Many view addicts’ use of substances and related behaviors as a choice. People who have addiction may have made a decision at one time to use a drug, but they never made a decision to become addicted. The addict’s brain was different before the first use of a drug, and scientific evidence has shown many…
As with many illnesses, to understand the progressive nature of the disease of addiction, we have broken it down into stages. People who have addiction started in stage I and will inevitably end up in stage IV if not treated. The progression from stage I to IV may occur rapidly or may take years or…
There is no way to predict with certainty whether a person will become addicted to drugs, but there are several known risk factors. These include: Genes: It is estimated that genetics accounts for 40 to 60 percent of a person’s vulnerability to addiction. Environment: Frequent exposure to drug use in home, work, school, or social…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 17, 2014 LAS VEGAS—Las Vegas Recovery Center (LVRC) is pleased to announce the addition of Thomas (Tom) J. O’Neill as its Marketing Director and welcome him into the LVRC family. Mr. O’Neill has over twenty years in the addiction treatment field, and is the co-founder of Maryland Recovery Programs located in…
According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2010, enough opiates were prescribed to treat every person in the US with five mg. of Vicodin every four hours for a month. Opiate abuse has become a HUGE national problem—there are currently more deaths from prescription drug overdose than from cocaine and heroin. Combined. Even if…
Chronic pain can be a troublesome annoyance or a devastating curse that interrupts life functions, relationships, employment, and most things that bring us satisfaction. It takes over our lives, consumes us, and threatens our well-being and the well-being of those who care about us—family, friends, coworkers. For many with chronic pain, and probably most of…
Secondary gain refers to any perceived benefit you receive from having pain. If not identified, secondary gain gives you unconscious reasons for holding onto your pain. This does not mean you are pretending to hurt for the benefits you get, just that the perceived benefits make the pain rewarding in some ways and thus more…
For some people chronic pain can be disabling, while for others it is merely annoying. Just as pain is entirely subjective, your responses to pain and the responses of your family may vary widely. Some of you stay in bed when you hurt; some of you go about your business. Your unique experience of pain…
Here is just a partial list of the many potential causes of chronic pain. Back, neck, and joint pain, which can result from tension, muscle injury, nerve damage, disc disease, or arthritis. Burn pain, which can continue long after a burn wound has healed. Chronic pelvic pain, which refers to any pain in your pelvic…
There are two types of pain, acute and chronic. In acute pain, the computer functions properly, as it was meant to. With chronic pain, on the other hand, it is as if the computer has been affected by a nasty virus, turning previously healthy and needed mechanisms into overactive and inefficient impulses that disrupt normal…