Drug rehabilitation programs are designed with one goal in mind: To remove any traces of addiction from patients with substance abuse or psychological problems. But while rehab programs work towards a common aim, the methods employed can vary greatly.
Many programs for rehabilitation focus on the detoxification stage, a fallacy that is in fact promoted by mass media outlets like movies and TV shows. While detox can be the hardest part of rehabilitation in the physical sense, this is not the only aspect of healing from addictions. Careful, continuing treatment must be done in order to minimize the chances of relapsing, and this is true particularly for female rehab patients.
Studies by various government and private organizations have shown that women abuse drugs for reasons different from those that men commonly state. As such, women also require different treatment programs from men.
Drug rehabilitation programs geared towards women must not only focus on the symptoms of drug addiction and withdrawal, but on any erratic behavior patterns and maladaptive thought processes that may serve as the cause of the addiction themselves. A dual diagnosis approach serves to define and treat both of these elements concurrently, and in so doing tackles the problem of addiction at its root.
This approach for drug rehabilitation programs must also be supplemented with the proper facilities and medical care. Striking the perfect balance between all of these factors ensures that the opportunity for complete healing from substance abuse is constantly available to women who need it.
Archive for April, 2010
This article is written for those who want to quit drugs, but haven’t been able to for whatever reason. The methods written here could apply to most addictions, not just drugs. I will not be discussing the reasons why you should quit drugs. You can read about that in the drugs article.
1. Ditch the druggies; befriend the sobeys
One obvious way to quit drugs, yet often overlooked, is to stop hanging out with the regular drug users. Instead start to associate exclusively with your sober friends, at least for the first month. This is one of the most common reasons people relapse and decided to dabble in drugs once more. Do not overlook this option believing you are immune to such influence, because no one is. If all of your friends are regular drug users, then perhaps consider finding at least one sober buddy, or reconnecting with sobers from your past. Especially to be avoided are those friends that talk very openly and persistently about their drug experiences in an positive manner.
2. Do not idle
It is very important to keep busy when you are trying to stay away from drugs. When you are bored, you start remembering your former solutions to such, which was taking drugs for the most part. Though its this temporary solution which got you into the mess your are in now. A great way to overcome this is to find your perfect, productive hobby. If you open your mind enough, you will find that there are lots of things that you can enjoy doing, no matter who you are.
3. What are your reasons to quit?
If you don’t have a good enough reason to quit, you will lack the motivation necessary. Spend some time reading about the consequences and the side effects of the drug you are trying to quit. Also consider your personal reasons that drove you to decide that it’s time to sober up. Reflect upon your life and the freedom you had before your addiction. The better reason you can come up with for quitting drugs, the easier it will be to quit and not relapse. A good reason is also a great asset to quitting cold turkey.
4. Take a bite from the cold turkey
If you have a good history of strong will power, you can quit cold turkey most of the time. Depending on the drug, this is usually the best method of quitting. But be careful when attempting to quit through sheer will power. If the challenge of quitting is too much for your will to handle and you fail, your willpower will suffer a permanent blow that is hard to recover from. To avoid this, undertake challenges in small steps to build up your will power. Will is necessary in any method of quitting that you decide to use.
5. Hide the goods
Another method of quitting which also ties into willpower is restricting your access to the drug by any means necessary, or available. If you have absolutely no way to acquire the drug, you will eventually give up and let it go This could be an artificial restriction if your willpower allows for it, or might need to be an actual restriction.
6. Do not think about drugs
Yet another method that ties in with willpower is resisting any thoughts that might pop up about the drug. This is very important because most of the time when people decide to come back to drugs, it is after they let their thoughts wander for too long to the point where they consider doing it again. This is the point where your ego will start the tug-of-war with your desires and you lose your control over the situation. You must be vigilant with your thoughts. If you refer back to the masturbation article, I explained how our thoughts start off as seeds planted within our subconscious and we water the seeds whenever we think about those thoughts. So if we stop thinking about drugs completely, the plant within our subconscious will eventually wither and die off and the addiction will end.
