Struggling with a substance use disorder can impact various areas of your life, ranging from hurting your career to fragmenting familial relationships. Triggers and cravings can make it difficult to remain sober, which is why stress management and addiction recovery are strongly connected. Negative emotions, such as stress, can increase cravings, which is why treatment focuses on providing you with healthy coping skills.
The Disease of Addiction
Addiction is a chronic disease that develops when you compulsively abuse your substance of choice despite wanting to stop or dealing with harmful consequences because of your use. Psychoactive substances are neurotransmitter inhibitors. Drugs and alcohol can inhibit the release of pleasurable neurotransmitters such as:
- Dopamine
- Seratonin
- GABA
- Cannabinoids
Physical and Psychological Effects of Addiction
Neurotransmitters induce the positive thoughts and feelings you experience when you are intoxicated. Once intoxication ends, you have a sudden depletion of pleasurable neurotransmitters, which causes negative moods and cravings. Your brain associates people, places, and things that remind you of your substance of choice with pleasure, which causes cravings and triggers to use when you are exposed to them. If you use your substance of choice to cope with stress or anxiety, those emotions can cause cravings or reasons to self-medicate.
Your brain can become incapable of releasing neurotransmitters without your substance of choice. As your addiction progresses, your tolerance increases, meaning that you have to continue to use more of your substance of choice to experience the same pleasurable effects of intoxication.
Another consequence of addiction is that it can damage your relationships, health, and standard of living. As your tolerance increases, you need to continue using more of your substance of choice to feel the same pleasurable effects of intoxication. If your substance of choice is expensive, a growing tolerance can cause you to spend excessive amounts of money on your substance of choice.
Prioritizing your substance use can isolate your friends and family members and destroy your relationships. If your substance of choice is an illicit drug, like heroin, you can experience criminal charges if you are caught purchasing, possessing, or using your substance of choice.
The sooner you receive addiction treatment, the better your outcomes are, which makes early treatment imperative.
According to drug abuse statistics and data, more than 50 million Americans used an illicit drug in 2018, with 8.1 million struggling with a substance abuse disorder. Addiction does not discriminate, meaning that anyone who uses a psychoactive substance can ultimately develop a substance abuse disorder. When you develop an addiction, it can alter your brain chemistry, impair your judgment, and change your behavior.
Call 855.833.9199 for addiction treatment programs in Bend, OR.
Stress Management and Addiction Recovery
One of the most common triggers those in recovery encounter is stress. The reason why stress management and addiction recovery are connected is that exposure to stress can lead to cravings and learning how to cope with stress reduces your risk of relapsing. Substance abuse treatment centers offer evidence-based and holistic rehab and therapies to improve your problem-solving, communication, and coping skills.
Holistic therapies, such as deep breathing and meditation, can improve cognition and decrease stress, anxiety, and depression. Learning about stress management and addiction recovery is another important aspect of inpatient and outpatient substance abuse treatment. Recovery requires avoiding all psychoactive substances and avoiding people that continue to use drugs and alcohol.
This can mean ending toxic relationships or creating a new network of sober friends. If you have a mental health disorder, stress can aggravate your mental health symptoms, increasing cravings, and placing you at a higher risk of relapsing. That makes stress management and addiction recovery education especially important if you have a co-occurring disorder requiring dual diagnosis treatment programs.
Finding Help Today
If you are struggling with a substance use disorder, it can make your life unmanageable. Substance abuse treatment centers provide you the support and guidance you need to overcome addiction. Treatment and therapies teach you about using stress management for addiction recovery. To learn more about your treatment options, contact Sunstone Recovery by calling 855.833.9199 today.
