Heroin Abuse, Withdrawal and Treatment

Heroin is well-known as a highly addictive and potentially lethal drug. As the opioid crisis peaks in the United States and abroad, heroin has seen a deadly resurgence in popularity. Heroin can be injected, smoked, or sniffed (snorted), and it is sometimes mixed with cocaine in a dangerous concoction known as a “speedball.” Heroin is rarely pure, as dealers mix it with household solvents, starch, powdered milk, or other materials that can be lethal when injected or ingested.¹

Heroin and its cousin-drugs, opioid painkillers, create changes in the brain that lead to both physical and emotional addiction. Opioid drug addiction is best overcome with the help of a treatment team because withdrawal can be painful and lead to quick relapse. Those who have an addiction to heroin need the support of a treatment team that understands what that person is experiencing. With the right treatment, it is possible to leave heroin behind for good.

“I have everything that I wish I would have had when I was using, but today I have so much more in recovery, says Tyler A, at Heroes in Recovery. “At first, heroin promised me a lot and recovery didn’t promise me anything. Once I started working the steps, though, I didn’t want to stop. …Today, I’m ecstatic about life. I never thought I would be happy to be alive. I do everything I possibly can to make sure my daughter does not have to worry about her dad getting high.”

Born in a Laboratory

Heroin gets its kick from a natural ingredient found inside the poppy plant. The white substance that oozes out of the seed pods of the poppy plant can be intoxicating, but the producers of heroin tweak and alter this substance in order to make it both portable and more powerful. Heroin dealers heat up the goo and combine it with other chemicals and agents until they’ve produced a product they think will sell in the marketplace.

At the end of the production process, heroin may look like a sticky, black brick or like a white or brown pile of sand. These substances can be smoked or inhaled, and the effect on the body can be almost instantaneous. Heroin hijacks the brain’s receptors by hitting hard and delivering a punch that’s hard to ignore. As heroin takes over brain receptors, it also destroys them. Those who use heroin are rarely able to match the feeling of their original high and risk their lives chasing the feeling of the original high.

The human brain quickly adjusts to opioid drugs, and those who use it require to take bigger doses in order to feel the same sense of release. In the end, they may never feel the same overwhelming sensation. Instead, they may feel just ill and sad, angry, or ill between doses, and they may need heroin in order to behave in a natural manner and stave off sickness. It’s a physical dependence that can lead to serious withdrawal symptoms when people try to heal.

Moving Through Withdrawal

Heroin withdrawal is only occasionally life-threatening, but it can be dangerous without medical supervision or assistance.²

The physical signs associated with heroin withdrawal can be uncomfortable and can include:

• Nausea and abdominal cramping
• Flu-like illness
• Sweating
• Insomnia
• Sore, jumpy muscles
• Agitation

People who go through this process feel physical distress, but the emotional discomfort they face could be even more severe. With each pang of pain, their brain cells call out for heroin as a solution. The craving for drugs can be intense and difficult to control. Many people who try to quit heroin without help risk the danger of a deadly relapse.

Medications can be vital during this process, as they can soothe physical signs of distress while allowing deep cravings to fade. Sometimes, people who have access to proper replacement medications feel restored enough to resist direct temptation.³

The decision to use medication assistance is unique to each person and should be decided after working closely with an addiction treatment program. While some people do not wish to use medication during withdrawal, some find that it can be helpful. In some cases, individuals feel symptoms of withdrawal when assistive medication is removed, and the old cravings may return. Clients like this might need to either avoid medication-assisted therapy or stay on replacement medications for months, or even years, so they don’t relapse to heroin use.

Heroin Recovery Begins Today

It’s relatively easy for family members to read about the heroin recovery process and decide that it’s the right path for someone they love. It can be hard, however, for someone with a heroin addiction to make the decision to change. Some people with addictions might claim that they don’t even have a problem and that they can quit their use of substances at any point, without any complications at all. Some families overcome denial like this by holding a formal intervention conversation in which they outline all of the addiction-related problems they’ve seen and the ways in which therapy might help. Our treatment professionals and wide-ranging referral network can help you get started on an effective family intervention for someone you love.

Living with someone addicted to heroin can certainly be lonely, but know that you’re not alone. At Black Bear Lodge, we’d like to help. Call us, and we can explore available heroin addiction treatment options and come up with a plan that is right for you and your family. We can work with your insurance company to make sure the care you need is paid for, and we can set up an intake appointment for the person you love, so heroin addiction treatment can get started right away. Call to learn more at 706-909-9811.

