By Dalal Akoury, MD 10 day drug detox Act Now addiction Alcohol recovery Drugs Integrative Addiction Treatment for Physicians intravenous amino acid treatment for addiction natural addiction recovery May 11, 2017

Polysubstance abuse problems: Is there hope for polysubstance abuse victims?

Polysubstance abuse problems like any other forms of addition is affecting everybody without any favor based on race, religion, educational background or social status. Age doesn’t matter too since children and teenagers are also equal victims. With this vast scope of vulnerability, it will only be fair if we all pool together to help in the fight against all kinds of drug abuse. In our quest of addressing the problems of polysubstance abuse, we are going to rely on the expertise of doctor Dalal Akoury MD who is also the founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center. Adult polysubstance abuse is associated with other mental health conditions. Homelessness, personality disorders, and psychiatric disorders such as major depression, psychosis, and bipolar disorder are common.

The overlap of polysubstance dependence and psychiatric problems points to a lot of self-medication. Typically, among multiple substance users, individuals used alcohol or marijuana at an early age and then added other substances (or changed their drugs of choice) without quitting their original substances.

Polysubstance abuse problems: The common abused polysubstance

Further to that, among young people, polysubstance abuse is often the norm, and not the exception. Doctor Akoury reports that the most commonly abused polysubstance by adolescents include heroin, marijuana and alcohol. Nonetheless, the other drugs which are also used include MDMA (ecstasy), dextromethorphan, multiple forms of opiates, cocaine, hallucinogens, and inhalants. In a study where young people were involved, it was established that one-half of the young people had used an illicit street drug by the end of their senior year.

This has now translated into the need of administering treatment to about two million young people for the abuse of alcohol and drug addiction. The point of concern is that even with this big number in dire need of medication, it is regrettable that only 8 percent of the victims actually get it. Besides that the study also established that nearly one-third of young people are addicted to psycho-stimulants and are also suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with 20 percent said they gave their medications to others.

One treatment facility said that 33 percent of the adolescents currently in treatment had polysubstance addiction and the elderly are another population that clearly has a problem with polysubstance abuse. The vulnerability of the elderly indicated that they have more medical conditions that often require prescriptions. Over time with debilitating illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease the tendency to over medicate increases the likelihood of polysubstance abuse. If this is combined with alcohol, the results can be devastating, even fatal.

Finally, elderly women tend to keep their substance abuse and chemical dependency secret. Alcoholism occurs later in women’s lives, perhaps due to problems associated with divorce or separation. Women who are over 55 have less tolerance for alcohol and are therefore more prone to addiction. They are also less likely than men to seek treatment and also use prescribed psychoactive drugs. From the narratives we can conclude that polysubstance abuse is increasingly becoming more prevalent among the street drug user population. Some of the different substances abused include heroin, prescription opioids, benzodiazepines, cocaine, crack, alcohol, and marijuana. In all these, doctor Dalal Akoury and her team of experts from AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center will be of great help if only you can call today.