain may now struggle to handle the new problem: addiction. Proper Detox and professional addiction counselling in the best rehab centres in Canada will permit a recovery to a substance-free life.