Substance Use Treatment
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Statistics are bleak: SAMHSA’s 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reports that approximately 19.3 million people aged 18 or older had a substance use disorder in the past year.
The terminology can be confusing: addiction, substance abuse, and substance use disorders are terms most commonly used to define, what the American Society of Addiction Medicine, calls addiction:
Addiction is a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.
Drugfree.org continues by explaining:
The disease model of addiction
Addiction is defined as a disease by most medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, addiction is caused by a combination of behavioral, psychological, environmental and biological factors. Genetic risk factors account for about half of the likelihood that an individual will develop addiction.
Addiction involves changes in the functioning of the brain and body due to persistent use of nicotine, alcohol and/or other substances.
Read more about the brain addiction connection here.
The consequences of untreated addiction often include other physical and mental health disorders that require medical attention. If left untreated over time, addiction becomes more severe, disabling, and life-threatening.
Treatment for addiction and substance use disorders
As disheartening as it may be to recognize that the condition persists in a loved one, friend, or oneself, there is a silver lining in this cloud: prevention efforts and treatment approaches for addiction are generally as successful as those for other chronic diseases.
At Advanced Integrative Care, we specialize in the treatment of
