Get Drug Rehab Counseling for Cocaine Addiction?

Drug rehab centers make you feel that you stay in your house. Cocaine is taken by mouth, inhaled, injected into the veins, and smoked. In recent years, the number of cocaine users who smoke crack cocaine has increased. Cocaine stimulates the central nervous system (CNS) to produce an increase in energy and psychomotor activity; a heightened sense of sensory arousal, pleasure, and euphoria; and a decrease in appetite and the need for sleep. It affects judgment and behavior, as well. Physical, behavioral, and social problems are common among cocaine addicts and may include any of the following specific consequences (Weaver and Schnoll 1999, pp. 105-120):

* Physical: Cardiovascular (for example, hypertension, arrhythmia, cardiomyopathy, myocarditis, myocardial ischemia, myocardial infarction), head and neck (erosion of dental enamel, rhinitis, perforation of nasal septum), CNS (headache, seizures), lung damage, pneumonia, chronic cough, acute renal failure, sexual dysfunction, spontaneous abortion in pregnant women, and infections (HIV, hepatitis B or C, tetanus) from sharing needles.

* Psychological: Poor judgment, anxiety, depression, suicidal feelings and behaviors, insomnia, emotional instability, irritability, aggressive behavior, and psychotic symptoms. Symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, panic disorder, depression, or mania can be triggered or exacerbated by cocaine use or withdrawal.

* Social/family: Damaged or lost relationships, child abuse or neglect, lost jobs, accidents, prostitution, spread of infections, criminal behaviors, violent behaviors, and homicide.

As a result of the significant health and social problems caused by cocaine abuse and addiction, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has sponsored a number of studies of different cocaine treatment approaches. This Group Drug Counseling (GDC) manual describes one of the psychosocial treatments developed for use in a multisite clinical trial called the Collaborative Cocaine Treatment Study (CCTS). The study was conducted at Brookside Hospital in Nashua, New Hampshire, the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic) in Pittsburgh, and Harvard Medical School (McLean Hospital in Belmont,