Addiction Terminology

Intervention: A deliberate process by which change is introduced into peoples' thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It usually involves specialists as well several people preparing themselves, approaching a person involved in some self-destructive behavior, and talking to the person in a clear and respectful way about the behavior in question. The immediate objective is for the person to listen and accept help.

Denial: The "hallmark" of drug/Alcohol Abuse and addiction. All family members and close friends are affected by the actions of the user. The refusal to admit the truth is often part of the process and must be overcome before the healing can occur.

Enabling: Due to shame and fear, significant family members often allow the drug/alcohol user to continue disruptive, irrational behavior patterns. This condition is established through a long history of deception, manipulation and control. Family members must learn to focus on their own needs.

Fear: A natural protective instinct that actually allows conditions to continue and only serves to reinforce the cycle of denial. A trained Interventionist will help remove these barriers by allowing all concerned to see the truth.

Recovery: The process of learning to cope with feelings on a daily basis free from mind changing chemicals. The healthy family unit can be restored and all concerned parties are then able to live their own lives.

Hitting Bottom: Complete physical, mental and spiritual defeat. The condition when all power, family, job and money are lost before someone will accept help. It is no longer necessary to wait. Intervention and treatment are far better alternatives that have been proven to work before the individual hits their personal bottom.

Addiction: Compulsive and often uncontrollable craving, seeking, and use of a drug. The individual uses even when they know that using is not in their best interest. Addiction could be defined as chronically making the firm decision not to use, followed shortly by a Relapse due to experiencing overwhelming and compulsive urges to use despite the firm decision not to.

Abuse: The chronic or habitual use of any chemical substance to alter states of body or mind for reasons other than medically warranted purposes.

Treatment: A facility where recovering drug addicts learn about addiction, recovery and relapse while addressing misguided beliefs about self, others and their environment. Attending a Drug Abuse treatment program helps the recovering Drug Abuser make lifestyle changes, manage feelings and develop coping tools and drug refusal skills. In addition, they learn to identify relapse warning signs and challenge thoughts that may lead to relapse.

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Once in the brain, heroin - similar to other drugs of abuse - causes the release of dopamine, a neurochemical that mediates pleasure and is vital to the normal functioning of the central nervous system. The drugs addictive properties are believed to be related to a chronic and unnatural increase in dopamine levels.

It is encouraging to note that many teenagers recognize the risks of heroin. The NSDUH found that 87.8 percent of 12th graders agree that heroin substance abuse represents a "great risk." The fact that so many teenagers recognize the dangers of heroin use is encouraging, and could lead to further declines in teen drug use of heroin.

Both new and experienced users risk overdosing on heroin because it is impossible for them to know the purity of the heroin they are using. (Heroin sold on the street often is mixed with other substances such as sugar, starch, or quinine. An added risk results when heroin is mixed with poisons such as strychnine.) Heroin overdoses--which can result whether the drug is snorted, smoked, or injected--can cause slow and shallow breathing, convulsions, coma, and even death.

From 1898 through to 1910 heroin was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough suppressant. Bayer marketed heroin as a cure for morphine addiction before it was discovered that heroin is rapidly metabolized into morphine, and as such, "heroin" was basically only a quicker acting form of morphine. The company was somewhat embarrassed by this new finding and it became a historical blunder for Bayer.

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