How To Detox Drugs From Your Body? Effective Strategies & Tips

Due to these potential risks, it’s not advised to undergo alcohol or drug detox at home and without medical supervision. How long drug detox takes depends on the substance used, the amount of the substance used and the length of time the person has been using the substance. It can also depend on the person’s physical and mental state when they start detox. People who are highly motivated to begin the medical detox process may be able to handle the symptoms better than people who are reluctant to quit. It’s a sober environment that reduces the risk of relapse and prepares you for subsequent care at a drug and alcohol addiction treatment center.

Get professional help from an online addiction and mental health counselor from BetterHelp. Someone in recovery from an alcohol use disorder will need a well-rounded diet to combat the often severe malnutrition. Women who have been heavy drinkers for a while will often benefit from calcium supplements because they may be at a higher risk for osteoporosis. Partial hospitalization is a higher level of care compared to intensive outpatient treatment. PHP requires more treatment hours each week (on average, 20 hours per week), whereas IOP treatment provides approximately 9 hours of treatment each week. Gut health is important for keeping your detoxification system healthy.

Why Diet Matters During and After a Drug Detox

At-home detox or quitting ‘cold turkey’ isn’t ideal due to the potential risks and negative outcomes. Substance addiction and withdrawal are challenging for those who use substances, as well as for those around them, including friends and family members. If you are someone you know is experiencing substance https://ecosoberhouse.com/ addiction or withdrawal, help is available. Reach out to a healthcare provider, such as a primary care practitioner, psychologist, or addiction specialist for support. While safe withdrawal may be possible at home, medical intervention may be needed to provide medications and life-saving support.

• Identifying success in the realm of addiction treatment may require people to reframe preconceived ideas about what recovery means.
• As a result, medical detox is the safest and most effective way to undergo withdrawal from these drugs.
• Working with medical professionals and discussing each person’s history of use, challenges, symptoms, and more can all inform the best medication for an individual.
• This method consists of placing the patient under a medically induced coma and then allowing them to rapidly progress through the withdrawal symptoms without actually feeling them.
• Other factors to consider when choosing the best drug detox include the location, the success rate, the qualifications of staff and whether the facility is experienced in treating your individual drug addiction.

These symptoms may range from mild to severe depending on the person, their history of use, and the substance or substances used. If you’ve used alcohol, heroin, meth, or other substances for only a short time or have taken only small doses, you might not experience withdrawal. However, if you’ve been binge drinking, using alcohol and/or drugs for a long time, or taking increasingly higher doses over a short time, you might feel quite unwell physically for a while when you stop. Drug detoxification is the initial step in recovery, but it is not a complete treatment for addiction.

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Detox diets are said to eliminate toxins, which supports improving health and promoting weight loss. Regular physical activity lowers inflammation and allows your body’s detoxification system to work properly. By reducing inflammation, exercise can help your body’s systems — including its detoxification system — function properly and protect against disease. Your body naturally produces these molecules for cellular processes, such as digestion. However, alcohol, tobacco smoke, a low nutrient diet, and exposure to pollutants can produce excessive free radicals (33). With sleep deprivation, your body does not have time to perform those functions, so toxins can build up and affect several aspects of health (15).

• Quitting “cold turkey” or without medical supervision can lead to serious issues such as seizures and severe dehydration.
• Many drugs are detectable long after their immediate effects have worn off, and they continue to impact a person’s physical and mental health.
• You might even feel let down and disappointed that something that felt so good turned out to be harmful, and leaving such a big part of your life behind might feel like grieving.

It’s common during the medical detox process for opioid or alcohol addiction. As previously stated, rapid drug detox is one of the least widely used and most controversial methods of drug detox that is available today. This method consists of placing the patient under a medically induced coma and then allowing them to rapidly progress through the withdrawal symptoms without actually feeling them.

Benefits of drug and alcohol detox

They’re trained in counseling, relapse prevention, and helping patients recognize patterns and make healthy changes. Withdrawal symptoms are most intense during the first few days of detox and will gradually decrease. Many will experience newfound clarity, with withdrawal symptoms subsiding after about two weeks. Familiarizing oneself with any treatment facility’s detox process can help empower those taking their first step toward detox to fully commit to their sober change. Prolonged, excessive use of heroin, benzodiazepines, and alcohol can all have life-threatening withdrawal side effects.