How to Help a Heroin Addict

Heroin addiction is a devastating disease, destroying marriages, partnerships and families as well as individual lives. As an opioid drug, heroin exerts a powerful effect on the human brain, creating sensations of profound sedation or euphoria when it binds to opioid receptor cells. The allure of this high is so seductive that millions of users have fallen into the trap of heroin addiction.

Watching someone you care about abuse heroin can be both heartbreaking and terrifying. But that doesn’t mean that you’re helpless to fight this disease, or that you shouldn’t reach out to offer your support. Supporting without judgment and encouraging treatment while maintaining healthy boundaries are important parts of the process.

Here are a few ways to help a heroin addict without harming yourself or your loved ones in the process:

• Don’t face the problem alone. Heroin is a potent, dangerous drug. You’ll be much better prepared to help a heroin addict if you have a strong support system. Seek help from family members, support groups, community health programs, online forums, 12-Step programs and addiction treatment specialists. Fellowships like Nar-Anon support the families and partners of addicts who are struggling to find hope and healing. If you’ve tried and failed to talk with your loved one about heroin addiction, a professional intervention counselor can help you form a strategy to get him the help he needs in a safe, compassionate manner.⁵
• Don’t believe stereotypes about heroin abuse. The stigma of heroin addiction can make you feel isolated and alone. You may be reluctant to reach out for support because you don’t want to admit that someone close to you has a problem with this dangerous drug. But the image of a skid row heroin addict is an old, outdated stereotype. Heroin abuse affects people from all socioeconomic groups, from the homeless to the very wealthy. According to CNN, more than 33,000 Americans died from heroin overdose in 2015, the last year for which statistics are available.⁶ Heroin addiction is at epidemic proportions across the United States, and no socioeconomic group is free from the grip of the drug. Learning about the realities of heroin addiction will help you confront the disease.
• Offer support without enabling. The spouses, partners, and parents of heroin addicts often enable the user without knowing it. There’s a big difference between providing support and helping a loved one continue their destructive behavior. If your help allows the addict to keep using or avoid the negative consequences of drug abuse, you could be enabling instead of supporting. Examples of enabling include loaning the addict money to pay bills, calling an employer on their behalf when they’re too sick to work, or repeatedly bailing them out of jail so they don’t have to face incarceration. Examples of supporting include educating yourself about the disease, helping the addict get into rehab, or going to counseling sessions with addiction therapists.
• Seek help for yourself and your family. Heroin addiction can swallow up entire families, creating conflicts that drive you and your loved ones apart. As you reach out to help an addict, take time to seek counseling for yourself and the other people in your household. Addiction is not just an individual problem, but a family disease. To create a supportive, drug-free home, you need the guidance of a professional addiction counselor.⁷

Drug rehab programs offer intensive family counseling, 12-Step meetings and educational programs for the loved ones of substance abusers. The clinical staff members at Black Bear Lodge have extensive experience at helping families like yours recover from heroin addiction. We provide intervention coordination as well as counseling services to guide you and your loved ones through the healing process. Our admissions coordinators are here to answer your questions and give you support at any time. Call us at 706-909-9811 now.

Why Is Heroin So Addictive?

Addictions are rarely instantaneous. In most cases, people who abuse drugs must take the substances for a long period of time in order to develop the neurological changes that are associated with compulsive use. But some drugs seem capable of producing profound changes in no time at all, which allows users to develop an addiction with astonishing speed. Heroin is one such drug. Understanding just why it can be so addictive could keep some people from taking the drug at all, while the information might help others to understand what they’ll need to do in order to recover from a heroin addiction already in play.

Heroin Delivery Matters

People who take heroin use methods that allow the drug to overwhelm the brain in a short period of time. They inhale heroin through their nasal passages, they smoke the drug or they inject heroin solutions into their veins. Once heroin is inside the body, it’s capable of producing an intense amount of change within the brain in seconds. At one moment, the user is sober. In the next, the user is euphoric. This rapid speed of change is, in part, responsible for the remarkable addictiveness of heroin, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse , as drugs that cause fast changes just tend to be more harmful than drugs that work slowly.