7. If you have the money, consider hypnotherapy
An extreme way to end an addiction is through hypnotherapy, which will completely uproot it from your subconscious. This method is more so of a last resort, for hypnotherapy is usually expensive and comes with a great risk. The risk is that because you go into an altered state of consciousness where your subconscious is fully exposed, the hypnotherapist has full control over the rewiring of it. That’s why it’s very important to absolutely trust your hypnotherapist for you are placing your entire mind within their hands. Nonetheless, hypnotherapy is extremely effective in getting rid of anything unwanted from within your mind, or to place a desired attribute within it. Most people who have been to a hypnotherapist have came out with incredible results such as lifelong addiction completely vanishing. But remember the risk if you do choose this method.
8. Adopt a spiritual perspective
There is a great method that works wonders for ridding yourself of all addictions, and it includes broadening your perspective on life. It is far from a conventional method, but I felt its undeniable benefits would warrant its inclusion within this article. This method includes you learning the truth about our origins and the truth of our reality in a way that it shakes the very core of your soul and sinks deep within your consciousness. The truth that I am writing about here is an objective truth that once you fully awaken to, you will never deny or forget it for as long as you shall live. It is somewhat similar to what is portrayed in The Matrix movie. Once you take the red pill, there is no more going back to your regular life; you are forever awakened to the truth of our reality. Yet the truth is rather different than what they show in the Matrix, and far more positive and wonderful than you can possibly imagine. I won’t be sharing any of it here, but you can find the answers that I mentioned within our articles and videos, and especially within the links section. Awakening to this truth will force you to see the futility and the triviality of our addictions and hobbies, while pushing us to strive for earning our freedom and a place within our true home. One final and important point that I must make is that this must be an internal awakening. External sources (psychedelic drugs included) can only guide you to the door, but it is you alone who must step foot inside and begin the most amazing journey of a lifetime.
9. Support and motivation from peers
Another possible method that can be very effective depending on what type of person you are, is through the support and motivation of others. If you are planning on quitting an addiction, tell as many of the people closest to you as you can. Usually they will be very supportive and express their approval of your commitment to better yourself and further your personal growth. This can serve as a great motivator as you are not only proving to yourself that you have the willpower and the courage to accomplish your goal, but also to those whom you have to face quite often. For some people, the shame of failing to reach their goals after sharing them with others who supported and believed in them, could be all the motivation they need to succeed. In any case, your friends and family will be there to support you and remind of you of the importance of your goals if you are lacking in the will and the courage to proceed.
10. Detoxify your system
One final piece of advice I can offer, is to detoxify your entire body. This is best done by fasting. Detoxification will raise your vibrations and purify your entire system of all toxic build up, depending on how long you do it for. You can read about fasting on various sites on the internet. The best and the quickest detoxification is through a water fast. This is where you eat and drink nothing at all except for pure water, several times a day. I personally tried this fast a little while back, but for only 4 days. I was going to go for a bit longer, but was under excessive pressure from my parents to end it, who thought that I was going to die. A decent length for a water fast is 10 days, but be careful if you decide to do this and read up as much about it as you can, for not all bodies are able to handle it. Fasting is especially good for ridding yourself of unhealthy food addictions. After a long enough fast, your body will become much more sensitive to what you eat. This means that if you try a McDonald’s hamburger, your body will instantly reject it and you will probably vomit; your system will be as clean as a baby’s.
In closing
For those that decide to end a drug addiction, it will become one of the greatest decisions that you have made in your lifetime. The freedom that comes with sobriety, especially after forgetting about it for so long, will definitely be worth the temporary pain you might have to go through. Consider using some of these methods for they definitely helped me reclaim my long lost sobriety.
When you see information about vitamins, you often see the word ‘essential’ right before ‘vitamins’. Have you ever wondered why? It’s actually quite simple. Our bodies require vitamins and minerals to function at optimum efficiency. It’s interesting, then, that our bodies are incapable of producing most vitamins and minerals for themselves. Instead we have to source these necessary vitamins and minerals from outside sources.
