A Texas drug rehab is the subject of today’s article. There can be many different ways that the disease of addiction can manifest itself. One can be addicted to street drugs or prescription drugs or even certain behaviors like sex or exercise. It is less important what your vice is. The important thing is that you begin to get help for your addiction.

Your Texas drug rehab comes in several varieties. You have a free drug rehab, a middle of the road drug rehab, and an expensive drug rehab. There are a number of options contingent upon your budget.

A major consideration will be whether or not you have medical insurance. Many types of medical insurance will cover some or all of your drug rehab in texas, however in some cases insurance will be of little or no help and you will have to pay out of pocket.

In Texas, a free drug rehab comes in two varieties. There are rehabs generally covered by the state government or there are rehabs that are operated by charities like the salvation army. The thing about a free rehab in Texas is that it will not have top facilities.

In drug rehabs, like in the rest of life, you often get what you pay for off. In a free rehab, the safety and cleanliness of the facility are often in question. Also you have the issue of the clients that are attracted to a free drug rehab.

In Texas a free drug rehab is just about the last resort of a person with a addiction or alcoholism. As a result these facilities often attract the destitute. Extremely low income people and homeless individuals make up the population at a free drug rehab.

As a result, many of the individuals that might need a drug rehab in Texas, are put off by these circumstances and don’t want to attend a free rehab because of the quality of the facilities and counselors. Never the less, people do recover in free rehabs. In Texas there are no statistics about what has a higher success rate, a free or paid rehab.

However, from my experience, I am confident in saying that a paid rehab seems to be more effective in treating addiction than a free rehab. Maybe this is because of the fact that some people often choose to crash in a free rehab because they have no place to go otherwise.

The next option up from a free drug rehab, is what I call a middle of the road rehab. You will not get the fringe benefits of an expensive rehab, but a middle of the road rehab can definitely help you achieve your goals of sobriety. But, remember in Texas, you get what you pay for generally.

Therefore, I am confident in reporting that a middle of the road drug rehab might be the best combination of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness.

You might expect to spend anywhere from $3,000 to $7,000 for these middle of the road rehabs in Texas. You can find high quality counselors with a lot of experience in recovery and of course a personal history of overcoming their own addiction issues.

The next option, up from the middle of the road rehab, is the high end drug addiction treatment center. In Texas there are not any “resort” rehabs. However, a high end rehab will be significantly more pleasant than a middle of the road rehab.

You can have a more comfortable bed as well as more amenities such as a swimming pool, more modern facilities, better food, and more access to psychiatrists and other health care professionals.

Additionally, texas drug rehabs vary in effectiveness. However, there is no evidence that a high-end rehab is any more successful than a moderately priced rehab in actually treating addiction. The thing about it is that a top-notch rehab is certainly not any worse in addressing your chemical dependency issues.

Of course the cost of rehab can be the main determinant in where exactly you can go to get help for your drug addiction. In Texas the a rehab can cost up to $30,000 for a five week stay at a place like La Hacienda in Hunt. If your insurance is not contributing to tab then that price can become unreasonable for many addicts and alcoholics quite quickly.

You need to weigh the cost of rehab carefully when picking one out. You don’t want to develop a resentment because it may lead you to relapse on drugs and alcohol down the road and that is the last thing that we would want.

I have also found that a Texas drug rehab can have some strange rules. While you must get access to a phone in a rehab in Texas there can be some funny rules about how you can use it. In some rehabs you only get a short time in which to make phone calls.

I’ve seen as little as fifteen minutes a day be set aside for making phone calls. Other rehabs will allow you to make phone calls at your own leisure so long as you are not required to be in group or a lecture at that time.

Other amenities can include sports equipment and how often you get to leave the facility, if at all. I have found that some Texas drug rehabs, will allow you to leave the grounds of the rehab with some regularity while others will completely prohibit you from ever leaving during your stay. This simply varies from rehab to rehab.

Often times, and nearly in every case or circumstance, even if the treatment center does allow patients to leave the rehab facility you will not be allowed to leave until you have spent a significant amount of time in the facility. In other words, the day that you arrive at the rehab, you should not expect to be excused to go to an outside alcoholics anonymous meeting.

There are a great many treatment centers to choose from. When choosing a Texas drug rehab it is important that you do your homework.

It didn’t take too long into my drug-using career for me to realize that I needed help for drug abuse. However, it did take a good bit longer before I actually did anything to help myself. I was too young, too self-sufficient to admit that I needed help for my substance abuse problem. I needed another couple of years of suffering before I was willing to accept help for drug abuse.

