Drug Addiction Withdrawal: Understanding What
Happens and the Best Way to Get Through It

Drug Addiction withdrawal is one of the realities of becoming addicted to drugs. And it’s one of the reasons that as an addict it’s extremely difficult to simply quit – because it feels like especially your body and also your mind, won’t let you.

Becoming physically dependent to a particular drug – whereby your body actually needs the drug for you to be able to remotely even function – is what makes certain drugs particularly dangerous.

A drug like Heroin – which is highly physically addictive – means the drug withdrawals that you experience from discontinuing use are most severe between 48 and 72 hours afterwards and can take a week to fully subside.

Because of its highly physically addictive nature, you are also more likely to overdose from heroin than most other substances, because your body always craves it – and so you’re likely to push the limits of how much to take, which can have fatal consequences.

But drug addiction withdrawal is different for each drug and differs from person to person. There are a range of withdrawal symptoms that vary depending on the kind of drug and your body’s reaction to it – which can include nausea, vomiting, tremors, loss of appetite, muscle and stomach cramps, diarrhea, shaking, sweating profusely, fever, seizures – and potentially a host of others.

The withdrawal process can be extremely painful and unpleasant - and even potentially life threatening if not done correctly – so it is critical that the drug addiction withdraw process, especially in severe cases, is done supervised in a professional Detox/Rehab environment.

Drug withdrawal isn’t only physical however. Because a large part of addiction is the psychological aspect. All drugs - from alcohol, to nicotine, to cocaine, to marijuana, to heroin - fulfil a certain emotional need. They might make you feel relaxed, happy, able to cope, euphoric, at peace, super confident, alert, or whatever.

So take that away and you will experience a form of psychological withdrawal as well, which in the most severe cases can cause thoughts of suicide because the emotional comfort your drug provided you with was so powerful, you feel like you simply won’t be able to cope without it.

And of the course the cravings to use again can then be especially intense – because you’ll want to do anything to rid yourself of the emotional nightmare you’re experiencing. But even if you’re not quite feeling suicidal – the potential depression, anxiety, and paranoia etc. can make it especially hard to avoid relapsing. Again, that’s why withdrawing in a professional, supervised environment can be so helpful.

Bottom line - if you’re looking for advice on how to manage the drug addiction withdrawal process - don’t try and do it alone. Let the specialists help you. It will be too difficult and not worth the risk doing it yourself. So I suggest you check out the alcohol and drug addiction treatment and drug and alcohol rehab areas for more information on that.

The related topics of the alcohol withdrawal process and dealing with the problem of depression and alcoholism or addiction wiil also help with understanding the impacts of drug addiction withdrawal.

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