It may sound cliché, but it is true that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. However, there is a right and wrong way to do things, and choosing the wrong way can lead to relapse or failure to get clean in the first place. There are many addicts who assume that they can recover from their addiction on their own if they have enough willpower and tenacity. This isn’t always the case, though. Recovering from drug addiction can be brutal, and withdrawal is something that no one is truly prepared for. The best way to get and stay clean is to seek professional treatment for your addiction. Attempting to get clean on your own may not be as safe as you think it is. The following article will walk you through a few of the dangers that can arise if you attempt to detox from active addiction on your own, at home.

Detoxing at Home Can Be Dangerous to Your Health

When you stop putting your drug of choice into your body, you’ll likely feel immediate effects. After all, this is why you remain addicted in the first place. Your body will quickly start experiencing the uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms as it detoxes from the drugs. You will physically crave the drugs that you have been using in active addiction, and even worse, you will begin experiencing painful and stressful side effects. This is because your brain got used to being given an overdose of the chemicals it produces naturally, so in a way it has almost forgotten how to produce the amount that your body needs. When you stop providing those chemicals via the addictive substance, your brain takes a while to catch up. Meanwhile, this throws the body into chaos as the necessary functions slow greatly while your body tries to detox. You may even experience frightening occurrences such as seizures because your body is put under so much stress. You’ll probably experience aching, will ache, muscle cramps, and there is a good chance that you will feel extremely nauseous, among other things as you detox.

But when you go to a professional treatment facility to detox, you are given medications to help minimize the withdrawal symptoms. Your health is often also monitored so that if any life-threatening issues arise, they can be dealt with in the appropriate ways to ensure you are as safe as you can be during the entire detox process.

Detoxing at Home Can Be Dangerous to Your Psyche

Aside from physical effects, there are many issues that can arise with your mental health as well. It’s common for someone who is detoxing from drugs to become depressed, delirious, and even suffer from hallucinations. You can often become paranoid and lose your ability to think clearly. This can make it difficult to express yourself clearly and may also cause you to become very easily agitated.

There are professional counselors at a treatment facility that you can talk to during your entire recovery process to guide you through the mental trials and tribulations you will encounter in your journey. They will help you to manage your emotions and find a place of solace within your thinking to escape to when things get rough. Being able to talk things out with a professional counselor will allow you to confront past trauma and start down a path of increased psychological wellbeing and awareness.

Detoxing at Home Can be Dangerous for Your Family

Unfortunately, as you detox, you will not be a delight to be around. You will be harsh, irrational, irritable, and downright mean at times. Detoxing in the presence of your family isn’t a good idea, because it will put unnecessary stress on you and them. You could say or do things that you will regret once you are out of active addiction. In addition, though your family may want to help you, they do not have the training or licensure required to fully address all areas of the recovery process.

The staff at the treatment facility is well equipped to deal with all of the ugliness that comes with detox. They understand that it is a difficult time for you emotionally, and know exactly how to help guide you through this difficult time without taking things personally.

Detoxing at Home Can be Dangerous for Your Life

As you detox, your emotions can be erratic because you start thinking differently than you did when you were in active addiction. Many addicts start to feel lonely and depressed. The guilt that they feel for things that they did when they were using can often take over and cause them to do things that they wouldn’t do if they were thinking clearly. For these reasons, suicide is very common when people attempt to detox at home.

At the treatment facility, the staff will monitor you at all times. If they notice that you start to show suicidal tendencies, they will step in to make sure that you don’t do anything to harm yourself.

Detoxing at Home Can Be Dangerous to Your Long-Term Sobriety

Even in the event that you are able to successfully detox at home, you are not out of the woods yet. In fact, detox is probably the easiest step when it comes to long-term recovery. The real battle happens afterward, when you must constantly battle with yourself to stay clean and keep from relapsing. Being able to beat the physical addiction to drugs is an amazing accomplishment, but you will still have the mental addiction that needs to be properly diagnosed and treated. Treatment facilities provide you with both mental and physical addiction treatment that helps to minimize the chances of relapse.  You learn tools that can help you identify possible relapse symptoms and decrease the chances of you falling into the same addiction traps again in the future.

Detoxing at Home Can Be Dangerous to Your Career

When you detox in a professional treatment facility, you are protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act. The act allows you to take a leave of absence with protection so you do not have to worry about losing your job while you recover. If you were to try to detox at home, you would still be held accountable for taking time off work. Getting fully detoxed could take up to a week, and perhaps beyond until you’re feeling 100%. If you miss that much work, your employer may not be happy. You may even lose your job if you take too much time off and neglect your responsibilities. This is stress that you simply do not need on top of everything else.

If you tried to detox at home and weren’t able to, don’t give up on your sobriety. Going to addiction treatment can make detoxing and recovering from an active addiction so much easier. Many treatment facilities offer treatment for very reasonable rates and some insurance companies actually cover the cost of treatment. There are even some facilities that have free services available if you meet certain qualifications. It costs you nothing to talk to someone at a local treatment facility to find out what options are available to you. Realizing that you have an active addiction and want to get recovery is the first step toward stopping drug use and rebuilding your life for a better future.