Confidential Drug Rehab

Although considered the first step in recovery, is detox always necessary? Not always so, but in some cases withdrawing off of a drug can be fatal without a medically supervised detox. We have provided the following to help you to understand a little more about the detox process.

Alcohol Addiction and Binge Drinking

There are two different types of alcohol abusers, the binge drinker and the acute daily drinker. Both of which may be late stage alcoholics, just with different patterns of abuse.

Beer is the binge-drinker’s beverage of choice. Beer benders cause the most accidents and health problems. Beer drinkers are also the most likely to drink and drive. (Binge-drinking is many times defined as having five or more drinks in row.) 

A binge drinker is someone who can go days, weeks or months without having a drink, but when he/she does drink it is usually in great excess, sometimes consuming near lethal amounts. This type of alcoholic does require a medical detox if immediately after a binge. If however, it has been over a week since his last drink, detox may not be necessary.

The acute daily drinker is someone who drinks on a daily basis. This type of alcohol absolutely requires a medically supervised detox or else may develop delusions, shaking, seizures or even death.

Detox for alcohol usually involves prescribed benzodiazipene’s (Klonopin, Xanax, Valium, etc) to help counter the seizures and anxiety; and high blood pressure medication such as Catapres.

 Opiate Addiction

Opiates include Heroin, Vicodin, Methadone, and Oxycontin. If the opiate abuser has reached the point where they are a daily (or near daily) user, then a detox is usually required. Although most opiate addicts are not usually in any medical danger during the detox or withdrawal process, a detox setting is recommended because most opiate addicts simply cannot withdraw on their own.

Although the detox process for opiates can be over within a week, generally speaking, normal sleep patterns sometimes do not return for months.

Methadone Addiction

Although Methadone is considered an opiate, most clinics are reluctant to admit clients addicted to methadone because of the length of detox as well as the difficulty of the clients.

Benzo Addiction

Addiction to benzodiazipene’s can be very dangerous if not detoxed in a supervised medical setting. Rapid withdrawal from benzo’s can lead to delusions, anxiety, seizures and even death. For this reason, it is imperative that anyone considering withdrawing from benzo’s seek out professional guidance.

Cocaine Addiction

The withdraw from cocaine or crack is usually not medically dangerous and doesn’t require a detox. Someone withdrawing from cocaine or crack can expect long sleep periods, lethargy, lowered blood pressure, heart rate and respiration.

Methamphetamine Addiction

Withdrawing from meth doesn’t usually require a detox, however many clients exhibit acute psychotic symptoms as a result of their using and sometimes are admitted to a dual diagnosis or psychiatric facility to handle the delusions and paranoia. Although most meth users can safely detox on their own, some do require anti-psychotic medications because of the drug use. 

Meth addicts show the horrors of addiction: faces that seem to have had the life sucked out of them, sunken eyes that indicate days or weeks without sleep, wasting bodies from malnutrition resulting from a total lack of appetite, mouths riddled with sores and rotted or missing teeth, skin that’s been scratched or cut and incessantly picked at.
And that’s only what’s happening on the surface.
Inside, methamphetamines ravage the kidneys, liver, lungs, heart and even the brain. Long-term use can result in permanent psychological damage, stroke and failure of other organs. Addicts hear voices and see people and things that no one else sees or hears.
Women who are pregnant give birth to “crack babies” with cardiac problems, cleft palates and other birth defects, who suffer the consequences of withdrawal as soon as they’re born.
Many people believe that crystal meth is a drug used by only the most far gone of drug addicts.  It’s true that chronic meth users look like that, but they didn’t start out that way.
The facts are, meth is used by teenagers who just want a little extra edge when studying for a test.   It’s used by young girls who want to control their weight and it’s used by guys who want a little extra out of a sexual experience.   Meth users (also called tweakers) can be students, professionals, city folk or urban dwellers, dirt poor or celebrity rich, and members of any ethnic background.

If you have been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in Des Moines, IA and you have been ordered to take the IA state ordered Drug or Alcohol Assessment or State Required DUI Course and State Required 12 Hour or 48 Hour OWI Programs then you should consider the ALPP Institute in Des Moines, IA.

The ALPP Institute of Des Moines, IA offers many classes and services to help get your life back on track, to help get your drivers license back, to help you get back to work, etc.

along with offering Iowa State ordered Drug and Alcohol Assessments and State Required DUI Course and State Required 12 Hour or 48 Hour OWI Programs in Des Moines, IA, the ALPP Institute also offer the services below to help get you on the right track, right away!

