For Stimulants

For Stimulants

People who are suffering from depression and use stimulants to bolster energy and focus can suffer serious distortions in thinking and behavioral patterns. Accurate dual diagnosis is crucial to treat both the mental health disorder and the drug addiction.

Stimulant Addiction

Mood Disorders Associated with Stimulant/Cocaine Abuse

If you are suffering from certain mood disorders, stimulants such as cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and diet pills may seem to help you focus or feel energetic. However, using cocaine and other stimulants in combination with mood disorders can produce highly distorted thinking and behavioral patterns. Issues of grandiosity and impaired judgment can alter your decision making and increase your risk of behavioral changes that will negatively influence your daily life.

With continued abuse of stimulants like cocaine, a mood disorder will worsen and an abuser may begin to experience anger and violent ideations. Patients with a mental health disorder and stimulant addiction may “demonstrate impairment in their ability to receive, process, store, and recall information. Reasoning and problem solving is difficult.” Mood changes can occur within the first month of use.

(Source: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/290195-clinical)

[S]ome substances of abuse (eg, cocaine, marijuana, other stimulants) may actually induce panic attacks during periods of acute intoxication. Several reports have noted that both marijuana and cocaine can precipitate panic attacks in patients without previous panic disorder.

(Source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/430610_4)

Medication Treatment for Stimulant and Cocaine Addiction

Drug rehab can help stop addiction to stimulants and clarify a mental health disorder. Medication to address the symptoms of a mood disorder or another mental health disorder can alleviate the rationale for self-medicating and arrest the progression of addiction. Treatment for stimulant addiction in a drug rehab facility can include these medications:

  • Baclofen (Lioresal)
    Baclofen is a GABA receptor antagonist that inhibits the release of several neurotransmitters such as dopamine, glutamate, and noradrenaline. It works by diminishing the reward effect or positive sensations associated with cocaine.
  • Vistaril (hydroxyzine)
    Vistaril is an antihistamine that is generally used to treat itchiness, motion sickness, nausea and vomiting. It is used to help with withdrawal symptoms from cocaine and other stimulants.
  • Desipramine (Norapramin)
    Desipramine is one of the medications known as a tricyclic antidepressant. It has been widely studied and found to have positive results for cocaine addicts. It was found to be helpful in maintaining abstinence but not for initiating abstinence from cocaine.
  • Disulfiram (Antabuse)
    This drug is commonly used to treat alcohol withdrawal symptoms and can make a person sick if even a small amount of alcohol is consumed. It has been used to treat cocaine withdrawal symptoms but not amphetamine or methamphetamine withdrawal symptoms.

Looking For Treatment?

Mood disorders are disruptive. Combine a mood disorder with stimulant addiction and your life can quickly spin out of control. If you are tired of your mood disorder symptoms worsening, your outbursts of anger or aggression, or if you want to calm down but can’t, Recovery Connection coordinators can help. 866.812.8231 Our staff is specially trained and can answer your questions about dual diagnosis treatment. You can stop the addiction and get your mood disorders under control. Call now -- don’t wait another minute.

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