Inhalants Treatment

Inhalants treatment has one main goal, to provide the recovering individual with the �??tools�?? necessary to achieve long term abstinence. In order for someone to achieve this goal, inhalants treatment centers address a person's medical and psychiatric needs, provide nutritional and medication management counseling, facilitate family healing through a family program, work on the development of interpersonal relationships, and improve daily living skills.

The path to inhalants addiction begins with the act of taking drugs. Over time, a person's ability to choose not to take drugs can become compromised. Drug seeking becomes compulsive, in large part as a result of the effects of prolonged drug use on brain functioning and, thus, on behavior. Nearly all addicted individuals believe in the beginning that they can stop using drugs on their own, and most try to stop without treatment. However, most of these attempts result in failure to achieve long-term abstinence.

Do you have a problem with inhalants? The answer is yes if you continue to use them even when they cause problems with your health, money, work or school, or with your relationships. You may have a problem if you have developed a tolerance to inhalants. This means you need to use more and more to get the same effect. Research has shown that long-term drug use results in significant changes in brain function that persist long after the individual stops using drugs. These drug-induced changes in brain function may have many behavioral consequences, including the compulsion to use drugs despite adverse consequences. This is defining characteristic of addiction. Understanding that addiction has such an important biological component may help explain an individual's difficulty in achieving and maintaining abstinence without inhalants treatment.

Psychological stress from work or family problems, social cues (such as meeting individuals from one's drug-using past), or the environment (such as encountering streets, objects, or even smells associated with drug use) can interact with biological factors to hinder attainment of sustained abstinence and make relapse more likely. Research studies indicate that even the most severely addicted individuals can participate actively in treatment and that active participation is essential to good outcomes in inhalants treatment.

According to several studies, drug addiction treatment reduces drug use by 40 to 60 percent and significantly decreases criminal activity during and after treatment. For example, a study of therapeutic community treatment for drug offenders demonstrated that arrests for violent and nonviolent criminal acts were reduced by 40 percent or more. Although these effectiveness rates hold in general, individual treatment outcomes depend on the extent and nature of the patient's presenting problems, the appropriateness of the treatment components and related services used to address those problems, and the degree of active engagement of the patient in the treatment process.

The first step in breaking one's inhalants addiction is to understand that you can take control of what you do. You can't control all the things that happen in your life or most of what other people do, but you do have control over how you react. So use that control. The following are the next steps to breaking your addiction and entering inhalants treatment:

• Commit to quitting. Once you decide to quit, make a plan to be sure that you really do it.
• Get help from an inhalants treatment program. They can give you support and help with withdrawal symptoms and other problems that you may have as you recover from your addiction.
• Get support. Ask your family and friends for support.

No single type of drug addiction treatment is appropriate for all individuals. Matching inhalants treatment settings, interventions, and services to each individual's particular problems and needs is critical to his or her ultimate success in returning to productive functioning in the family, workplace, and society. Also, when it comes to drug addiction treatment the appropriate duration for an individual depends on his or her problems and needs. Research indicates that for most patients, the threshold of significant improvement is reached at about 3 months in treatment. After this threshold is reached, additional inhalants treatment can produce further progress toward recovery. Because people often leave treatment prematurely, programs should include strategies to engage and keep patients in treatment.

As with other serious health problems, relapses to inhalants and other drug use can occur during or after successful drug addiction treatment programs. Addicted individuals may require prolonged inhalants treatment and multiple episodes of treatment to achieve long-term abstinence and fully restored functioning. Participation in self-help support programs during and following treatment often is helpful in maintaining abstinence.