One of the more uncomfortable parts of the recovery process is withdrawal. During withdrawal, the body violently objects against abstinence to drug use, and essentially causes a plethora of painful symptoms in response to sobriety and staying clean. This process is more uncomfortable for some than for others, and different drugs produce varying withdrawal symptoms.
Withdrawal symptoms also have a significant mental impact and are part of the reason why breaking an addiction is difficult alone. Withdrawal symptoms can often leave a person discouraged from trying to break free from their addiction due to the combined effects of extreme physical discomfort – from flu-like symptoms to shivers, nausea, and severe headaches – and mental effects such as anxiety, confusion, and more.
In some cases, such as in rare cases of alcohol withdrawal, quitting drug use can bring about a series of other symptoms. Delirium tremens, for example, happens in about 5% of people with alcohol withdrawal, occurring separately roughly a day or two after the last drink.
A big portion of addiction treatment involves helping people through the withdrawal process. There is no easy or safe way to bypass it – the point of withdrawal is to remain drug-free long enough for the symptoms to pass – but in some cases and with certain drugs, rehab centers and recovery clinics utilize medication to help the withdrawal process. After withdrawal, it can take another few weeks or months for cravings to significantly subside, and years for them to grow insignificant. Every case is different – but most cases of drug addiction must endure the pain of withdrawal.
Surviving Withdrawal Symptoms
Thankfully, withdrawal symptoms range from mild to severe – and they often end up mild. This does not mean that they’re ever pleasant – all withdrawals are uncomfortable at best. But with proper medical attention and in the care of a professional recovery facility or sober living home, chances are that you will get through the process completely unharmed.
The duration and assortment of possible symptoms depends heavily on a variety of factors, although the biggest are:
- Drug of choice.
- Age and physical health of the addict.
- Genetic factors and medical history.
- The duration and severity of the addiction.
The symptoms all vary, but these are most common in almost all cases of withdrawal:
- Flu and cold symptoms, including nausea, runny nose, fever.
- Muscle aching and insomnia.
- Agitation and anxiety.
- Heavy sweating and shivers.
- Abdominal pain, bowel movement issues including diarrhea.
- Tremors.
- Elevated and slowed heart rate.
Duration of these symptoms varies wildly on the drug, while severity varies entirely based on a person’s health and genetic makeup, and the extent of their drug habit.
Seek Medical Help
If you stopped using drugs to get clean and stay clean, the first thing you must do is find a clinic or sober home and get help. Withdrawal symptoms are not always severe, but they can be – and even if you previously experienced mild withdrawal symptoms, that is no guarantee that this time will be the same.
The duration of a full withdrawal process depends on the type of drugs you use. Cocaine, for example, takes up to about two weeks to fully withdraw from. After that, mood swings, irritability, and depression due to cocaine use can take several weeks or months to subside.
Heroin and prescription opiates can cause strong cravings, but their withdrawal symptoms are often quite mild, although it takes several days for withdrawal to be finished. Alcohol and benzodiazepines carry the most risk for fatal symptoms and last the longest – withdrawal symptoms from benzodiazepine addiction can take weeks.
While the most effective course of action is to let a withdrawal process run its course, medical supervision is by far the safest way to tackle withdrawal, as some cases may require pharmacological intervention to ensure a patient’s survival.
Why Do Withdrawals Happen?
Withdrawal, just like tolerance, is not entirely unique to addictive drugs. While withdrawal symptoms are stronger in substances that are considered addictive and can elicit the necessary response in the brain to become addictive, most psychoactive drugs create a series of mild to severe withdrawal symptoms, including medication and substances that are considered generally non-addictive, such as anti-depressives and coffee.
First: drug dependence or physical dependence is necessary for withdrawal symptoms to exist. It is possible to have an entirely behavioral addiction, where drug use is only addictive insofar that it is used as an unhealthy coping mechanism, allowing therapy to effective treat someone by helping them work through their pain and utilizing different, much more healthy coping mechanisms. But in most cases of addiction, the addiction comes from a form of physical dependence on the drug, where the brain basically struggles to let go of the drug, making anything less than regular use intolerable and abjectly painful.
Drug dependence is separate from drug addiction. Where drug dependence describes a brain that has become used to a certain dosage of drugs and reacts negatively in response to abstinence/cessation of drug use, addiction focuses on the behavior that often results from either physical dependence, emotional dependence or, most commonly, a combination of both. This type of out-of-control compulsive drug use can be a result of physical dependence, but the two are separate.
The brain gets hooked on drugs because it’s not used to the effects drugs have on the brain. When you take something addictive, the brain first must adapt to the substance, to normalize it. This happens through the buildup of tolerance; wherein higher and higher doses of a drug are necessary to elicit the same high.
Over time, the brain adapts to drug use and makes it the normal state of being, leading to withdrawal symptoms if drug use is stopped. Our brain is a very adaptive organ, but that adaptiveness makes it susceptible to something like addiction. This can, in turn, be life-threatening, as addictive substances are often damaging to the brain and other organs, as well as causing life-changing or fatal accidents and other severe consequences.