Persistent Changes

The rush heroin can bring is dependent on chemical changes inside the cells of the brain. Cells with access to heroin are pumping out huge amounts of chemicals associated with pleasure, and the body is overwhelmed with euphoria. In time, those cells may be incapable of producing pleasure signals without heroin, and the body may be deafened to the impact of small amounts of pleasure.

Incapable of Organic Happiness

These chemical reactions can mean that heroin users must take more of the drug in order to feel happiness, and these same users may be incapable of feelings of happiness unless heroin is available.

This is another factor that’s involved in the addictiveness of this drug.

Heroin Withdrawal Plays a Role

When addicted people attempt to stop the cycle of abuse and regain their sobriety, they may develop symptoms of physical withdrawal, including:

• Nausea
• Muscle aches
• Sweating
• Watery eyes

They may be unable to sleep or eat, unable to get comfortable and unable to focus on any one thought or person. Thoughts of heroin might fill their minds, and they may be desperate to get in touch with anyone who has a supply they can share.

According to research published in Nature Neuroscience, this withdrawal process can make heroin all the more addictive. Users who go through this process might feel such intense relief when they relapse that the drug becomes even more rewarding and harder to give up. They’ve set their minds on the use of the drug, and when they get it, they may be resistant to attempt detox in the future.

Black Bear Lodge Can Help

Heroin is certainly addictive and dangerous, but we can help. At Black Bear Lodge, we provide intensive support that can help people with addictions to understand their urge to use, and we can provide tools that can help people to banish their habits for good. Just call, 706-909-9811 and our admissions coordinators would love to tell you more.

The Physical Dangers of Heroin Abuse

There’s no way around it – heroin is a deadly drug.

For first-time users and seasoned users alike, use of heroin will often end in overdose or related death if treatment is not sought. Though there are some things that users can do to mitigate certain risks (e.g., avoid sharing needles or use with a partner), for the majority of potential dangers that come with heroin use, there is no protection except abstinence.

Additives

Because heroin is a black market street drug and illegal for recreational use throughout the world, there is no governing body standing by to ensure quality standards in its production or distribution. Often, the other chemicals and substances used to cut heroin to make it more lucrative to its manufacturers and sellers are just as harmful. These contaminants can clog blood vessels, thus cutting off the supply to major organs like the kidneys, liver, lungs and brain, which in turn can cause dysfunction or irreversible damage to the same.

A report in the journal Forensic Science International details just a few of the different adulterants found in different heroin seizures over a 12-year period. They found that purity in wholesale seizures was only slightly higher than retail seizures, indicating that multiple parties along the heroin shipment route are cutting the drug with a wide range of chemicals in order to increase their money-making power. Rates of purity were 45 percent and 35 percent, respectively, meaning that in a given dose of heroin, the user is getting 65 percent additive and 35 percent heroin on average.

Shifting Levels of Purity

In some areas of the country, the opposite issue is the problem. The National Drug Intelligence Center reports that there are increasing levels of purity of heroin seized in different parts of the country. With almost 90 percent purity in some cases, the dose of heroin that is 35 percent pure will affect the user far differently than the same amount of the 90 percent bag. The problem is that there are no labels to help users identify what they are purchasing and many inadvertently overdose believing that they are dealing with the same product they purchased in the past.

Other Dangers: Overdose and Death

There are so many different ways that heroin can harm its user that they are almost impossible to calculate or protect against. For example, a report in the journal Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports says that some heroin is shipped in such a way that it brings botulism to its users, a flesh-eating disease that destroys their limbs or takes their lives if they don’t get treatment immediately.

Additionally, the body’s ability to process the drug varies from day to day, so even if two doses are the same amount and taken from the same source, the user may find that one is overwhelming and causes overdose while the other barely allows them to get high.

Overdose is a constant concern when heroin is a part of the equation, the risk of which is increased exponentially under the following circumstances:

• Heroin is used in combination with any other drug.
• Heroin is used after another drug has been used, even if the person can no longer feel the effects.
• Heroin is used after a period of abstinence for any reason (e.g., imprisonment, attempted sobriety, vacation, etc.).
• Underlying medical conditions exist, including infection, heart problems, malnutrition and other conditions

Heroin Rehab Is the Only Safe Bet

The only way out of heroin addiction is an intensive, medical and psychotherapeutic addiction treatment program like the one we offer here at Black Bear Lodge. More information is available. Contact us now at 706-909-9811 to get your questions answered.

