Substance and Addictive Disorders

Shri Rishi Psychiatry Clinic – Substance and Addictive Disorders Treatment

• Substance Use Disorders sometimes referred to as addiction. Is a major challenge to the world in the current scenario. Psychoactive substances include alcohol, cocaine, cannabis, hallucinogens, inhalants, opioids, sedative, stimulant, or tobacco are included in the list. These substances when consumed consistently, for a long period cause dependence on it and leads to addiction. Among the listed alcohol, cannabis (weed), tobacco and cocaine are commonly abused in India.
• Tolerance and Withdrawal are the crux of any addiction. Tolerance means to get similar high, more and more amount of substance needed. When substance stopped suffer from withdrawal features.
• Symptoms of Withdrawal include, Palpitation, fearfulness, sweating, disturbance of consciousness, irrelevant talking, tremors (shakiness) of hand legs and in severe cases tremors of the whole body, behaving abnormally as if person is into his own world, withdrawal convulsions (fits), hearing of voices and seeing different images of people or insects etc.

Complications:

• Medical complications of alcohol use are acute liver disease, jaundice Liver failure, liver cancer, hepatitis, cirrhosis, atherosclerosis (fat deposition in blood vessels), Myocardial infarction (Heart attack), renal (kidney) failure, Diabetes, peripheral neuropathy (tingling numbness of hand and legs), gastritis, gastric ulcers, etc.
• Psychiatric complications also can be life long and may cost much more than alcohol. Alcohol use can induce psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, sleep disorders, sexual dysfunction, delirium, and neurocognitive disorders. Also can be secondary to above-mentioned illnesses, means these disorders lead to increased alcohol consumption.
• If treated in time substance use disorder complications can be reverted into normal. The provided person should not take substance again in life. Also drinking alcohol, tobacco or weed (ganja) for a long time convert it into disorder i.e. quitting will not be in control of the person.
• And here Psychiatrist, have an important role to play. Just we need to treat the person according to his/her severity of use. Admission in the hospital for some days (about 7 to 15 days) is useful in cases where close monitoring is essential. And with treatment and repeated therapist’s counseling person can stop using substances and get his healthy life. The family also has to be firm and supportive while treating these persons.