I’d always thought that I could dip my toe into the pool of illicit drugs. I, of course, never wanted to become an addict. I thought, maybe I can just use drugs occasionally. I’ll be a weekend warrior, I thought. And for a while I was able to contain my use.

I was slow in some ways to develop full blown addiction symptoms. I didn’t become an addict overnight and I sure wasn’t going to admit my problem that quickly either. For me, it was a slow progression from regular drinking to occasional marijuana abuse to heavy marijuana use to sampling harder drugs. Once I got to the street drugs it actually didn’t take too long for my world to begin to unravel. It was the getting there that took a moment however.

For me it was cocaine that eventually wrought havoc on my life. But it really doesn’t matter what your drug of choice might be. The progression generally follows the same path into greater despair and unmanageability.

Before cocaine I had been able to hide my bad behavior quite well I thought. I was drinking a twelve pack or more of beer a day and smoking marijuana about as often. I could sense, in all the little ways, that things were getting worse. There had been the DWI, the semesters I had to withdraw from college, and of course the frequent nights riddled with embarrassment. But I was just having fun, I thought.

But, if I was to be honest, I needed help for drug abuse before I even started abusing cocaine. I had become the picture of unmanagibility, but I wondered if anyone else had noticed.

Shortly before I first sampled cocaine I went to a meeting with a psychiatrist who himself is a recovering alcoholic/addict. I’d never discussed my binge drinking, pot use or general mismanagement of life with him. Still, he knew something was wrong. He asked me pointed questions about my drug and alcohol use and I answered half honestly.

He was alarmed. He recommended that I check into a treatment center, a drug rehab, for treatment of my addiction. But, it was too soon. I was not ready to listen. I calmly turned down his offer of rehab. I may need to quit, I thought to myself, but I certainly don’t need to check into rehab to do it.

Within a couple of months, while on vacation and at an inebriated moment, I was presented with the chance to try powder cocaine. I had this feeling that things had already gone to hell and I figured what do I have to lose?

As it turns out, I had a lot to lose. Though my drinking and pot use had progressed to the stage that professionals were suggesting that I enter rehab, I was still holding it together pretty well. I had even quit drinking and using altogether on my own for a short stretch. My finances were holding up and, though I felt terrible, I thought that I was managing just fine.

Everything changed when I first tried cocaine. Within a few short months, I had picked up a serious coke habit as well as nearly drained my bank account. I had found new “coke” friends with whom I had little in common and my behavior was becoming very erratic.

Within eight months of that first vacation use, things had completely flown off the handle. I was in a serious financial hole. I had lost weight and was beginning to experience concerning health problems. I was getting desperate.

But I was still too stubborn to accept help for drug abuse.

Looking back it was indescribable. I was miserable, I mean really suffering. However, I held on to my ego with both hands. If I couldn’t do this myself what kind of man was I?

Things got quite a bit worse and finally I called my psychiatrist and asked him about rehab. I felt so humiliated, so defeated. But, I was contemplating suicide I was so miserable. Things had truly hit rock bottom.

With my heart in my throat, I asked my shrink for help for drug abuse. I realized that somewhere, deep in my heart, I wanted to regain my hope for life. I knew that I could find it if I just gave myself a chance, a break from the three day binges, thousand dollar nights, and strip club ridiculousness.

He recommended a top treatment center and I packed a bag and made my way there. I was too defeated at that point to find my hope yet. I was simply hoping that if I could get away from the disaster that I drugs and alcohol had made of my life that I might give myself the chance to want to live to again.

What happened was remarkable. It wasn’t overnight and it wasn’t without work, but I found my hope at that rehab in Texas. Away from the hectic life I had been living, I got a break from the insanity. Within a couple of weeks I came to realize that my life had not always been a panicked hell.

There had been moments of serenity in the past. I had simply lost my way. It was a refreshing feeling that I obtained, learning once again that life can be worth living. I had regained my hope.

Going to rehab, actually turned out to be the best thing I had ever done for myself. It’s funny that I had needed it for several years before I finally got there. I was somewhat upset with myself that I allowed myself to waste so much of my life drowning in misery.

But, for me, it took what it took. I needed to fall down to the point that I was defeated, that I was willing to accept the help that was being offered me. Once, I got to that point I had nothing left to gain from holding onto my pride. I was ready to make a change.

There are several types of alcoholics. Today we are going to take a look at the functional alcoholic. Is there such a thing? Can functional alcoholics remain functional? Why do some alcoholics maintain their jobs and families while others end up destitute and living underneath a bridge?