Vitamins occur naturally in many of the foods we at, as they are organic compounds. You can also get vitamins in the form of a vitamin supplement. A staggering thirteen vitamins are considered necessary to perform crucial functions in the body such as provide protection against infection and diseases, helping the body grow, helping the body’s metabolism and the removal of waste products.
The body uses vitamins a little like building blocks. It puts all the different blocks together in different combinations to produce the hormones and enzymes that control things such as heart rate, glucose levels, blood pressure and other chemical reactions.
Can I Have Too Many Vitamins?
Over the years, guidelines for the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of each vitamin and mineral have been formulated. These take into account a person’s age, gender, and current state of health. A pregnant woman, for example, needs a certain combination of vitamins in order to protect the fetus from birth defects. An adult man requires different types and amounts of vitamins to an adult woman. Also, the nutritional requirements of children, teenagers and the elderly are quite different.
Food basically acts like fuel for your body. If you give your body the best type of fuel it will be able to perform at optimum levels. Give it dirty or bad fuel, and you’ll begin to notice a decline in performance levels.
What Happens If I Don’t Have Enough Vitamins?
Vitamin deficiencies tend to grow over time, so the first signs may be hardly noticeable. However, down the road they can lead to serious health issues. Not enough people eat a nutritionally balanced diet nowadays. It’s common for adults to have very poor eating habits. Healthy, natural foods have been replaced by processed foods, high fat foods, fast food and restaurant food.
Unfortunately we can’t take a look inside our body and see what exactly is going wrong in there thanks to our poor dietary habits. Most people don’t even think about what they’re eating until they start to put on excess weight and it becomes very noticeable. Excess weight is often one of the later signs, and by the time you notice the extra weight, there could already be serious trouble brewing inside.
A lack of Vitamin C can lead to tiredness, weakness, sore muscles and bleeding gums. If you’re low on Vitamin D, you can end up with weak or possible even deformed bones. Not enough Vitamin E can cause the destruction of vital red blood cells. In extreme cases vitamin deficiencies can even lead to death.
If you’re concerned you may be lacking some essential vitamins thanks to bad eating habits, than a vitamin supplement can be a good way to fill the gaps. The only way to know for sure if your body isn’t getting enough vitamins is to have a blood test. Generally, though, if you think you might not be getting enough vitamins, you’re probably right. Try a daily multivitamin supplement and you might just be surprised at how much better you feel overall.
Gout causes are linked to a lot of factors. Gout is a kind of arthritis or inflammation of joints. It causes sudden burning pain, stiffness and swelling. The attacks take place over and over again unless it will be treated. Gradually, it can cause severe damage to the joints, tendons and tissues.
Primary gout is caused by the presence of abnormally high uric acid in the blood. Ten percent of people who have gout have high levels of this acid in the body. This is the by-product of purines breakdown that are mostly found in the food you eat. The high levels of this acid may form hard crystals of urates that deposit in the bodys joints. Normally, this is filtered in the blood and passes through the kidney into the urine where it is excreted. If the body has too high uric acid levels, or is unable to eliminate enough uric acid then it builds up in the blood.
When hard crystals form in the joints of the body, it causes attacks of joint inflammation or arthritis. Chronic gout may even cause deposits of hard lumps of uric acid in and around joints and may lead to joint destruction, kidney stones and decreased kidney function.
Gout causes are not always due to an abnormally high level of uric acid in the body. There are people who have hyperuricemia (high uric acid level) and do not develop gout. This only goes to show that gout may occur in individuals regardless of uric acid levels. Most often, gout attacks are caused by the rapid change of uric acid level in the body, whether up or down.
People who are overweight, drink too much alcohol and eat too much meat, fish, liver, lobster, crabs, dried beans, peas, anchovies and gravies are at high risk of developing gout. There are also some medications that can cause gout like diuretics or water pills. Salicylates and aspirin can cause gout too. Some steroidal preparations used to suppress the bodys immune system and control bodys rejection of transplanted organs. It is most common in men. Statistics show that approximately five million in America are suffering from gout.