Signs of Heroin Abuse

Heroin is an opioid narcotic that is synthesized from morphine, a powerful drug that comes from certain types of poppy plants. While both morphine and heroin are very addictive, heroin is generally several times more potent than morphine, and often contains a number of synthetic (and potentially toxic) additives.⁸ By the time heroin is sold on the streets, it is in the form of white powder, brown powder, or sticky black tar.

Heroin is a deadly drug. Just a few uses can trigger an addiction that is impossible to shake without medical and psychotherapeutic treatment. If you believe that your loved one is using heroin, you have every right to be concerned. Continued use of heroin and other opioids can lead to the development of an addiction, health problems, and a host of social consequences that are difficult to overcome.

“I have everything that I wish I would have had when I was using, but today I have so much more in recovery,” writes Tylar A. of Heroes in Recovery.“At first, heroin promised me a lot and recovery didn’t promise me anything. Once I started working the steps, though, I didn’t want to stop. Today, I’m ecstatic about life. I never thought I would be happy to be alive. I do everything I possibly can to make sure my daughter does not have to worry about her dad getting high.”

Learn more about heroin abuse treatment options today by contacting us at Black Bear Lodge.

The Influence of Heroin

Heroin works by binding to the opioid receptors in the brain and affecting the user’s experience of pain and reward.⁹ When under the influence of the drug, your loved one likely feels no pain and experiences a high. Unfortunately, those same changes to brain functioning also affect the user’s physical functions, depressing their blood pressure and their breathing, which can be fatal.

What does this look like to the outside observer? Family members may note that their loved one under the influence of heroin may:

• Nod off as if they are falling asleep
• Be unable to hold a coherent conversation, focus, or be present
• Have flushed skin
• Have extremities that feel sluggish
• Experience mood swings or flu-like symptoms during heroin withdrawal

Heroin overdose is one devastating effect of heroin use. Overdoses can occur suddenly, and sometimes seemingly without explanation. Sometimes long-term heroin users can misjudge their tolerance level, or the strength of their dose, which may lead to an immediate life-threatening situation. Finding your loved one with shallow breathing, a bluish tint to skin or nails, and a nonresponsive state indicates a need for immediate medical intervention.

Signs Heroin May Be in Your Loved One’s Life

Almost everyone who does heroin– whether they abuse the drug irregularly or take repeated daily doses – must purchase their drugs from a supplier. Often, regular users of the drug have multiple people they turn to when they’re ready to buy.

One sign of heroin abuse includes cryptic texts or phone conversations that may precede these transactions. Street names for the drug and obscure references to locations for exchange can be a tipoff that your family member is meeting someone to buy heroin.

Common slang terms for the drug include:

• Dope
• Smack
• H
• Junk
• Skag

Heroin Paraphernalia

There are a number of ways to use heroin, including snorting the drug, smoking the substance in a pipe, or injecting it with a needle (either in a vein or in a muscle).

Finding anything related to heroin abuse among your loved one’s possessions can be a sign of the problem:

• Needles
• Cookers or burned spoons
• Cottons (mini pieces of cotton)
• Tiny tubes of sterile water
• Pipes stained black
• Razor blades, mirrors, surfaces with scrapes and powder residue (for snorting the drug)
• Tiny baggies or pieces of plastic wrap with white, brown or black residue

Does Your Loved One Need Help?

Signs of any of these issues can be a sign of a drug problem that requires treatment. Don’t allow your loved one to fall victim to heroin addiction. Contact us today at Black Bear Lodge and get the information you need about effective treatment options before it’s too late. Call 706-909-9811 now.

An Overview of IV Drug Abuse

There are a variety of different methods people can use in order to take drugs. They can take some drugs orally, swallowing pills whole or crushing them into a paste before choking down the contents. They can crush the pills and snort them into nasal passages, putting potent drugs into direct contact with sensitive tissues. Some drugs can even be lit on fire and smoked, or they can be heated so the rising vapor can be inhaled. Any of these methods could bring a user the hit that’s desired, but sometimes, that hit doesn’t seem strong enough or it doesn’t come on quick enough. For users like this, an injectable format becomes desirable.

Sources of Damage

Any illicit drug has the capacity to do major damage to the body’s vital systems. Amending signals in the brain and tweaking chemical levels in the blood can leave behind a little seed of damage that can soon blossom into an intense feeling of pain and dysfunction. IV drug users aren’t immune to this kind of problem, but they may also have specific health concerns due to the method they use in order to take in those damaging drugs.

