The heroin epidemic continues to grab news headlines from coast-to-coast in the United States. Heroin is an opiate, a drug made from morphine of the opium poppy plant. On the streets, people call heroin big H, horse, smack, and hell dust. The drug was first popular in the 1960s and 1970s, quieted during the 1980s, then experienced renewed popularity that continues today. At Santé Center for Healing, we offer a heroin addiction treatment program to help you overcome heroin addiction.

Heroin and Prescription Opioids

Heroin is an opiate grouped with prescription opioid painkillers, such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and fentanyl. Together, opioids present a destructive force sweeping America and claiming too many lives each day. This heroin epidemic touches the daily lives of two million people and their loved ones.

About 80 percent of people abusing heroin started their drug abuse with prescription opioids like Vicodin and OxyContin. This is a major risk factor of the heroin epidemic. Sadly, doctors continue prescribing prescription painkillers through hundreds of millions of these prescriptions per year. When the prescription runs out, those with opioid addiction who need an opioid addiction treatment program sometimes turn to heroin as a widely available, cheaper alternative.

Why People Use Heroin

As previously said, heroin is a type of opiate drug. Other opioids include prescription medications prescribed by doctors for chronic pain relief. Heroin and other opioids interact with opioid receptors in the brain. This is where the pleasurable high and pain relief people seek begins.

People start using heroin or overuse prescription opioids for pain relief, in self-medication of mental illness or for other individual reasons. Regardless of why they pick up the drug the first time, heroin is a one-way street to addiction and despair. For too many people, overdose means heroin was a one-way ticket to death.

Cost and availability drive people from prescription drug abuse to heroin. When doctors stop prescribing pills to these individuals or they cannot get enough pills to suit their growing addiction, heroin fulfills their need. Heroin is available in every community in America and costs far less than opioid medications, but delivers the same quality high.

People caught in the grip of the heroin epidemic and using this terrible drug suffer from the disease of addiction. Addiction is a chronic and relapsing brain disease. When addiction exists, your primary focus of every day is finding and using more of your drug. Two million people suffer opioid addiction and 600,000 suffer heroin addiction in the United States today.

Facts about the Opioid and Heroin Epidemic

One-quarter of people using heroin become addicted. More than 20,000 people died of opioid overdoses in 2015. About 13,000 died from heroin overdose during the same year. When you hear the opioid and heroin epidemics are deadly, this is what people are talking about.

Opioid overdose deaths, drug sales, and addiction treatment admissions all proportionately increased from 1999 to 2008. In 2008, the overdose death rate was four times that of 1999. Prescription opioid sales also increased by four times in the same period. Six times as many people entered opioid and heroin abuse treatment in 2009, as did in 1999.

Unfortunately, women suffer from heroin addiction differently than men. While more men abuse heroin, women are more likely to start from prescription painkillers and transition to the street drug. Women become addicted more quickly than men. Fatal heroin overdoses among women tripled from 2010 to 2013. There are now 1.2 deaths per year, per 100,000 American women.

All of these facts from the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s 2017 DrugFacts report show how dangerous heroin is for people using it. This drug is destroying too many lives and leaving sadness in its wake.

Treatment for Heroin Addiction in Texas

In Argyle, Texas, heroin and other drug addiction treatment programs can be found at Santé Center for Healing. Santé Center for Healing provides research and 12-step program based treatment for heroin addiction, as the facility has for over 20 years.

For professionals and other adults over the age of 18, the programs at Santé Center for Healing include:

If you or someone you love suffer heroin addiction and need a real chance of lasting recovery, Santé Center for Healing provides the individualized programs you need.

Call Santé Center for Healing now at 866.238.3154 for information about available programs and support. You can regain your life after heroin addiction. You just need the right help. Call today.