Intensive Outpatient Treatment, SMART Recovery Meetings, Residential Treatment Programs, Detox -Hospital or Outpatient Referral AND they will file All Third Party Insurance for you and financing IS available.

Assessments / Evaluations
Every individual requires care specifically designed to meet their needs. Often the first step is to schedule an appointment for an assessment with our staff to help determine the most appropriate level of care.

Driving Under the Influence (DUI) Evaluations (OWI in Iowa)
Alcohol and substance abuse evaluation as required by Iowa Code Chapter 32IJ.22 (Operating While Intoxicated) for reinstatement of a driver’s license.

Driving Under the Influence (DUI) 12-Hour Classes
ALPP Institute offers the 12-Hour program approved by the Department of Education for Driving Under the Influence classes for persons charged and convicted of driving while under the influence of alcohol. This program shares the philosophies and techniques of both the out-patient and residential programs teaching the Life Process Program©.

OWI (1) WEEKEND PROGRAM – 48 Hour Program
ALPP Institute also offers the residential weekend program in lieu of jail requirements [Section 321J.2, subsection 2, paragraph a, subparagraph (1), 2003 Code Supplement] for Iowa. A person must have already been sentenced and received court approval to attend the OWI jail diversion program to satisfy the mandatory 2 day sentence.

Each person attending the program will receive a certificate for their participation. Additionally, certifications are sent to the D.O.T. as required for driver’s license reinstatement. ALPP Staff also notifies the Clerk of Court of the county in which the sentencing occurred that the class has been completed.

www.alppinstitute.com

A new study on mice has suggested that long-term changes in the brain’s dopamine-releasing machinery may explain why methamphetamine addiction is so strong.

Dopamine is one of the brain’s major neurotransmitters.

The research team, led by Nigel Bamford, of the University of Washington, Seattle, treated mice with methamphetamine and examined how prolonged exposure to the drug affected dopamine levels.

The researchers focused on the dopamine machinery in the brain’s corticostriatal region of the brain, which is believed to have the "habit" circuitry that plays a major role in the compulsive drug seeking seen in people addicted to methamphetamine and amphetamine.

The results showed that extended exposure to methamphetamine caused a depression of the synaptic dopamine machinery in the corticostriatal region that lasted for months after the mice were no longer given the drug.

However, a dose of methamphetamine reversed the depressive effects on the synaptic dopamine machinery, they discovered.

The researchers also found that the drug produced its long-term effect by altering specific types of receptors for dopamine and another neurotransmitter called acetylcholine.

The team concluded that the mechanism they identified "might provide a synaptic basis that underlies addiction and habit learning and their long-term maintenance."

Although other teams have revealed aspects of this puzzle previously, Bamford says this is the first time the pieces have been pulled together into a single study.

"It definitely does tie everything together," said Stephanie Borgland of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Although methamphetamine seems to be particularly addictive, Bamford expects the same basic mechanism to apply to other addictive stimulants, including cocaine.

Bamford is now planning further studies of the interneurons.

"That’s really where the [addiction] ’switch’ is," he said.

The study is published in the April 10 issue of the journal Neuron. (ANI)

From 1942, the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler received daily injections of methamphetamine from his personal physician, Dr Theodor Morell. The Führer was also familiar with cocaine.

Hitler’s ailments have been attributed to everything from tertiary syphilis to Parkinson’s Disease but many of The Führer’s clinical signs and symptoms may have been caused by his exotic drug regimen.

In Hitler’s Wehrmacht, methamphetamine tablets branded as Pervitin were liberally distributed to German fighting troops throughout the War.

Amphetamines are "power drugs" that reduce fatigue, heighten aggression, and diminish human warmth and empathy.

How could Hitler continue to exert such a grip on the German people until the last days of the War? Talking to a prison psychologist while awaiting trial, ex-Governor General of Poland Hans Frank (1900-1946) describes Hitler’s charismatic effect on him…

"I can hardly understand it myself. There must be some basic evil in me. In all men. Mass hypnosis? Hitler cultivated this evil in man. When I saw him in that movie in court, I was swept along again for a moment, in spite of myself. Funny, one sits in court feeling guilt and shame. Then Hitler appears on the screen and you want to stretch out your hand to him . . . . It’s not with horns on his head or with a forked tail that the devil comes to us, you know. He comes with a captivating smile, spouting idealistic sentiments, winning one’s loyalty. We cannot say that Adolf Hitler violated the German people. He seduced us."

In a letter dated November 9, 1939, to his "dear parents and siblings" back home in Cologne, a young soldier stationed in occupied Poland wrote: "It’s tough out here, and I hope you’ll understand if I’m only able to write to you once every two to four days soon. Today I’m writing you mainly to ask for some Pervitin …; Love, Hein."

