Habitual use of any drug, from alcohol to heroin, can create physical dependence—the sickness when an addict tries to stop using. The sickness that sets in with every attempt to get clean is one of the greatest obstacles to recovery. Although physical dependence and addiction are not precisely the same thing, we know how they go hand in hand and that recovery from addiction cannot even be approached until the physical dependence is broken. At the Master Center for Addiction Medicine, we have vast experience and expertise in the medical management of withdrawal syndromes from every dependence-inducing drug. Furthermore, our addiction treatment programs are effective, affordable, and incredibly accessible.
What Is Detox?
There is a reason that we refer to being drunk or high as being “intoxicated”—the drugs we put into our bodies are, in a way, poisons. But when we refer to “detox” in terms of addiction treatment, we describe the often uncomfortable and sometimes medically treacherous syndrome of withdrawal that the body and mind experience when the drug of abuse is withdrawn. What we are doing when we “detox” a patient is to prescribe precise and effective medication to alleviate all of the unpleasant symptoms of withdrawal. By doing this, we are removing a powerful obstacle to healing and making recovery possible because it is only after detox that recovery begins.
Our Supportive program for Drug and Alcohol Detox
Our aim at the Master Center is to accomplish detox in the simplest but most effective way. If you’re looking for an alcohol or drug detox in Richmond, VA, whether it’s for yourself, a friend, or a family member, we are always here to help. Our services are office-based, and our outpatient detox treatments are so effective that our patients can usually carry on with normal life during the detox process. Because we realize how time is of the essence in the fight against addiction, we can often schedule an initial appointment within 24 hours. Furthermore, we provide these services at a fraction of the price of comparable services elsewhere.
Opioid and Heroin Detox
Heroin, morphine, oxycodone, hydromorphone (Dilaudid), fentanyl, and tramadol are examples of opiates and opioids. The shocking increase of opiate abuse and dependence is the primary reason drug overdose surpassed auto accidents as the leading cause of death among young adults since 2014. Whether the result of medically prescribed painkillers or previously rare middle-class experimentation with fentanyl spiked heroin, opiate addiction is a deadly epidemic in Richmond, Virginia, and the US. At the Master Center, we utilize a specially designed buprenorphine “troche” that is extra safe in an expertly designed taper to deliver safe and comfortable opioid withdrawal management. No one does this better than we do.
Benzodiazepine Detox
Benzos in medications like Xanax, Ativan, Valium, and Klonopin. These drugs were never intended for long-term use, but their over-prescription and over-use have brought many people to a dangerous place of crippling dependence. Although these drugs are powerful anxiolytics, studies show that long-term use worsens overall anxiety. And withdrawal from benzodiazepines can not only bring nightmarish symptoms of overwhelming anxiety and insomnia. In severe cases, it can cause seizures, coma, and death. Yet, carefully monitored, tapering doses of reliable medication can bring about a safe and comfortable outpatient liberation from the bondage of sedative dependence. Often, the patients granted freedom from sedative dependence at the Master Center take advantage of the world-class care of our addiction psychiatrists to achieve lasting and safe treatment of their anxiety and other mood disorders.
Alcohol Detox
After tobacco, the number one cause of sickness and death among addictive drugs is good old-fashioned, fully legal alcohol—available everywhere you go. Alcohol withdrawal, like sedative withdrawal, can be severe and lead to a medical emergency. After carefully determining the safety of each case, alcohol withdrawal can quite often be managed in an outpatient setting, perhaps in a majority of cases. Our doctors take the greatest care to ensure the safety and comfort of our patients seeking help with getting sober.
Suboxone Detox
One of our special skills is taking on the difficult challenge of helping patients dependent on suboxone get through an arduous and long withdrawal syndrome. Using a technique developed and perfected by Dr. Thompson at Clean Life Medical, we can help most suboxone cases get opiate-free or make a safe and comfortable transition to Vivitrol.
Kratom Detox
A new and controversial psychoactive plant product from Southeast Asia that narrowly missed being outlawed recently by the DEA, kratom is promoted and sold as a “natural high” or even aid in opiate detox. In truth, it contains a powerful chemical called mitragynine that stimulates opioid receptors in the central nervous system and can be powerfully addictive with a wicked physical dependence. Kratom withdrawal can be like a combination of opioid and sedative withdrawal, not something anyone would want to face alone.
We have seen it all and can help you, no matter what. Whether it’s the substances listed above, DXM, high-potency hashish, bath salts, research chemicals, or anything in between, our detox program is there to support healing. But because detox alone has never been shown to bring real and lasting recovery from addiction, all detox services at the Master Center are tied to a full and ongoing plan of treatment and recovery support.
How Medical Detoxification Can Help
For most addicts, the miserable physical, mental and emotional deluge that inevitably comes with any attempt to clean makes it so hard to gather the courage and energy to try to escape the prison of addiction one more time. We want to remove this obstacle completely, and we know it can be done. Our philosophy is that suffering through withdrawal never prevented any addict from relapsing, but the fear of it keeps so many living in miserable captivity. We want to make getting clean as easy as possible.
- Take the first step: Your brain can’t heal until you stop using. Getting clean puts you on the path to real recovery from the disease of addiction; it makes recovery possible.
- Improve your mental health: The constant barrage we unleash on our brains when we abuse drugs can make mental health issues impossible to solve. Accurate diagnosis and effective psychiatric care are impossible, with drugs scrambling the signal. Chronic alcohol and drugs can often create mental illness where no organic illness exists.
- Stop risking your life: Every time a person is intoxicated with drugs or alcohol, they become a danger to themselves and everyone around them. Every time you go back out there to get more, you risk your safety, you put yourself in harm’s way, and you risk the lifelong consequences of being on the wrong side of the law. Prevent significant complications from occurring in the future.