People who have gout suffer from nighttime attack of swelling, tenderness, and sharp pain particularly in the big toe. You can also feel a burning pain in the foot, ankle or knees.
Genetics is also one factor that determines a persons predisposition to suffer from gout. A defect in the enzyme in the body can interfere with purine breakdown and can cause gout in some people, a lot of whom have family history of gout. Lead exposure can also lead to gout.
Secondary gout is a complication of an existing medical condition. This medical condition may include the following:
- Metabolic syndromes like hypertension, diabetes, truncal obesity, dyslipidemia, increased cardiovascular risk – Leukemia – Polycythemia, hemolytic anemia – Renal disorders
Gout causes can be treated if it can be identified immediately. Diet and lifestyle control are certainly ways that you can prevent gout causes from occurring.
That stabbing pain on your left or right side, what is it? Abdominal pain in women can be so many things but most often it will be the result of cysts on ovaries. While painful, and potentially dangerous if a rupture occurs, they mimic the symptoms of other ailments such as fibroids and endometriosis. And of course in the back of every woman’s mind is the fear of ovarian cancer.
It’s common for cysts to appear on the ovary and most of them will resolve themselves and pass naturally over the next two menstrual cycles. However there are occasions when a single cyst, particularly dermoid cysts, will not pass but in fact will grow, sometimes up to 8 inches in diameter.
When a cyst gets too big or too heavy it may “fall over” the ovary much like a heavy flower may fall over a thin stem. When this occurs the ovary may be twisted and the blood supply cut off. That it turn will result in that sharp pain you feel.
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome or POS, is another instance where multiple cysts form on an ovary causing pain. While this is typically not as pronounced it is still a major discomfort. It can also interfere with the ovulation process and endanger fertility.
Both of these situations will require treatment. Unfortunately, today’s treatment from medical professionals is limited to hormonal therapy and surgery. Both of these therapies have their down side particularly for women of child bearing age who still want children.
There is however, another solution. Modern medicine only addresses the immediate symptom of ovarian cysts and not the root cause. The formation of cysts is typically the result of a hormonal and insulin imbalance in the woman’s body. This imbalance can be addressed and corrected by a change in diet and eating patterns. There are specific foods and drinks that when eliminated from diet, can make a remarkable impact on the shrinking of cysts.
In addition natural relaxation therapies such as herbal teas and warm baths can relax muscles, decrease inflammation and improve blood circulation further improving the body’s balance.
Thousands of women who became literally sick of the recurring ovary pain have turned to natural treatments to cure ovarian cysts once and for all. If removing cysts on your ovaries is important to you, and you don’t want to use birth control pills or surgery to accomplish the task, then you owe it to yourself to explore natural alternatives. Your body will thank you for it.
An ovulation calculator can help you determine when the next fertile period is for you. When referring to this kind of calculator we are not referring to something very complicated or some super mechanical device; there are online calculators, or if you prefer, free calculators online, which can help you determine your ovulation days, by submitting a few necessary numbers there. There are also some small devices, found in ovulation kits and drugstores, which do the very same thing and they are easy to operate.
These fertility calculators can prove to be really helpful, if you want to conceive during a particular month. Most women are very fertile for 1-2 days per month, and less fertile for 4-5, while most women are almost not fertile at all during the rest of the days. That means that it could be really easy to miss the fertile days if you are not sure which they are. Not all women have clear ovulation symptoms and that makes it even harder.
The calculators demand some kind of information so as to show you your fertile days. You will need to enter the starting date of your period for the previous month, the usual length of the cycle and the luteal cycle length; as precisely as you can. If you write down the dates of your period, or if you remember them correctly, you can predict and calculate the fertile days with great accuracy. The period ovulation calculator is programmed this way so as to provide a personalised result, based on the figures and numbers you insert.
