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Crack cocaine treatment remains a desperate need for as many as a million afflicted people. One use of the drug can make an addict out of a person who thought to try it on a recreational basis. Most dangerous, crack is inexpensive, and therefore in a position to poison the lives of those who are most vulnerable. The crack wars of the ’80s have passed but the need for crack treatment endures.

Source

Cocaine is derived from the cocoa leaf, indigenous to South America and imparting its stimulating effect when chewed. In this form, it’s about as strong as a good cup of coffee. However, the active ingredient in the leaf was identified and powder cocaine was first processed in the mid-19th Century. Its potency was ramped up again in the 1980s, when the drug industry’s chemists learned to process a smoking form of the drug without risking explosion.

Effects

Once the user smokes crack, it only takes 8 to 10 seconds before a huge dopamine spike asserts itself. The expression of this spike is a strong feeling of elation. That elation doesn’t last long, though, perhaps 10 minutes. What follows is an equally huge “crash” that leaves the user eager to have that just-passed elation return, which seemed to obliterate all the user’s worldly concerns if only for a few minutes.

Responsibility

The elated feeling the user craves is never more than several dollars from being theirs again. This makes the drive to get the next hit nearly irresistible. A vicious rhythm asserts itself in which the addict scrambles from hit to hit. During this grim process, he or she is willing to beg, borrow or steal. He or she will be willing to sell whatever they own, including finally, their own bodies.

Physical Symptoms

Numerous physical afflictions join this deterioration of life. These include everything from seizures to strokes. Addicts are subject to auditory hallucinations. They might have trouble breathing and after a time, their lungs might collapse. The use of the drug also damages the heart and circulatory system. The heartbeat itself might grow irregular. Addicts are also subject to heart attracts.

Treatment

Treatment begins with detoxification, which takes place on an inpatient basis in a controlled environment such as a hospital. Withdrawal from any cocaine addiction can continue for several days to a week, and is indicated by craving the drug, irritability, sleep problems and loss of appetite. The patient may be administered propranolol to ease the withdrawal and vigabatrin to treat seizures.

Psychological Help

After medical drug addiction detox, the psychological aspects of the abuse must be treated as well. Those without permanent damage or whose addiction had been less pernicious, can be treated through counseling on an outpatient basis. However, others will have to come to “rehab” or a treatment center as an inpatient client. Afterward, the patient might be placed in a group home for recovering addicts, monitored by a social worker or therapist.