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Drug Detox

A general detox refers to a process of cleansing the body from toxins., so by drug detox we are referring specifically to the toxins from recreational drug use.

When someone becomes addicted to a drug, then a medical detox is essential to prevent the occurrence of life-threatening problems that can occur during withdrawal from the drug.  Physical addiction to drugs is associated with the occurrence of drug withdrawal symptoms such as shakes, sweats, nausea, vomiting and delirium.  Sometimes these symptoms will resolve themselves after four days or so without a medical detox.  However serious complications such as epileptic fits, permanent severe memory damage and death may occur. 

A medically supervised drug detox minimizes the risk of nasty complications occurring, allows the patient to stop drug use more comfortably, and prevents relapse to drug use during these vital first few days. After completion of drug detox, the person needs to learn the skills to avoid relapse to drug use.  Learning these skills is usually referred to as drug rehab or drug rehabilitation treatment. 

This Glossary article was created on 10th December 2009