Abstinence-Based Treatment

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Abstinence-based treatment for opioid addiction is a fancy way of saying that treatment should not involve the use of medications. To provide abstinence-based treatment, various therapeutic regimens are employed. Typically, the addict undergoes detoxification in an inpatient medical facility to rid the body of the opioids, typically over a 3 to 5-day period. After detoxification, the addict either enters into intensive one-to-one counseling on an outpatient basis (perhaps meeting with a therapist several times each week) or goes into a long-term treatment center (rehab) that advocates for abstinence-based treatment of opioid addiction.
It is should not be a surprise that the treatment of opioid addiction is strongly turning away from abstinence-based
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For example, the use of meditation as the sole method of treating diabetes would fall into that category. A review of the principles of alternative medical treatments is available from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at http://1.usa.gov/1Nf0Miq.
There are many alternative medical treatment options for the treatment of all types of addiction. You can read about nutrition, vitamin, amino acid, and herbal remedies. Others include sweating out the drugs in a sauna, rebirthing tanks, treatment with the plant derivatives kratom and ibogaine, supplementation with phenibut, treatment with medical marijuana, laser light therapy, hypnotherapy, prayer, trauma-informed addiction treatment, water therapy, sound therapy, neurofeedback, meditation, exercise, acupuncture, and so on.
Alternative medical treatments are not widely accepted by the medical community because they often lack an acceptable number of scientific studies backing their effectiveness or safety (or both). Therefore, they are not evidence-based. Consequently, I do not rely on them as the principal method of treatment for opioid addiction, although exercise, yoga, healthy eating habits and healthy sleeping habits are beneficial to complement evidence-based
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APPENDIX D
Non-Medically Supervised Detoxification
Addicts may attempt to end their addiction to opioids through a non-medically supervised detoxification, referred to on the street as “going cold turkey,” “kicking the habit,” or “getting the monkey off my back.” With this option, the addict decides to suddenly stop using opioids and then to endure withdrawal symptoms and cravings without medical supervision. The process is simple to understand, but the outcome can be tragic due to many hidden dangers.
Physical symptoms of withdrawal include chills, sweating, goosebumps, nausea, vomiting or retching, watery eyes, runny nose, diarrhea, dilated pupils, back and joint pain, and body aches (Chapter 1). The symptoms are reminiscent of a severe case of the flu, only much worse. Symptoms gradually resolve but are most severe at the start of the withdrawal process. In addition, cravings can be intense, unrelenting, and can last far longer than withdrawal symptoms.
Both withdrawal symptoms and cravings independently or in combination can lead to a

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