First of all, alcoholics, and basically recovery people everywhere, believe that alcoholism and drug addiction are progressive diseases. Over any significant period of time alcoholics and addicts always get worse, never better. Therefore you may be wondering how a functional alcoholic might even be possible. If we are always getting worse than a functional alcoholic is just a few drinks away from failing to function. We’ll return to this thought in a minute.

In the meantime let’s address just what it means to be a functioning alcoholic. Do you think that someone you know and love might be one? Or perhaps you are worried that you yourself fit the bill.

A functional alcoholic is a person who has built alcohol into the routine of their everyday life. This person definitely drinks regularly, probably everyday and probably at a set time. However, believe it or not, the fact that a person drinks frequently, or even everyday, does not make that person an alcoholic.

An alcoholic is different from a hard drinker. A hard drinker may consume alcohol at what seems like proportions reserved for only the harshest of alcoholics. However, this person, the hard drinker, can often moderate on stop their drinking if presented with a serious enough reason to do so. This is a key point. The alcoholic can not do this on their own.

So, let’s say that you get off work everyday at 5:00 and by 6:00 you are working on a bottle or twelve pack that will carry you late into the evening. This is your routine and you stick by it religiously. You’ve never been to drug rehab or attended a 12-step meeting. Sure, your drinking may have caused you to get into a few scrapes but you haven’t had any serious consequences.

Then one day a serious consequence does present itself. Maybe your health begins to fail or perhaps you are faced with some sort of legal consequence. You decide it would be best to just quit for a while. If you make this determination to abstain from drinking and are able to successfully put down the bottle then you are not a functional alcoholic. You are not even an alcoholic. You are merely a hard drinker. Congratulations you’ve just saved yourself a trip to rehab!

However, and this is where the question from above comes into play, if you are unable to quit on your own when faced when sufficient reason to do so then you are in fact an alcoholic. Despite the fact that your drinking has not cost you a job or your family, the fact that you cannot abstain in the face of overwhelming consequences indicates you are an alcoholic. Welcome to the club…

So, can you be a functional alcoholic? I’m afraid not. Returning to the point from above, we believe (and all evidence strongly suggests) that alcoholics do not hold steady in the disease of addiction. The fact that you have never lost a job due to your drinking does not mean that you will never lose a job due to this affliction. You just haven’t lost a job yet.

And, on that note, it is extremely for alcoholics to retain their jobs and, to a lesser extent, their families long after the disease has progressed to the point that their performance has been impaired. The job is the last thing to go. Always! We’re very good at maintaining the things that allowed us to abuse alcohol and, considering our immense talents at manipulation and deception, we are generally allowed to hang on to things far longer than actually does us any good.

Like I said, over any significant period of time we alcoholics always get worse, never better.

It is possible for one to graph the consequences of one’s drinking. Perhaps thus far your consequences have been minor or trivial. But look to the trend. Are things getting worse? You can be a “functional alcoholic” for years but if you are honest with yourself you will confess that things have been deteriorating over time.

Now, remember that just because someone may drink frequently it does not necessarily follow that they are an alcoholic. If given proper reason, they may be able to stop or moderate on their own. However, I must also say that in my experience the “hard drinker” is a rare bird. Most people who drink everyday are not simply hard drinkers. They have a problem with alcohol.

And this brings us back to the point of the article. If you are believe you are a functional alcoholic I have some unfortunate news for you. You will not be functioning at your present level very much longer. Not to be downer, but it simply isn’t possible. For to be an alcoholic means that you are getting worse so long as you remain in active addiction. Therefore, functional alcoholics don’t really exist. The functional alcoholic is merely an alcoholic on a pit stop on the path to spiritual and physical oblivion or he is not an alcoholic at all.

So, if you are honest with yourself and see that over time you are becoming less “functional” than you used to be, I have good news. Alcoholism is a disease that can be arrested with proper treatment. There is no inevitable path to ruin, unless you leave the disease untreated. There are numerous rehab facilities that can get you your way. You simply have to look into them.

And if you are merely a hard drinker, if you merely enjoy your drink, then I say to you: Enjoy! You’re not one of us!

There are several signs of cocaine use and by keeping abreast of these signs you can more effectively determine if someone has been using the drug. As a person with a history of cocaine use, I can testify to the prevalence of these “signs” and symptoms. In my experience with other users and with recovering users in sober house settings, the indicators that a person is using cocaine have always been remarkably consistent.