Many substances IV users inject simply aren’t made to enter the bloodstream. They’re pills that are meant to be swallowed, for example, or they’re made up of tiny particles of chemicals that aren’t supposed to enter the body at all.

In order to prepare these drugs for a needle, IV users often crush the substances and add them to water, and then they pull the mixture through some sort of filter, such as:

• Cotton balls
• Dryer sheets
• Surgical gauze
• Lint
• Cigarette butts

These are imperfect filters at best, and they could leave tiny little particles behind that could enter the bloodstream. Those little bits can band together into pockets that can cause infections or tumors. Additionally, injecting a substance that’s been made in a DIY laboratory and passed through a rickety filter could mean injecting all sorts of bacteria into the veins and arteries. Site infections can quickly follow, and veins can puff up with bacteria or close up.

Needles are also difficult to come by, meaning that people with an IV habit are often forced to share equipment with other people who also use and abuse drugs. Of IV drug users studied for the National Survey on Drug Use and Health between 2006 and 2008, 13 percent of users injected with a needle that they knew had been used by another drug addict. Less than one-third of these users attempted to clean the needle in any way. It’s likely that people who share needles are also sharing blood, as one tiny droplet of blood tends to stick around when the injection is complete. This could lead to blood-borne infections, including HIV/AIDS or a form of hepatitis.

Growing Desperation

People who inject drugs may know all too well that their behaviors aren’t healthy, but they may find it difficult to stop. The drugs seem to provide them with a jolt they can’t get in any other way, and even as their bodies begin to shut down, they may still look for new places in which to inject. A study in the journal Emergency Radiology describes people who inject drugs right into their throats, since they have no open veins available. Other articles have described users who inject into the groin or even the chest.

These acts may seem desperate, and thankfully, they’re not inevitable. People who are behaving in this way may benefit from participating in a targeted program for addiction in which they examine why they chose to take in drugs, and then learn skills that can keep them from abusing drugs in the future. Medical help may be required to soothe the physical damage an IV habit can cause, but therapy can help ensure that it doesn’t happen in the future.

If you need help with an IV drug abuse problem, please call us at Black Bear Lodge at 706-909-9811. We can explain how therapy works, and why it might be helpful for you and your family. We can even help you to arrange transportation from your home to our facility. Just call to find out more.

Continue Reading

• Drugged Driving
• Addiction Treatment Glossary
• Prescription Drug Abuse: Symptoms and Treatment

Types of Infections Caused by Intravenous Drug Use

Taking a drug intravenously means putting a substance into a needle, plunging that needle into the body, and releasing that drug into the bloodstream. Almost any drug could be used in this way, including heroin, crack cocaine, and even prescription painkillers.

Many who use drugs consider the dangerous high from IV drug use to be the most intense. That’s because this method often allows all of the drug’s power to hit the brain at once, rather than being diluted and delayed by internal organs like the lungs or stomach. Unfortunately, this method of drug abuse also comes with some dangerous side effects, including infections.

Common Injectable Problems

People who abuse drugs with a needle often do so in an unsterile environment. They may not clean the surface of the skin before they inject drugs, and the drugs they inject might be filled with all sorts of bacteria. Often, illegal drugs are mixed in unsanitary conditions and may have chemical additives.

Not surprisingly, infections at the site of the injection are incredibly common.

In fact, experts suggest that standard soft-tissue infections are the most common cause of hospital admissions among IV drug users.¹⁰ This may result in abscesses, wounds that won’t heal, or more serious infections. Infections like this can be quite serious, as they can rage beneath the skin and cause swelling, pain and tissue death.

Thankfully, they can often be successfully treated with oral antibiotics and procedures that remove dead tissue. People might emerge from these episodes with scars, but they might be able to retain their health.

Consequences of Sharing Needles

Basic bacterial infections aren’t the only type of problem that people who use IV drugs might face.

There are a number of infections that can slip from one body to another with a needle, including:

• HIV/AIDS
• Hepatitis B
• Hepatitis C
• Tetanus

In some cases, people obtain these infections because they share needles with others, and those sharing partners have an infection. However, some people get these infections due to the way in which they behave while they’re high. Up to 27 percent of young drug users were likely to share needles, but of those IV drug users, 59 percent reported having more than two sexual partners in six months.¹¹ These users may have obtained infections through their sexual practices, as well as their use of needles.

