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New Dawn Treatment Centers are fully accredited and licensed substance use disorder facilities that provide individualized therapy for adult men and women. We also treat co-occurring disorders, including mental health disorders, alongside a substance use disorder.
A person with alcoholism isn’t just someone who occasionally misuses wine, liquor, or beer. Occasionally people overindulge, but if the consequences of drinking go beyond a once-a-year New Year’s Day headache, you need help. A problem is probably present if your family, friends, or coworkers suggest it.
Alcoholism is dangerous because it overrides almost every other emotion or need. People who have this condition crave alcohol at the cost of their health, basic needs, and happiness. Without professional help, it can be impossible to change. People often give in to their craving for another drink when they try to overcome alcoholism on their own. In order to reach your goal of recovery, you must recognize that you have an addiction problem and decide to change. Finding the proper alcohol addiction treatment is the most important decision you will make
In the past, alcoholism was considered to be a purely physical condition. That is, it was believed that the only way to help a person with alcoholism was to remove the physical dependency. Recently, we’ve learned that alcoholism has a mental and emotional component as well that is just as important, if not even more so.
A key reason for our success is that here at New Dawn, we have highly skilled and qualified therapeutic specialists to address the psychological side of addiction. With our residential programs, you can work on your recovery in comfortable, homelike settings without the triggers and stresses of everyday life.
Drug addiction is a chronic disease that occurs when individuals are compulsive in seeking and using drugs despite adverse consequences. In most cases, drug use starts as a voluntary decision, but repeated drug use can alter one’s brain, making it difficult to resist intense urges to use drugs and challenging their ability to control themselves. Drug addiction is considered a relapsing disease because these changes in the brain can persist for a long time, even in recovery from certain drug use disorders.
A person may relapse, but relapse doesn’t mean that treatment is not effective. Chronic health conditions require ongoing treatment, which should be adjusted based on the patient’s response. Treatment plans need to be reviewed frequently and modified as needs change.
The brain’s reward circuit is affected by most drugs, causing euphoria and flooding it with dopamine. Having a well-functioning reward system motivates a person to repeat behaviors essential to their survival, such as eating and spending time with loved ones. When people take drugs, dopamine surges in their reward circuit reinforce pleasurable but harmful behaviors, causing them to repeat the behavior repeatedly.
When a person continues to use drugs, his or her brain adapts by reducing the ability of reward circuit cells to respond. As a result, the person feels less high when taking the drug compared to when they first took it, which is called tolerance. They might have to take more of the drug to get the same high, which causes them to become less able to enjoy things they once loved, such as food, exercise and socializing.
It is generally not possible to cure drug addiction, as it is with other chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, or heart disease. But addiction is treatable. It is likely that anyone recovering from an addiction will have the risk of relapsing for many years, and perhaps even their entire life.
The best chance of success for most patients is achieved when addiction treatment medicines are combined with behavioral therapy. Drug treatment approaches that take into account a patient’s drug use patterns and any co-occurring medical, mental, and social issues can help them obtain continued recovery.
Here at New Dawn Treatment Centers we treat addiction for a wide variety of drugs including but not limited to the following:
Opiate addiction has become an epidemic in the US over the past few years. Opiates are prescribed by doctors as painkillers and they also induce a feeling of euphoria which makes it a drug of choice for abuse.
When taken in doses more than the one prescribed, Opiates have dire effects on one’s body. There are three types of opiates:
Opiates when used for a long duration, may easily lead to addiction even if it is used as prescribed. Individuals who have been using opiates for a long time develop tolerance, meaning the same amount of drug will not have the same effect as it did in the beginning. This triggers the cycle of addiction and people start looking for ways to get the drug in larger quantities than prescribed to satisfy their need.
Benzodiazepine depressants are often used to treat anxiety disorders or insomnia and include alprazolam (Xanax), diazepam (Valium), and triazolam (Halcion). They are extremely addictive and require a medically supervised detox setting because the withdrawal symptoms are very dangerous if not treated properly.