The following are what I would consider the tell-tale signs of cocaine use:

1. Irregular Sleeping

Cocaine is a powerful stimulant and it is, quite frankly, impossible to maintain a normal sleeping schedule when using the drug. It is not uncommon for a user to go on a binge and stay awake for several days. Sleep becomes less important than maintaining the high and is frequently tossed aside.

Due to this, a cocaine user can live a roller coaster existence, being up for a couple of days or longer at a time and then crashing to catch up on some much-needed sleep. I used to use cocaine for several days without sleeping and then would require at least 24 hours to sleep it off.

Therefore, if someone seems to be doing without sleep for some time and then crashes out for day or so you may consider that a sign of cocaine use.

2. Selling Belongings or Stealing

Cocaine is very expensive — and that’s an understatement. Many addicts have abused their way through all their possessions including houses and cars. Once a user gets going, the costs can add up quick. So cocaine users are always on the prowl for money.

When I was a cocaine user, I valued none of my belongings more than my next high. Visits to pawn shops, title loan outfits, used clothing and books stores, etc. became commonplace. I was relentless in my desire to obtain more cocaine and therefore was always rolling my stuff over for some quick cash.

Obviously, the cocaine addict is unable to get “fair” value for many of these belongings. And in desperation they will often accept anything at all. As a result, cocaine addicts face a dwindling supply of products with which to sell.

If your loved one if a cocaine user, he may ask you for a belonging (especially if you are reluctant to give him cash) that he really “needs.” Be advised that giving an addict an ipod or an xbox is the equivalent to handing him cash since he is just going to pawn it anyway.

The same holds true for stealing. Addicts aren’t bad people by nature, but in the grips of addiction they will go to nearly any length to maintain their high. So it is not uncommon for items belonging to family and friends to go missing. This could be cash or it could be any item that can be exchanged for cash.

3. Sniffling

The signs of cocaine use can sometimes be obvious. Cocaine, if snorted, wreaks havoc on membranes in the nose. As a result of a heavy dose of cocaine abuse, a user may have the “sniffles” for several days afterward. Now, sometimes this may present itself as just a minor affliction, like that you might see in an allergy sufferer. Other times the sniffling is pronounced. You probably have noticed that your loved one is having some serious trouble with their nose.

When I used cocaine heavily I would need a box of kleenex by my side for days. I struggled with a mucus drip coming out of my nostrils and found myself sniffling frequently, about once a minute or more, to keep this mucus from running down my face.

It’s not pretty. Unfortunately, it is a reality with the disease of addiction.

4. Cocaine paraphenelia

There are certain items which, in and of themselves, are pretty good signs of cocaine use. Cocaine addicts require the tools of the trade. There are several pet items that a cocaine user is likely to have on hand in order to use the drug.

Here are the most common items associated with cocaine use:

• Straws and rolled up dollar bills. If your user is a sniffer then he is likely to have some sort of device in which to consume his drugs. Frequently, addicts roll up a bill or cut a straw in thirds. So be on the look out for these items.
• Aluminum Foil. There is a common phenomenon of smoking cocaine off of foil to obtain a quick high. A roll of aluminum foil in an awkward place is often a tell-tale sign of cocaine use.
• Baking Soda. Baking soda is the key ingredient (along with cocaine) in producing smoke-able cocaine.
• Razor Blades. Razor blades are ubiquitous in the cocaine culture and are used to cut up cocaine into lines among other things.

5. Weight Loss

Cocaine subdues the appetite and increases resting heart rate substantially. Therefore among the most common signs of cocaine use is dramatic weight loss.

A cocaine user, when on a binge, can literally go days without eating anything. Coupled with the fact that cocaine is a central nervous system stimulant, it is quite easy for a user to lose a lot of weight quickly. So, if your loved one is dropping pounds, and I mean significant weight loss, without exercising it is quite likely that they are using cocaine.

Those are the top five signs of cocaine use. After a lengthy struggle with cocaine addiction myself, I feel quite confident in providing this list to you. Of course, there are other signs as well. However, I believe that this list represents the most observable signs of cocaine use that you are likely to find.

If you discover that one of your friends or family is using cocaine, it is recommended that you consult a professional addiction counselor in order to decide upon the best course of action. Addicts can and do recover but it is often a lengthy and difficult process.

Please feel free to browse this site for more information about addiction and recovery. As a recovering addict and alcoholic, you can find information here that is based on my personal experience. As such, you can count on the fact that I will always “shoot straight” with my readers.