Calculating the ovulation days is not something that will determine your ability to conceive; unfortunately a successful conception is the result of many different factors, including the fertility of both the participants, and other health issues. Stress can also be a very strong factor; many women have managed to conceive when least expected just because they were more relaxed.
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ovulation calculator
As we mentioned in previous articles we know that it is hard to believe that America, a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world having over 20 million people with the disease of anemia caused by unhealthy diet, and nutritional deficiency, with protein and fat intake 30% higher than any other country in the world. Most people understand that anemia is caused by iron deficiency in the bloodstream. In fact, anemia is characterized by deficiency in the hemoglobin of the red blood cells diminishing the ability of the blood to transport oxygen to our cells and to remove carbon dioxide. In this article, we will discuss symptoms of anemia.
1. Fatigue
Fatigue is a common symptom of people with anemia which causes less oxygen being transported to the tissues of the body because of low count of red blood cells in bloodstream.
2.Weakness
Since the bloodstream cannot provide enough oxygen as well as nutrition to our body tissues, it interferes with normal function of organs resulting in weakness in anemia patients.
3. Fainting and dizziness
Our brain needs protein and fat to function daily. It also needs oxygen to nourish it’s cells. Without enough red blood cells to carry oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from it’ s cells, it may cause fainting.
4. Shortness of breath
Since there are never enough oxygen in the bloodstream, it causes the reaction of our lung to breath faster so it can get enough oxygen to our body tissues causing shortness of breath.
5. Heart palpitations
People with anemia have less oxygen in their bloodstream. In order to provide enough oxygen to nourish our body’s cells, their heart has to work harder resulting in heart palpitation.
6. Pale complexion
Pale complexion is caused by iron deficiency. Iron is vital for our blood cells reproduction for replacing the break down of the old ones. Deficiency of iron causes low red blood cells in the bloodstream resulting in a pale color in our skin.
7. Difficulty concentrating
Difficulty concentrating caused by iron deficiency causes less production of new red blood cells to replace the breaking down of the old ones resulting in less oxygen being delivered to certain regions of the brain cells making concentration difficulty.
8. Excess menstruation
Excess menstruation is characterized by loss of abnormal quantities of blood during menstruation. It is caused by iron deficiency anemia in women as a resulting of massive breaking down of old red blood cells.
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Drug addiction has been the most plaguing problems of the world. The number of the drug addicts is increasing day by day, instead of decreasing. Many rehabilitation centres have opened up to cater to the problem, but the numbers have still been increasing.
One of the most widely used drugs by the addicts is cocaine. Cocaine is commonly known as crack, coke and many other street names. By the end of the last decade, only in the United States of America, the number of addicts was around 1.5 million. This number has greatly increased over the last ten years.
Initially, cocaine was used for the medical use. It was used as anaesthesia during surgeries. But now, it has been rated as schedule 2 drug, which means that it is has great a level of abusive use. For medical purposes, however, its use is still allowed.
Cocaine acts as a stimulant for the brain, which causes pleasure. It relieves the user from the feeling of pain or fatigue. People normally start using it as a fun activity, but it gradually becomes a habit, and finally turns into an addiction.
People may not be aware of the physical damages that the use of cocaine causes, apart from being a nuisance to the society. Cocaine directly affects the brain. So, it causes damage to all the activities that are being performed by the brain, and that definitely means every activity, as brain controls all the systems of the body.
The short term physical affects that cocaine may cause include decrease in appetite, an increase in the heart rate and blood pressure and constriction of the blood vessels. It may even cause poisonous reaction, if an overdose is taken.
The intake of cocaine is done by smoking, sniffing or injecting. The people who are into sniffing the cocaine end up having long term problems related to their nostrils. The maximum damage is the loss of the sense of smell.
There are supposed to be affects on the new born baby if the expecting mother is using cocaine during the pregnancy. There are a lot many long term physical damages that cocaine can cause. A constant user becomes a violent person. He also develops confusion about every thing. There are so many mental illnesses that he may end up having such as paranoia. A person starts losing weight as he does not feel like eating and lose his appetite. He becomes insomniac. The long term use of cocaine causes severe and serious damage to the blood vessels that may even cause strokes or heart arrest. It can cause heart attack, as cocaine causes chest pain and raises the blood pressure. Another very horrible fact is that a cocaine user may get AIDS by sharing needles used for injecting cocaine.
