HT - Detox

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Personally, I think you should regard a detox as being like a prison sentence. Rather than focusing how long you have felt lousy, focus on how much closer you are to feeling better. keep a journal so you can look back over it and see how much progress you have made.
Stopping using drugs is one of the major decisions in your life; it will be nice to look back and see how you managed to overcome each of the obstacles. Every time you complete a certain period, congratulate yourself for having made it. Give yourself a reward.

For each day you complete it could be something small, like something special to eat or drink. For each week that passes, do something really nice for yourself. Buy yourself something to wear or go out for a meal.
Think about both the detoxification and the rewards as investments in the new you ; the person that you want to become rather than the person that you were.
One of the most difficult aspects of opiate withdrawal is the lack of sleep. Most things like sleeping pills won't work. You still won't sleep and they are addictive too, so you could

end up replacing one habit with another. Remember, there are no easy solutions, you've just got to bite the bullet and ride it out.
Finally, don't get hung up thinking about the length of time that a detox is going to take. just try to get through one day at a time. Its difficult trying to imagine a life without drugs, but far easier to make it through to the end of a day. Then you can again start afresh tomorrow.

Remember, every day that you manage to stay clean is an investment in your own future ; and if

you can't be bothered to invest in yourself, you can be pretty damn certain that nobody else will.

How long does it take?
How long is a piece of string? It all depends what drugs you use, how much you've been using, how long you've been using for and what your own particular metabolism is like.

Somebody who has been using benzodiazepine might take months to feel normal. Heroin usually takes anywhere between three days and two weeks. continue... Methadone


	*November 2001*