COCAINE

Executive Recovery Cocaine Addiction Treatment
Perhaps you, or someone you know, has tried to break an addiction to cocaine and failed to do so. Despite the best of intentions, well meaning people and programs may not have helped, and will-power may not have been enough to break the addiction. Do not despair. Drug addiction is a physical disease, not a mental or moral problem, and it is medically treatable.

Executive Recovery 's unique, medical alternative, Cocaine Addiction treatment program, developed and supervised by physicians specializing in addiction medicine, helps cocaine addicted patients lose their craving for cocaine. We believe our researched medical approach gives the addicted patient a firm foundation for achieving comfortable sobriety and helps restore their sense of self-esteem and feeling of dignity in an unparalleled atmosphere of understanding, professionalism and respect.

Cocaine Addiction Treatment Program Highlights:

Short Inpatient Stay
Medical Detoxification
Effective Counter-conditioning Treatment for Cocaine
Counseling and Continuing Support
Proven by Medical Research

What does Cocaine do?

Stimulants mimic the action of chemicals your brain produces to send messages of pleasure to your brain's reward center. Like adrenaline, cocaine increases your heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. Cocaine also constricts blood vessels, dilates pupils, releases sugar and fat into your blood stream, and energizes the brain to increased alertness. Stimulants like cocaine increase feelings of anger or fear, or agitation (fight or flight) and feelings of well-being, riding high, exhilaration or euphoria. When the stimulation goes too high, it produces feelings of panic, paranoia, hallucinations and rage which can progress to potentially fatal seizures and stroke. Ultimately, the brain becomes depressed by the local anesthetic effects, and coma and death can occur.

Why is Cocaine Addictive?
Cocaine produces an artificial feeling of pleasure. Most addictive drugs are able to produce pleasurable effects by chemically mimicking certain normal brain messenger chemicals which produce positive feelings in response to signals from the brain.

The result is a dependence on the immediate, fast, predictable drug which, at the same time, short circuits interests in and the motivation to make life's normal rewards work. More and more confidence is placed in the drug while other survival feelings are ignored and bypassed. The result of this addiction cycle is a lack of concern for, and confidence in, other areas of life.

Where Does the High Go?
Usually, a person using cocaine never gets as big a "high" as she/he did on the first dose. This is a result of the drug's ability to suppress and deplete the brain's production of the normal chemical messenger on which the brain relies to generate positive feelings. The brain adapts to the presence of the cocaine by decreasing production of the normal chemical messenger. The user then begins to use more - he has to work harder to get less and less pleasurable effect. Ultimately he crashes. As tolerance develops to the euphoric effects, higher and higher doses of cocaine are needed to get pleasurable effects. Then, the more you use, the greater risk from toxic effects of cocaine.

Why Does Cocaine Take Over Your Life?
Cocaine, like other addictive drugs, is able to short circuit your survival system by artificially stimulating the reward center, or pleasure areas in your brain, without anything beneficial happening to your body. As this happens, it leads to increased confidence in cocaine, and less confidence in the normal rewards of life. This first happens on a physical level. Then, it affects you psychologically. The big cocaine lie results in decreased interest in other aspects of life, as you increase your reliance and interest in cocaine. People, places and activities involved with using cocaine become more important. People, places and activities or lifestyles that worked through your normal reward system, before using cocaine, become less important to you. In fact, after awhile, a heavy cocaine user will actually resent people, places and activities not able to fit in with cocaine use.

In certain studies, animals would press levers to release cocaine into their blood stream, no longer concerned about eating, mating or other natural drives. They would, in fact, die in the process of giving themselves cocaine.

Is there Withdrawal from Cocaine?
Yes. The severity and length of the symptoms vary with the amount of damage done to your normal reward system through cocaine use and the rate of recovery. The most common symptoms are: drug craving, irritability, loss of energy, depression, fearfulness, wanting to sleep a lot, or, difficulty in sleeping, shaking, nausea and palpitations, sweating, hyperventilation, and increased appetite. These symptoms can commonly last several weeks after you stop using cocaine.

What is cocaine craving?
Cocaine craving is the result of the drug's imprinting in the memory of a pleasant association of euphoria with the drug. The subconscious memory then motivates the individual to seek this drug because of the false imprint. The brain, in effect, has been trained that using the white powder is the fastest way to feel good. This learning process then produces a new appetite or drive to seek the drug which we call craving. This craving is most often activated by, a) memory of pleasure, b) when we feel bad and have a habit of using cocaine to rapidly feel good, c) when we are in a situation with people, places and activities in which a previous habit pattern of cocaine use has been established.

Treatment for Cocaine Addiction Involves…

1. Body re-balancing with replenishment of our natural dopamine and noradrenalin in one to four weeks with diet, exercise and rest.
2. Counter-conditioning against old positive brainwashing with the drug.
3. Refocusing on true friends.
4. Developing habits of reacting through people support when we feel bad.
5. Avoiding habits of people, places and activities that were strongly associated with Cocaine.
6. Avoiding mental habits that were regarded only by Cocaine. These include no longer avoiding people, places and activities that would enable us to get life rewards and no longer blaming ourselves or others for problems caused by Cocaine.
7. Using the tools of honesty, open mindedness and support from others to meet our needs and maintain peace of mind.
   

If you need help, or just have a question, please contact us today 800-338-0710.