One study has shown that cocaine decreases the level of protein PSD-95 in the brain, which is responsible for learning and long term memory. Thus, a cocaine user may lose his memory or damage his learning ability.
Be kind to a Vampire. They have nutritional needs too!
Is your blood healthy enough so that if your vampire boyfriend took a little bite, you wouldn’t be threatening his health? What if you are anemic, let’s say your hemoglobin (the compound that blood uses to carry oxygen to all of the tissues and cells of the body) was way below 12 and your hematocrit (the percentage of red blood cells to total blood) is under 40%. You may be tending toward anemia and your boyfriend who is relying on a quality “sip” from your neck may be lacking energy as well. Is this a reason for him to break up with you?
When healthy women grow tired easily, a red blood cell count (RBC) done by your physician may be in order. Also fatigue, cold hands and legs, thinning hair, may be signs that your thyroid is underperforming. Keep your inter-species relationship at its energetic peak; speak to your physician if you are experiencing any of these symptoms.
On the other hand, how big of a bite would he have to take before he was threatening your life?
The average woman has about six quarts of blood. Loss of two of these quarts could be life threatening. Your vampire boyfriend would have to be feasting on your neck for quite a while to get two quarts of blood through those rather narrow fangs.
Finally, ask the average person what blood actually does in and for our bodies and you will get some pretty blank stares in many cases.
Below is a partial list of the purposes and functions that blood serves in our bodies:
Distribution/Transportation
1.) Blood carries oxygen from the lungs to the cells of organs and tissues, and carbon dioxide from those organs and tissues to the lungs inside our body.
2.) It carries hormones from glands into the cells of our body and to the kidneys for excretion.
3.) Blood distributes nutrients absorbed in the digestive tract to the cells and tissues of our body.
Regulation:
As we mentioned in previous articles, endometriosis growing somewhere else other than the endometrium also reacts to hormonal signals of the monthly menstrual cycle by building up tissue, breaking it, and eliminating it through the menstrual period. As we know, nutritional supplements play a very important role in treating all kind of diseases. In this article, we will discuss how folic acid helps to treat endometriosis.
I. Definition
Folic acid is one of the members of the vitamin B complex family and is a water soluble vitamin. It also known as vitamin M or folacin. It’s major function is to maintain normal growth and DNA of our body’s cells. It has a chemical structure formula of C19H19N7O6.
II. How folic acids helps in treating endometriosis
1. Anemia
Since folic acid deficiency limits cell division, women with endometriosis with heavy blood flow during menstruation are required to take enough folic acid to help in production of red blood cell. If not, it will lead to megaloblastic anemia.
2. Cell abnormality
Since folic acid is necessary for cell division, deficiency of it will lead to abnormality of some cells in the body. Some endometrial cells may become cancerous or grow into endometrial cells in the abdomen.
3. Protein synthesis
Folic acids interact with other members of the vitamin B complex family in the metabolism of protein. This helps to provide nutrients to the cells in the nervous system. Deficiency of folic acids cause the weakening of the nervous system leading to symptoms of endometriosis.
4. Abnormal cell growth
Folic acid is essential to normal DNA replication, DNA repair, and cell division. Deficiency of folic acid interferes with cell production and cannot repair the damage of cell caused by toxin accumulated in the body leading to abnormal cell growth.
5. Heart disease and stroke
Deficiency of folic acid may help to decrease the circulating level of homocytesteine in the blood. Study shows that high levels of homocysteine in the bloodstream damages coronary arteries or makes it easier for blood clotting, resulting in an increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
6. Endometrial cancer
Since we already know that adequate levels of folic acid helps in the synthesis, repair, and functioning of DNA. Deficiency of folic acid may result in damage to DNA that may lead to cancer.