Xanax is one of the most popular drugs of abuse, second only to the opiates. Being a prescription drug, people may become addicted to it without their knowledge which is why it can be so dangerous. Xanax addiction and overdose become serious possibilities when combined with other depressants or alcohol.
Despite being a prescription drug, addiction to Benzos has several negative impacts on an individual. People build up a tolerance to this drug, and their consumption may increase drastically.
Moderate Symptoms:
Serious Symptoms:
An individual with a depressive disorder, also known as depression, feels persistently sad, worthless, and is unable to find pleasure throughout the day.
The problem with depression is that it interferes significantly with daily functioning and is more than just a short period of sadness and blues. Besides disrupting relationships and sleep patterns, it also disrupts the way the brain processes information, emotions, and complex problems.
In the United States, approximately 16 million adults experience major depression at least once a year. It is estimated that ten percent of adults will be affected by depression during their lifetime.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health disorder that is triggered by a terrifying event. This disorder is characterized by flashbacks, severe anxiety, nightmares, and uncontrollable thoughts related to this event that was either personally experienced or witnessed.
Most people who witness or experience a traumatic event may have temporary difficulty coping with fear and anxiety associated with the traumatic event. Still, with time and with healthy coping skills, these individuals will usually overcome their fear and anxiety. Posttraumatic stress disorder affects approximately eight to ten percent of individuals throughout their lifetime or 7.7 million American adults.
Complex posttraumatic stress disorder, also known as CPTSD is similar to PTSD. Instead of witnessing or experiencing one traumatic event, the individual is exposed to repeated trauma over months or years.
Signs and symptoms of CPTSD include those of PTSD with some additional symptoms, which include the following:
Although many veterans may have posttraumatic stress disorder (approximately 30% of individuals who have spent time in combat develop PTSD), this diagnosis can affect anyone who undergoes or witnesses a traumatic experience. The following are traumatic experiences that have been associated with PTSD
The feeling of anxiousness is a normal reaction to a stressful situation, a natural defense mechanism we use to protect ourselves in potentially awkward dangerous situations.
However, anxiety can become a disorder when our “internal panic clocks” become rewired, causing us to feel anxious all the time, to the point that it interferes with our daily lives.
These types of disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year.
People who have substance use disorders, as well as mental health disorders, are diagnosed as having co-occurring disorders, or dual disorders. This is also sometimes called a dual diagnosis.
Co-occurring disorders can sometimes be difficult to diagnose. Symptoms of substance abuse or addiction can mask symptoms of mental illness, and symptoms of mental illness can be confused with symptoms of addiction. People with mental health disorders sometimes do not address their substance use because they don’t believe it is relevant to their problems.
Those diagnosed with mental health disorders often use substances to feel better. People who are anxious may want something to make them feel calm; people who are depressed may want something to make them feel more animated; people who are fearful of others may want something to make them feel more relaxed and less inhibited; and people who are in psychological pain may want something to make them feel numb.
Using alcohol or other drugs not only fails to repair the mental health disorder but also prevents a person from developing effective coping skills, having satisfying relationships, and feeling comfortable with themselves. Alcohol also interferes with medications prescribed for mental health disorders. In short, drug and alcohol use makes mental health disorders worse.
People with co-occurring disorders may stop using alcohol or other drugs, but they will find difficulties as the symptoms of their mental health disorders persist. Treatment centers and clinicians and addiction specialists may not be prepared to address both conditions. And some traditional peer recovery groups may insist on abstinence from all drugs – even medications prescribed for mental health disorders. As a result, people with co-occurring disorders find it very difficult to treat their substance-use problems without also treating their mental health disorders.
Although in the past, mental health disorders and addiction problems were often treated separately, we now know that co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders impact one another and must be treated together. Treating just one disorder will not cause the other to automatically improve. And separate, parallel care for the disorders does not result in one, effective treatment plan. To be effective, both disorders must be treated at the same time, in the same place, by the same treatment team. This is called integrated treatment.
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