Methamphetamine and Cocaine Addiction Treatment

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Since the middle of the 20th century, methamphetamine, along with cocaine, has become a major stimulant popular among US residents. With its help, people can experience an increase in activity levels as well as changes in dopamine activity patterns. Methamphetamine users almost immediately become highly addicted to the drug, but they still have the illusion of situation control after the dependence appearance. Statistics show that the vast majority of methamphetamine abusers suffer from anxiety and panic attacks (“Facts about meth addiction,” 2020). Thus, many people can use stimulants in order to self-medicate from anxiety and, at first, they experience benefits from drug consumption. In fact, however, both meth addiction and anxiety worsen during such therapy.

People suffering from methamphetamine addiction often ignore the side effects of drug abuse, and instead, try to convince themselves that they are able to control the situation. In fact, by doing so, people subconsciously try to prove that aggressiveness, anxiety, and panic attacks are not implications of drug dependence but the states they medicate with the help of methamphetamine. Hence, people are reluctant to address the specialists, as they strongly believe they control the drug while, in reality, they are controlled by it.

Speaking of the ways of methamphetamine addiction treatment, there are currently no medications that can be prescribed for rehabilitation. In the course of revisions, however, it was estimated that behavioral therapies could help methamphetamine addicts give up drug abuse (“Methamphetamine,” 2019). The first therapy method is called cognitive-behavioral therapy, which aims to help people recognize, embrace, and cope with the problem. Another way of treatment implies giving people motivational incentives for the time they do not use the drug. Although these therapies may be successful for some people, they are not capable of dealing with the scope of methamphetamine addiction across the country. In order to have success in drug withdrawal, the issue requires more serious medical interference.

Cocaine Addiction Treatment

Cocaine has been integrated into world history as one of the most popular drugs due to its expansion and mentioning in the pop culture. However, such a considerable amount of cocaine users has led to a variety of treatments applied for cocaine addicts. According to Levinthal (2014), nowadays, there are four major treatment techniques, including inpatient, outpatient, combined approaches, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Speaking of inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, each of these approaches has highly individual peculiarities. For example, if a person is undergoing inpatient treatment, he or she spends at least thirty days in a specialized center with constant care of medical workers. An outpatient rehabilitation, on the contrary, implies combining therapy with regular activities such as work or school (“Inpatient vs. outpatient rehab,” 2019). Thus, the approaches for treatment depend on whether the scope of addiction lets a person spend time outside the rehabilitation center without the temptation of taking the drug.

Another important aspect is the circumstances that led abusers to try the drug in the first place. If a person has some serious psychological issues self-medicated by cocaine, the cognitive-behavioral approach to medical treatment would be of extreme help. For instance, people with clinical depression tend to use cocaine for higher dopamine release. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can make people recognize the issue behind drug dependence. Once the problem is embraced, people no longer need to cope with it on their own. Thus, choosing therapy for cocaine withdrawal is a highly individual matter, as it takes into consideration all the aspects of the human lifestyle.