I am, in fact, a heroin user in long term recovery from addiction. Nineteen years, 34 abscesses, and eleven arrests ago, I had my last shot of heroin. I had been using opioids for ten years, heavily for eight of those. Like many users, my journey to recovery began in handcuffs
You're ready to kick opiates. Here's an opiate withdrawal timeline to help know what you should expect and when you should expect it.
The first three parts of this series focused on our brains – how we start to heal them in recovery. Equally important are the ways we can take care of our bodies in recovery, ways that also support our efforts to heal our brains and maintain their neuroplasticity.
In a nutshell, we create new neuropathways by establishing and practicing new habits. The more we repeat them, the more ingrained those neuropathways become. Here are four key elements of the process.
Neuroplasticity is how we learn to speak a new language or play a new instrument – and it’s also what recovery from opioids depends on. It's hard, but it's possible.
Your brain on opioids is more complicated than the egg in the frying pan. And as the opioid epidemic grows and treatment modalities evolve, it’s more important than ever to understand what, exactly, opioids do to our brains–and the long-term effects of opioid use.
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