Pervitin, a stimulant commonly known as speed today, was the German army’s — the Wehrmacht’s — wonder drug.

On May 20, 1940, the 22-year-old soldier wrote to his family again: "Perhaps you could get me some more Pervitin so that I can have a backup supply?" And, in a letter sent from Bromberg on July 19, 1940, he wrote: "If at all possible, please send me some more Pervitin." The man who wrote these letters became a famous writer later in life. He was Heinrich Boell, and in 1972 he was the first German to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in the post-war period.

Many of the Wehrmacht’s soldiers were high on Pervitin when they went into battle, especially against Poland and France — in a Blitzkrieg fueled by speed. The German military was supplied with millions of methamphetamine tablets during the first half of 1940. The drugs were part of a plan to help pilots, sailors and infantry troops become capable of superhuman performance. The military leadership liberally dispensed such stimulants, but also alcohol and opiates, as long as it believed drugging and intoxicating troops could help it achieve victory over the Allies. But the Nazis were less than diligent in monitoring side-effects like drug addiction and a decline in moral standards.

After it was first introduced into the market in 1938, Pervitin, a methamphetamine drug newly developed by the Berlin-based Temmler pharmaceutical company, quickly became a top seller among the German civilian population. According to a report in the Klinische Wochenschrift ("Clinical Weekly"), the supposed wonder drug was brought to the attention of Otto Ranke, a military doctor and director of the Institute for General and Defense Physiology at Berlin’s Academy of Military Medicine. The effects of amphetamines are similar to those of the adrenaline produced by the body, triggering a heightened state of alert. In most people, the substance increases self-confidence, concentration and the willingness to take risks, while at the same time reducing sensitivity to pain, hunger and thirst, as well as reducing the need for sleep. In September 1939, Ranke tested the drug on 90 university students, and concluded that Pervitin could help the Wehrmacht win the war. At first Pervitin was tested on military drivers who participated in the invasion of Poland. Then, according to criminologist Wolf Kemper, it was "unscrupulously distributed to troops fighting at the front."

Thirty-five million tablets

During the short period between April and July of 1940, more than 35 million tablets of Pervitin and Isophan (a slightly modified version produced by the Knoll pharmaceutical company) were shipped to the German army and air force. Some of the tablets, each containing three milligrams of active substance, were sent to the Wehrmacht’s medical divisions under the code name OBM, and then distributed directly to the troops. A rush order could even be placed by telephone if a shipment was urgently needed. The packages were labeled "Stimulant," and the instructions recommended a dose of one to two tablets "only as needed, to maintain sleeplessness."

Even then, doctors were concerned about the fact that the regeneration phase after taking the drug was becoming increasingly long, and that the effect was gradually decreasing among frequent users. In isolated cases, users experienced health problems like excessive perspiration and circulatory disorders, and there were even a few deaths. Leonardo Conti, the German Reich’s minister of health and an adherent of Adolf Hitler’s belief in asceticism, attempted to restrict the use of the pill, but was only moderately successful, at least when it came to the Wehrmacht. Although Pervitin was classified as a restricted substance on July 1, 1941, under the Opium Law, ten million tablets were shipped to troops that same year.

Pervitin was generally viewed as a proven drug to be used when soldiers were likely to be subjected to extreme stress. A memorandum for navy medical officers stated the following: "Every medical officer must be aware that Pervitin is a highly differentiated and powerful stimulant, a tool that enables him, at any time, to actively and effectively help certain individuals within his range of influence achieve above-average performance."

"Their spirits suddenly improved"

The effects were seductive. In January 1942, a group of 500 German soldiers stationed on the eastern front and surrounded by the Red Army were attempting to escape. The temperature was minus 30 degrees Celsius. A military doctor assigned to the unit wrote in his report that at around midnight, six hours into their escape through snow that was waist-deep in places, "more and more soldiers were so exhausted that they were beginning to simply lie down in the snow." The group’s commanding officers decided to give Pervitin to their troops. "After half an hour," the doctor wrote, "the men began spontaneously reporting that they felt better. They began marching in orderly fashion again, their spirits improved, and they became more alert."

It took almost six months for the report to reach the military’s senior medical command. But its response was merely to issue new guidelines and instructions for using Pervitin, including information about risks that barely differed from earlier instructions. The "Guidelines for Detecting and Combating Fatigue," issued June 18, 1942, were the same as they had always been: "Two tablets taken once eliminate the need to sleep for three to eight hours, and two doses of two tablets e

ach are normally effective for 24 hours."

