Heroin Addiction Treatment on St Simons Islands, Georgia

St. Simons understands the cycle of addiction can be hard to break on your own, especially when it comes to highly addictive opioids like heroin. This is why we offer comprehensive dual diagnosis treatment for adults and substance use disorder treatment for adolescents age 12-17 in the South Georgia community.

As we’ve mentioned, heroin is an opioid drug. Other opioids include Oxycodone and Morphine, which are often used as pain management for serious medical conditions because they can impart a sense of euphoria in the user. There are many ways that someone may get introduced to heroin, however, chronic pain conditions or a history of major surgery can be a red flag. Other signs that you or your loved one may be struggling with heroin addiction include:

• Manic episodes that include random bursts of energy and risky behaviors
• Increased sleeping 
• Rapid weight loss 
• Skin picking 
• Track marks, which mark needle injection sites, in the arms
• Scabs and bruising 
• Dry mouth 
• Paranoia
• Disorientation
• Unpredictable mood swings

Withdrawal from heroin also presents with serious symptoms, including:

• Restlessness
• Cold flashes
• Uncontrolled muscle spasms
• Nausea and vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Muscle or bone pain
• Extreme agitation 

These symptoms can be incredibly serious, and even life threatening, which is why it’s so important to reach out if you are worried about someone’s well-being.

Helping someone with a heroin addiction can be daunting. It’s important to protect not only your loved one but also yourself at this time. Tools for helping someone through addiction include:

• Fostering Open Communication: The first step in helping someone overcome addiction is being able to talk about it. Shame and stigma are huge obstacles when it comes to addiction, so helping to ease those in your relationships is an important step towards recovery. 
• Reaching Out for Support: Support from loved ones is a vital tool when helping someone recover from addiction. Loved ones can help you by lending emotional and physical support, but only if you ask them. 
• Seeking Professional Treatment: Heroin addiction can manifest with serious physical symptoms, both during active addiction and during treatment. Seeking professional treatment is vital to help heroin users detox in a medically-supervised environment, as well as address behaviors and underlying needs that drove them to heroin use in the first place. 

St. Simons By-The-Sea offers two programs that can assist you or a loved one in treating their heroin addiction – adult dual-diagnosis treatment and adolescent substance abuse treatment. 

Heroin use is often closely linked with other underlying conditions or other substance use, according to the CDC. This is why St. Simons offers a dual-diagnosis approach to substance use for adults. Our dual-diagnosis program helps to address underlying mental health conditions that developed either before or during active substance use. 

Our program uses the following tools to help patients confront their addiction and break the cycle: 

• Medical detoxification
• Frequent check-ins
• The 12-step approach to addiction
• Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
• Recreational therapy
• Group therapy
• Discharge planning

This approach creates a start-to-finish treatment plan, created and overseen by addictionologists. 

Substance abuse works differently in the adolescent brain than in the adult brain. While our programs use the same tools and approaches, adolescent program staff at St. Simons has specific experience in addressing the unique needs of teens experiencing addiction. Our program aims to not only help adolescents break out of addiction but to teach life-long coping mechanisms that can last into adulthood. 

St Simons By-The-Sea, on St Simons Island, Georgia, is here to help you and your family overcome addiction. Admissions representatives are available anytime, day or night, to perform a confidential intake assessment at no cost to you. Walk-ins are welcome, but we encourage individuals needing help, their loved one or their healthcare provider to call us first at 1-800-821-7224.

St Simons By-The-Sea is not an emergency facility. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, please call 911 and seek your nearest emergency room.