The Huffington Post Gets Personal on Addiction
Christina Huffington, the daughter of the founder of the Huffington Post (Arianna Huffington) recently came out in public about her struggle with cocaine addiction. On the Today show Christina and Arianna Huffington discussed how addiction has affected them individually and how Arianna kept her addiction a secret from just about everybody. When asked what life was really like for her as a cocaine addict Christina replied, “It was absolutely unglamorous (like you said). If was very much me by myself in my apartment using drugs all day from morning to night. Umm there was nothing fun about it. I wasn’t at fun parties. I was really depressed. I was scared. I was anxious and I sort of just felt isolated and alone and thought I would never get out of that”. Arianna first tried cocaine at 16 years old and would battle the addiction for 6 years before her mother or anyone else would find out. She mentions how cocaine became “her” drug and it quickly erased all of her insecurities and fears. She also decided to come forward to show that anyone, no matter who they are, can become tied up in an addiction. “What I want to show is that addiction can strike no matter what,” she said on “Today.” “You can come from a loving family, you can have financial resources and you can still feel that pit of loneliness and emptiness and that desire to fill it with substances. So I just wanted to give a different face to the disease.”
Cocaine Addiction in America
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) estimates that in 2008 there were 1.9 million current (past-month) cocaine users, of which approximately 359,000 were current crack users. Adults aged 18 to 25 years have a higher rate of current cocaine use than any other age group, with 1.5 percent of young adults reporting past month cocaine use. Overall, men report higher rates of current cocaine use than women.
Repeated cocaine use can produce addiction and other adverse health consequences. In 2008, according to the NSDUH, nearly 1.4 million Americans met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for dependence or abuse of cocaine (in any form) in the past 12 months. Further, data from the 2008 Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) report showed that cocaine was involved in 482,188 of the nearly 2 million visits to emergency departments for drug misuse or abuse. This translates to almost one in four drug misuse or abuse emergency department visits (24 percent) that involved cocaine.
Cocaine Addiction Treatment
Rehab treatment for cocaine addiction is crucial in the recovery process. Cocaine is a very addictive drug that direct affects the brain’s reward system leaving one with very strong cravings and a high relapse rate. You can try to quit on your own and just go to meetings but we recommend that you go the safe route and attend a cocaine detox program and a cocaine drug rehabilitation residential program for at least 60 to 90 days. Once you’ve finished an inpatient program then you can transition into outpatient, aftercare services, meetings, and a sober living facility. The journey to cocaine recovery is going to be a tough one but it’ll be worth it when it no longer has control over your life.
If you or a loved one is in need of Cocaine Addiction Treatment we can help. Please contact FHE Health at 833-596-3502.