Cocaine treatment for addiction is a complicated problem involving biological changes in the brain, as well as many social, familial and environmental factors. Cocaine addiction treatment is complex and must address a variety of issues. As in any solid treatment plan, cocaine treatment strategies must assess the psycho-biological, social and pharmacological aspects of the patient’s drug abuse.
It is important to match the best treatment plan to the patient’s requirements. This may involve adding to or removing from a patient’s treatment plan a number of different components. For instance, if an individual tends to relapse, a relapse component should be added to the program.
Cocaine treatment through behavioral interventions can be greatly expedited by behavioral treatments, both residential and outpatient approaches. Actually, behavioral therapies are often the only available, effective cocaine treatments for many drug problems.
Recovery starts with a learning process of breaking old habits, ties with cocaine-using friends and identifying “triggers” that create the desire to use cocaine.
Cocaine treatment through cognitive-behavioral therapy is another approach. Cognitive-behavioral coping skills treatment is a short-term, focused approach to helping cocaine-addicted individuals stay off cocaine and other substances. The underlying assumption is that learning processes contribute significantly to the development and continuation of cocaine abuse and dependence.
The same learning processes can be used to help people resist drug use. This approach attempts to help patients to recognize, avoid and cope; for example, recognize the situations in which they are most apt to use cocaine, avoid these situations when appropriate and cope more effectively with a variety of situations and behaviors associated with drug abuse.
Cocaine treatment encourages patients to identify these triggers and to restructure their life-styles to avoid them. Many patients identify certain music or movies with cocaine and must learn to deal with these issues. If you entertain thoughts about cocaine for long enough it gains the power to distort your judgment and influence behavior. Cocaine abusers become experts at self-deception and thereby create reasons to return to cocaine.
Cocaine Treatment Through Counseling on Spiritual and Emotional Issues
Cocaine treatment’s most difficult aspect involves the guilt and intense shame most users feel. It is true that almost all addicted people feel shame since drug using behavior is generally in conflict with a person’s values and morals. Wasting thousands of dollars or having an affair, lying and stealing are difficult things to face. So difficult that the guilt associated with these behaviors becomes a major excuse to use more cocaine. Getting high is, sort of a short vacation from the intense guilt and shame associated with cocaine addiction.
Cocaine treatment for these kind of painful issues requires time and trust. An experienced counselor, another recovering addict or trusted clergy can offer tremendous support. Most respectable treatment programs have these kind of individuals on staff.
Therapeutic communities, or residential programs with planned lengths of stay of six months to a year, offer another option to those in need of cocaine treatment. Therapeutic communities are often comprehensive, in that they deal with on the re-socialization of the individual to society, and can offer on-site vocational rehabilitation and other support services. Therapeutic communities generally treat patients with more severe problems, like co-occurring mental health problems and criminal involvement.
Self-Help Programs
Twelve-step programs offer support by helping cocaine abusers accept their difficulties. They learn from and help other recovering addicts to accept that there is life after cocaine. These programs include:
- * Cocaine Anonymous
- * Narcotics Anonymous
- * Alcoholics Anonymous
Cocaine treatment programs such as twelve-step programs emphasize accepting responsibility for behavior, making amends to others and forgiving oneself. Successful recovery programs strongly suggest daily attendance at 12-step meetings for the first 90 days off drugs.
Individuals who successfully stay away from cocaine attend many of 12-step meetings for support and accountability. They often report that a part of them still seeks a good excuse to use cocaine. Twelve-step meetings are daily reminders of their powerlessness over drugs.
Medication Approaches
No medications are presently available to treat cocaine addiction. Since many mood changes are experienced during the early stages of cocaine abstinence, antidepressant drugs provide some benefit.
