What Are the Treatment Options for Cocaine Addiction?

Behavioral interventions—particularly, cognitive-behavioral therapy—have been shown to be effective for decreasing cocaine use and preventing relapse. Cocaine Addiction Treatment must be tailored to the individual patient’s needs in order to optimize outcomes—this often involves a combination of addiction treatment therapies, social supports, and other services.

Currently, there are no FDA-approved medications for treating cocaine addiction; thus, developing a medication to treat cocaine and other forms of addiction remains one of NIDA’s top research priorities. Researchers are seeking to develop medications that help alleviate the severe craving associated with cocaine addiction, as well as medications that counteract cocaine-related relapse triggers, such as stress. Several compounds are currently being investigated for their safety and efficacy, including a vaccine that would sequester cocaine in the bloodstream and prevent it from reaching the brain. Current research suggests that while medications are effective in treating addiction, combining them with a comprehensive behavioral therapy program is the most effective method to reduce drug use in the long term.

Other Names for Cocaine:
Some common names for Cocaine are: Beam, C, California Corn Flakes, Candy C, Coca, Crack, Dream, Florida Snow, Foo-Foo Dust, Happy Trails, Paradise, Sleigh Ride, Teenager, Zip.

Cocaine is a powerfully addictive stimulant drug. The powdered hydrochloride salt form of cocaine can be snorted or dissolved in water and then injected. Crack is the street name given to the form of cocaine that has been processed to make a rock crystal, which, when heated, produces vapors that are smoked. The term “crack” refers to the crackling sound produced by the rock as it is heated.

How Is Cocaine Abused?

Three routes of administration are commonly used for cocaine: snorting, injecting, and smoking. Snorting is the process of inhaling cocaine powder through the nose, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream through the nasal tissues. Injecting is the use of a needle to insert the drug directly into the bloodstream. Smoking involves inhaling cocaine vapor or smoke into the lungs, where absorption into the bloodstream is as rapid as by injection. All three methods of cocaine abuse can lead to addiction and other severe health problems, including increasing the risk of contracting HIV and other infectious diseases.

The intensity and duration of cocaine’s effects—which include increased energy, reduced fatigue, and mental alertness—depend on the route of drug administration. The faster cocaine is absorbed into the bloodstream and delivered to the brain, the more intense the high. Injecting or smoking cocaine produces a quicker, stronger high than snorting. On the other hand, faster absorption usually means shorter duration of action: the high from snorting cocaine may last 15 to 30 minutes, but the high from smoking may last only 5 to 10 minutes. In order to sustain the high, a cocaine abuser has to administer the drug again. For this reason, cocaine is sometimes abused in binges—taken repeatedly within a relatively short period of time, at increasingly higher doses.

What Adverse Effects Does Cocaine Have on Health?

Abusing cocaine has a variety of adverse effects on the body. For example, cocaine constricts blood vessels, dilates pupils, and increases body temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure. It can also cause headaches and gastrointestinal complications such as abdominal pain and nausea. Because cocaine tends to decrease appetite, chronic users can become malnourished as well.

Different methods of taking cocaine can produce different adverse effects. Regular intranasal use (snorting) of cocaine, for example, can lead to loss of the sense of smell; nosebleeds; problems with swallowing; hoarseness; and a chronically runny nose. Ingesting cocaine can cause severe bowel gangrene as a result of reduced blood flow. Injecting cocaine can bring about severe allergic reactions and increased risk for contracting HIV and other blood-borne diseases. Binge-patterned cocaine use may lead to irritability, restlessness, and anxiety. Cocaine abusers can also experience severe paranoia—a temporary state of full-blown paranoid psychosis—in which they lose touch with reality and experience auditory hallucinations.

Regardless of the route or frequency of use, cocaine abusers can experience acute cardiovascular or cerebrovascular emergencies, such as a heart attack or stroke, which may cause sudden death. Cocaine-related deaths are often a result of cardiac arrest or seizure followed by respiratory arrest.

Added Danger: Cocaethylene
Polydrug use—use of more than one drug—is common among substance abusers. When people consume two or more psychoactive drugs together, such as cocaine and alcohol, they compound the danger each drug poses and unknowingly perform a complex chemical experiment within their bodies. Researchers have found that the human liver combines cocaine and alcohol to produce a third substance, cocaethylene, that intensifies cocaine’s euphoric effects. Cocaethylene is associated with a greater risk of sudden death than cocaine alone.

Information contained above is courtesy of The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) for more information please visit: http://www.nida.nih.gov

If you have come across our Addiction Treatment Center web site, is because you or someone you love is in need of help for cocaine addiction. Cove Center for Recovery is an Addiction Treatment Center offering a premier drug addiction treatment program that can help you or your loved one. Our aim is to treat the whole person, and not just an isolated symptom. During the addiction treatment process we will work with the client to identify the factors that may have contributed to their addiction– home, work, relationships and medical history. We also believe that families have a vital role to play in the recovery process, and each program has a place for family participation, to educate them in the addiction treatment process and to equip them for their role as supporters.

Call us at 1-888-387-6237 for further information on our cocaine addiction treatment program. Together, we can discuss how you may benefit from seeking treatment at Cove Center for Recovery.

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