Toward the end of the war, the Nazis were even working on a miracle pill for their troops. In the northern German seaport of Kiel, on March 16, 1944, then Vice-Admiral Hellmuth Heye, who later became a member of parliament with the conservative Christian Democratic party and head of the German parliament’s defense committee, requested a drug "that can keep soldiers ready for battle when they are asked to continue fighting beyond a period considered normal, while at the same time boosting their self-esteem."

A short time later, Kiel pharmacologist Gerhard Orzechowski presented Heye with a pill code-named D-IX. It contained five milligrams of cocaine, three milligrams of Pervitin and five milligrams of Eukodal (a morphine-based painkiller). Nowadays, a drug dealer caught with this potent a drug would be sent to prison. At the time, however, the drug was tested on crew members working on the navy’s smallest submarines, known as the "Seal" and the "Beaver."

Alcohol consumption was encouraged

Alcohol, the people’s drug, was also popular in the Wehrmacht. Referring to alcohol, Walter Kittel, a general in the medical corps, wrote that "only a fanatic would refuse to give a soldier something that can help him relax and enjoy life after he has faced the horrors of battle, or would reprimand him for enjoying a friendly drink or two with his comrades." Officers would distribute alcohol to their troops as a reward, and schnapps was routinely sold in military commissaries, a policy that also had the happy side effect of returning soldiers’ pay to the military.

"The military command turned a blind eye to alcohol consumption, as long as it didn’t lead to public drunkenness among the troops," says Freiburg historian Peter Steinkamp, an expert on drug abuse in the Wehrmacht.

But in July 1940, after France was defeated, Hitler issued the following order: "I expect that members of the Wehrmacht who allow themselves to be tempted to engage in criminal acts as a result of alcohol abuse will be severely punished." Serious offenders could even expect "a humiliating death."

But the temptations of liquor were apparently more powerful that the Fuehrer’s threats. Only a year later, the commander-in-chief of the German military, General Walther von Brauchitsch, concluded that his troops were committing "the most serious infractions" of morality and discipline, and that the culprit was "alcohol abuse." Among the adverse effects of alcohol abuse he cited were fights, accidents, mistreatment of subordinates, violence against superior officers and "crimes involving unnatural sexual acts." The general believed that alcohol was jeopardizing "discipline within the military."

According to an internal statistic compiled by the chief of the medical corps, 705 military deaths between September 1939 and April 1944 could be linked directly to alcohol. The unofficial figure was probably much higher, because traffic accidents, accidents involving weapons and suicides were frequently caused by alcohol use. Medical officers were instructed to admit alcoholics and drug addicts to treatment facilities. According to an order issued by the medical service, this solution had "the advantage that it could be extended indefinitely." Once incarcerated in these facilities, addicts were evaluated under the provisions of the "Law for Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases," and could even be subjected to forced sterilization and euthanasia.

Executing a bootlegger

The number of cases in which soldiers became blind or even died after consuming methyl alcohol began to increase. From 1939 on, the University of Berlin’s Institute of Forensic Medicine consistently listed methyl alcohol as the leading factor in deaths resulting from the inadvertent ingestion of poisons.

The execution of a 36-year-old officer in Norway in the fall of 1942 was intended to set an example. The officer, who was a driver, had sold five liters of methyl alcohol, which he claimed was 98 percent alcohol and could be used to produce liquor, to an infantry regiment’s anti-tank defense unit. Several soldiers fell ill, and two died. The man, deemed an "enemy of the people," was executed by a firing squad. According to the daily order issued on October 2, 1942, "the punishment shall be announced to the troops and auxiliary units, and it shall be used as a tool for repeated and insistent admonishment."

But soldiers apparently felt that anything that could help them escape the horrors of war was justifiable. Despite general knowledge of the risks involved, morphine addiction became widespread among the wounded and medical personnel during the course of the war. Four times as many military doctors were addicted to morphine by 1945 than at the beginning of the war.

Franz Wertheim, a medical officer who was sent to a small village near the Western Wall on May 10, 1940, wrote the following account: "To help pass the time, we doctors experimented on ourselves. We would begin the day by drinking a water glass of cognac and taking two injections of morphine. We found cocaine to be useful at midday, and in the evening we would occasionally take Hyoskin," an alkaloid derived from some varieties of the nightshade plant that is used as a medication. Wertheim adds: "As a result, we were not always fully in command of our senses."

