Addictive Disorders

Heroin

What is Heroin?

Heroin is an illegal, extremely addictive drug. It is both the most abused and the most rapidly acting of the opiates. Heroin is processed from morphine, a naturally occurring substance extracted from the seedpod of selected varieties of poppy plants. It is typically sold as a white or brownish powder or as the black sticky substance known on the streets as "black tar heroin." Although purer heroin is becoming more common, most street heroin is "cut" with other drugs or with substances such as sugar, starch, powdered milk, or quinine. Street heroin can also be cut with strychnine or other poisons. Because heroin users do not know the actual strength of the drug or its true contents, they are at risk of overdose or death. Heroin also poses special problems because of the transmission of HIV and other diseases that can occur from sharing needles or other injection equipment.

What are the Short Term Effects of Heroin Use?

Shortly after injection (or inhalation), the drug crosses the blood-brain barrier. In the brain, it is transformed to morphine and binds rapidly to opioid receptors. Abusers typically report feeling a surge of pleasurable sensation, a "rush." The intensity of the rush is a function of how much heroin is taken and how rapidly it enters the brain and binds to the natural opioid receptors. Heroin is intensely addictive since it enters the brain so rapidly. With heroin, the rush is typically accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, dry mouth, and a heavy feeling in the extremities, which may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and severe itching. After the first effects, users frequently will be drowsy for several hours. Mental function is clouded by heroin's effect on the central nervous system. Cardiac performance reduces. Breathing is also severely slowed, sometimes to the point of death. Heroin overdose is a particular danger on the street, where the amount and purity cannot be accurately known.

What are the Lasting Effects of Heroin Use?

One of the most harmful lasting effects of heroin use is addiction itself. Heroin produces profound degrees of tolerance and physical dependence, which are also powerful motivating issues for compulsive use and abuse. As with abusers of any addictive drug, heroin users gradually spend more and more time and energy getting and using.

Physical dependence develops with higher doses of the drug. With physical dependence, the body adapts to the presence of the drug and withdrawal symptoms occur if use is reduced abruptly. Withdrawal symptoms include restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea, vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps ("cold turkey"), and leg movements. Major withdrawal symptoms peak between 24 and 48 hours after the last dose of heroin and subside after about a week. However, some people have shown persistent withdrawal signs for many months.

What are the Medical Complications of Chronic Heroin Use?

Medical consequences of chronic heroin abuse include scarred and/or collapsed veins, bacterial infections of the blood vessels and heart valves, abscesses (boils) and other soft-tissue infections, and liver or kidney disease. Lung complications (including various types of pneumonia and tuberculosis) may result from the poor health condition of the abuser as well as from heroin's depressing effects on respiration. Many of the additives in street heroin may include substances that do not readily dissolve and result in clogging the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain. This can cause infection or even death of small patches of cells in vital organs. Immune reactions to these or other contaminants can cause arthritis or other rheumatologic problems.

What are the Treatments for Heroin Addiction?

An assortment of effective heroin treatment options is available. Treatment tends to be more effective when heroin abuse is identified early.

Detoxification

The main objective of heroin detoxification is to relieve withdrawal symptoms while individuals adjust to a drug free state. Not in itself a treatment for addiction, detoxification is a practical step only when it leads into long-term treatment that is either drug free (residential or outpatient) or uses medication as part of the treatment. The best documented drug free treatments are the therapeutic community residential programs lasting at least three to six months.

Methadone Programs

Methadone treatment has been utilized successfully and safely to treat heroin addiction for more than 30 years. Properly prescribed methadone is not intoxicating or sedating and its effects do not interfere with ordinary activities such as driving a car. Patients are able to perceive pain and have emotional reactions. Most important, methadone relieves the craving associated with heroin addiction; craving is a major reason for relapse.

Methadone's effects last for about 24 hours, four to six times as long as those of heroin, so people in treatment need to take it only once a day. Also, methadone is medically safe even when used continuously for 10 years or more.

LAAM and other Medications

LAAM, like methadone, is a synthetic opiate that can be used to treat heroin addiction. LAAM can block the effects of heroin for up to 72 hours with minimal side effects when taken orally. Naloxone and Naltrexone are medications that also block the effects of morphine, heroin, and other opiates. Naltrexone has long-lasting effects, ranging from one to three days, depending on the dose. Naltrexone blocks the pleasurable effects of heroin and is useful in treating some highly motivated individuals.

Another medication to treat heroin addiction, Buprenorphine, may already be available by the time this research report appears. Buprenorphine also produces a lower level of physical dependence, so individuals who stop the medication usually have fewer withdrawal symptoms than do those who stop taking methadone.

While behavioral and pharmacologic treatments can be extremely useful when employed alone, science has taught us that integrating both types of treatments will ultimately be the most effective approach. There are many effective behavioral treatments available for heroin addiction. These can include residential and outpatient approaches.

Heroin Addiction Rehab Treatment

If you or someone you know would like to talk with one of our trained staff to discuss treatment options for heroin addiction treatment, please contact us 24 hours a day, seven days a week at our toll free number: 1-800-849-5969. You will receive a free consultation.