BioChemical Aspect

BIOCHEMICAL ASPECT OF ADDICTION AND DRUG CRAVINGS

When a person continuously drinks or uses drugs, his body becomes supersaturated with metabolites (this is the chemical from the drugs and alcohol that the body converts into).  These metabolites, although removed rapidly from most bodily tissues, may become trapped in the fatty tissues and remain there for years.

When he tries to quit, these drug or alcohol metabolites can be released back into the bloodstream.  This can trigger drug or alcohol cravings that are almost impossible to resist.  It would be like trying to quit smoking while continuing to smoke 1 or 2 cigarettes per day.   

Presence of these metabolites in the blood, even in microscopic amounts, cause the brain to react as if the addict were withdrawing from the drug.  Receptor sites in brain cells that have adapted to large amounts of the drug metabolite are now forced to deal with having only a small amount of the drug metabolite available.  The brain “requests” the addict to give it more of the drug.  This is called drug craving.  The only way to end this is to take more drugs or drink more, and the cycle begins all over again.

  ELIMINATING DRUG CRAVINGS THE NARCONON FLORIDA WAY.

In years past, the common assumption in the scientific community was that drugs were eliminated from the body within 3-5 days after the last usage.  We now know that these drugs can remain stored in fatty tissues for year.

 The graph below demonstrates this fact.  This graph shows cocaine metabolites being excreted from a client’s body more than 5 days after he arrived for treatment, and long after all traces of cocaine should have been (according to previous theories) eliminated from his body.  Yet, as soon as he begins our detoxification procedure, levels of cocaine metabolites in his sweat and urine skyrocket, and then gradually decrease to zero over the next few weeks.