German doctors experimented on themselves

To prevent an "outbreak of morphinism, as occurred after the last war," Professor Otto Wuth, a master sergeant and consulting psychiatrist to the military’s senior medical command, wrote a "Proposal to Combat Morphinism" in February 1941. Under Wuth’s proposal, all wounded who became addicted as a result of treatment were to be centrally recorded and reported to the "District Medical Board," where they would be either legally provided with morphine or routinely examined and sent to drug rehabilitation treatment centers. "In this manner," Wuth concluded, "morphine addicts will be recorded and monitored, and the entire group will be prevented from becoming criminal."

The Nazi leadership was more lenient with those who became drug-addicted as a result of the war than with alcoholics, probably because the Wehrmacht was concerned that it could be sued for damages, because it was in fact responsible for dispensing the drugs in the first place.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Nazis tested cocaine on camp inmates

Jeevan Vasagar in Berlin

Nazi researchers used concentration camp inmates to test a cocaine-based "wonder drug" they hoped would enhance the performance of German troops, it was reported yesterday.

Prisoners at Sachsenhausen who were given the drug, code-named D-IX, were forced to march in circles carrying 20kg packs. They were able to march 55 miles without resting.

The German news magazine Focus quoted an eye-witness report by a prisoner who wrote: "At first the members of the punishment battalion whistled and sang songs. [But] most of them had collapsed after the first 24 hours."

The pills contained a mix of cocaine, the amphetamine pervitin and a morphine-related painkiller, according to Focus, which said that Nazi scientists began experimenting with the drug in 1944.

<

p>It was hoped the drug would give soldiers almost unlimited fighting powers at a time when the German armies were in retreat.

The researcher Wolf Kemper, who uncovered the project, said: "The aim was to use D-IX to redefine the limits of human endurance."

Nazi doctors were enthusiastic about the results, and planned to supply all German troops with the pills, but the war ended before D-IX could be put into mass production.

Hitler was against drug use, particularly condemning the use of cocaine, a popular society drug in the 1920s that the Nazis called "devil’s stuff".

But the Third Reich did not have the same scruples when it came to military use of drugs. Amphetamines were mass-produced for use at the front, the same article reported.

Despite doctors’ warnings about their side-effects, amphetamine pills were in every first-aider’s kit to give to exhausted soldiers.

Once located in rural towns and on the West Coast, meth has erupted across the United States and is now devastating countless families, children and neighborhoods. Here are some facts you should know about meth:

how do i get my wife off drugs http://www.howdoigetmywifeoffdrugs.comhow do i get my mom off drugs http://www.howdoigetmymomoffdrugs.com 

What is it?
Methamphetamine is a powerfully addictive stimulant that has a high potential for abuse and dramatically affects the central nervous system. It is a unique drug because it is easy to obtain and relatively cheap to buy. This is all made possible by the fact that meth can be manufactured literally in a person’s backyard from relatively inexpensive, over-the-counter ingredients such as Pseudoephedrine — a common cold medicine, as well as paint thinner, cat litter and lighter fuel.

What does it look like?
Meth is a white, odorless, bitter-tasting powder that easily dissolves in alcohol or water and can be smoked, injected or snorted.
 
Where is it made?
Two-thirds of our country’s meth supply is produced in super labs in Mexico and Southern California run by organized crime and street gangs. The remaining third is made in the U.S. in makeshift meth labs found in basements, bedrooms, kitchens garages, bedrooms and trunks of cars.

How is it made?
Meth is made from a fairly simple recipe found on the internet and can be produced in as few as 6 to 8 hours using apparatus and cookware that can be quickly dismantled and stored or relocated to avoid detection. A mere $200 can buy the ingredients to produce an ounce of meth (enough to get 100 people high). Since cooking meth produces such large amounts of highly toxic waste, there is always a pending danger of explosion or fire which could endanger the lives of children and adults, as well as harm the surrounding environment. 

What are its effects on the user?
Meth can make a user awake and alert, and can keep him or her up for hours and even days. At first it can give him or her a rush and a sense of euphoria, decrease their appetite and provide feelings of confidence. After a "binge," a user will inevitably crash, and can become severely depressed and even suicidal.

Why is it used?
Like most drugs, people use meth for the rush. However, due to its effects on the body, people use it for energy, weight loss or to self-medicate — all of which have serious consequences.

How can I recognize a meth user?
A meth user could be anyone – a teen or parent, urban dweller to city folks, students to professionals — in your neighborhood. If you think someone you know might be using meth, or you’re a parent who thinks their teen might be using, learn the warning signs to look for.

How can meth affect me and my community?
Unfortunately, meth can harm not only those who are addicted to the drug, but their family, friends and neighbors. Issues regarding, safety, law enforcement, health care and social workers can all arise when meth takes over a community. Learn more in How Meth Affects Your Community.

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