Outpatient Treatment for Cocaine Addiction

Some people take cocaine to feel more social or energized at parties. Others use it to keep up with high work volumes or to spike their creativity. Regardless of how people justify their behavior, recreational use can often lead to addiction.

Cocaine is a highly stimulant drug with a powerful effect on the central nervous system. It affects certain neurotransmitters that regulate mood, pleasure and the reward system, such as norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine. Because it overstimulates these neuronal pathways, cocaine users experience intense euphoria, hypersensitivity, and increased energy levels.

However, as the body becomes accustomed to the substance, patients tend to increase the dosage to experience the same euphoric state. Moreover, because the brain expects high levels of dopamine, it will cease to produce the neurotransmitter on its own. As a result, patients will only be able to feel and function normally with cocaine in their bodies.

Although the number of cocaine addicts has decreased in the past decades, cocaine still represents a public health risk. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, over 14% of Americans aged 12 or more have used cocaine at least once in their lifetimes, and one in 40 adults has used it in the past year. Moreover, cocaine has the highest rate of emergency room visits for misuse.

While cocaine doesn’t present physical withdrawal symptoms, it creates one of the hardest psychological dependencies out of all drugs, with intense emotional struggle.

What Does It Take for Lifelong Sobriety from Cocaine?

Cocaine is a drug that has substantial effects on the brain, altering its chemical balance. As such, successful addiction recovery requires a lifelong commitment to staying sober. Most addicts struggle with this idea, but total abstinence is mandatory if they want to recover and return to their normal lives.

With between 50% and 90% of users who try quitting the drug on their own relapsing, it’s evident that proper treatment is paramount to lifelong sobriety. However, simply getting the drug out of the system is not enough and it doesn’t mean the end of recovery. As mentioned already, cocaine creates an intense psychological dependence and patients must learn to manage their emotions and control cravings to avoid relapse.

A strong support network is, thus, paramount as patients need to know that they can rely on their friends and family to help them with their struggle and listen to their needs.