If you are looking for answers to questions like “what do opioids do to the body,” it might signify that you or someone you love is struggling with drug abuse. Thankfully, you can get help.
What are Opioids?
Opioids are a class of drug that can be given in prescription form or taken illegally. In a prescription, opioids are used as painkillers, usually prescribed in the form of things like codeine or morphine. Illegally, opioids tend to take the form of heroin.
Natural opioids like morphine come from the Opium poppy plant found in South America. Illegal street drugs like heroin are also derived from the poppy plant. However, some prescription drugs utilize an artificial opioid like Fentanyl.
So, what do opioids do to the body?
How Do Opioids Affect the Body?
Opioids don’t actually fix your pain or make it go away. Instead, they change the chemical communication between your brain and body, shutting down the pain signals your body sense to your brain. This makes it so that you don’t feel the pain anymore. However, the more often you take opioids in prescription or other forms, the more your body builds a tolerance to it.
As you start to build a tolerance, that means the amount of drugs you took to alleviate your pain will no longer be enough to give you the same effect. So, you have to take higher and higher doses to achieve the same feelings. Eventually, this can change the chemical makeup of your brain and lead to an addiction.
Opioid addiction is a severe problem, one of America’s most common drug problems.
Why are Opioids So Addictive?
Understanding how opioids affect the body helps you understand why they are so addictive. The way in which opioids change your brain and the chemical responses between your brain and your body is what serves as the foundation for addiction. The more you limit the natural communication between your brain and body, the worse the pain will be whenever you stop taking opioids, or the opioids wear off.
It can take just a few weeks for your body to become physically dependent on an opioid. If you just take a prescription pill for one or two days, it might not be a problem, but studies indicate that even your first dose starts to have physiological effects on your body.
As opioids begin to change your body physiologically, you are at a higher chance of addiction. Every individual is different. For some, their genetic makeup puts them at a higher risk for addiction, while for others, untreated mental health conditions or past trauma can lead to an increased risk of addiction.
How to Find Opioid Addiction Treatment
Knowing how do opioids affect the body, you gain the power to decide when you need help managing and overcoming the effects of opioids. A good treatment center can help you detox and remove any residual compounds from your body before you dive into long-term therapy and holistic treatment programs. Opioid addiction centers focus on providing life skills and coping strategies that you can use long after you leave their program.
Just as no individual deals with addiction or drug abuse in the same way as another, no individual should have a rehab treatment plan that is the same as another. Good opioid addiction treatment centers will start with an evaluation to determine your background, what you have tried in the past, and what recovery plan will work best.
At Total TMH, we recognize that your journey toward recovery starts with us. Our addiction treatment in Beverly Hills of objectives and our programs are designed to help you and your family utilize the most effective treatment methods available. We don’t put together a treatment plan that you can’t follow. We want you to have the highest chance of success which is why we start with an evaluation to figure out what type of help you need specifically, where you might have struggled in the past, and what types of therapies haven’t worked well for you. With a better picture of your history, we can customize a plan to help you change your daily patterns and take back control of your life.
Reach out to Total RMH today for help with your addiction.