Illnesses like HIV, tetanus, and hepatitis are harder to treat than simple bacterial infections. Sometimes treatments can help to stem the tide of the disease, but sometimes these illnesses remain within the person’s body for life, and if that person continues to share needles, others could become infected.

Alvin’s Story

“Over time and with years of addiction and drug dealing came the realization that if I didn’t make a change in my life, I would wind up being a full-fledged junkie. I was snorting the diluted heroin, and I had begun using it intravenously…Not many will be able to walk away like I did, but if I can do it, others can too. Now that it has been over 35 years since that day I walked away, I believe anyone can walk away from anything they wish to in life.”

Alvin W., Heroes in Recovery

Treating an Addiction

Diseases and infections caused by injecting drugs can be serious, and these conditions tend to get worse if they’re neglected for long periods of time. The power of addiction may deter many people from seeking help for an infection or illness. Unfortunately, it’s hard for IV drug users to get the right kind of medical help they need without also having to facethe underlying addiction. Once an addiction is in place, getting and using drugs becomes the only thing that matters. Treatment can help to break that pattern.

At Black Bear Lodge, we can help. Our experienced and caring clinicians can help the person you love understand why sobriety is so important, and our treatments can help bring lasting wellness to life. Please call us at 706-909-9811 to learn more about individualized addiction treatment for yourself or someone you love.

What Are Naltrexone Implants?

Long-term addiction recovery is possible. You can find the treatment, tools, and strategies that will work for you or a loved one. One of these tools may be a naltrexone implant.

What Is Naltrexone?

Naltrexone can help treat some withdrawal symptoms. It blocks the effects of narcotics. Naltrexone works by binding to opiate receptors so that other drugs like OxyContin, heroin or hydrocodone cannot. The individual will not experience a “high” if he or she takes one of these substances while on naltrexone. This helps patients avoid relapse in recovery. The Mayo Clinic explains, “Naltrexone is used to help narcotic dependents who have stopped taking narcotics to stay drug-free. It is also used to help alcoholics stay alcohol-free. The medicine is not a cure for addiction. It is used as part of an overall program that may include counseling, attending support group meetings, and other treatment recommended by your doctor.”¹² Naltrexone does not cure addiction. It can be a useful tool for some patients also participating in comprehensive, integrated treatment programs.

Naltrexone is most often found in Suboxone, a medication that contains both naltrexone and buprenorphine. Suboxone is administered through a daily pill or monthly injection. Because patients often abuse Suboxone, forget to take the drug or can’t make it to regular doctor’s appointments, health care providers are exploring possible alternatives. Naltrexone implants may be one of these alternatives. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) shares a trial that found, “The implant device, which releases a steady dose of naltrexone continuously for 2 months, averted relapse to heroin use three times as effectively as daily oral doses of the medication. Oral naltrexone, in turn, yielded a slightly, but statistically nonsignificant, higher rate of remission from heroin use than placebo.”¹³ An implant may provide more effective treatment with less risk of abuse or relapse. However any medication can be misused, and no medication is a complete solution for addiction recovery. Although more effective than oral naltrexone, the implants were not a guarantee against relapse. NIDA continues, “Some 10 percent of the participants with active implants relapsed within the 2-month window during which the device is supposed to work…By 6 months after the trial, almost all the participants, from all groups, had relapsed to heroin use.”¹⁴ Medications are cures. They are not long-term answers. They can provide support in early recovery and during rough patches. This support should be used to create the time and space a person needs to reach out for help and begin or return to therapy.

Are Naltrexone Implants Right for Me or My Loved One?

I wanted to change but I didn’t know how…I went to jail, and when I went to court, I begged the judge to give me a treatment program that offered the Vivitrol [naltrexone] shot. I have been clean since I left the jail and in treatment since.

Leah K. of Heroes in Recovery

If you or a loved one is ready to begin or return to recovery, naltrexone may be a useful tool. It should never be the only tool. A personalized, integrated treatment program offers real opportunities for long-term recovery. Professionals will assess your current mental and physical health and design an individualized recovery plan. This plan may or may not include the use of medications like naltrexone or buprenorphine. Every person has unique, individual recovery needs. Call Black Bear Lodge today to learn how we can help you address yours. Our compassionate, confidential treatment team is available to answer any questions you may have, no matter how big or small. Please reach out at 706-909-9811 today.