A Elements Behavioral Health Guide to Drug Rehab
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Going to rehab for drug addiction is a daunting challenge. You have to face up to your addiction, entrust others with your care and get ready to face the future without drugs or alcohol. With such big and scary steps to take, the last thing you need is to be afraid of what happens in drug rehab. When you know what to expect and what you are facing, the whole experience will be less frightening and you can devote your energy to healing and getting sober.

What Is The First Step In Rehab?

What Are The Steps Of Drug RehabThe first thing you can expect to go through, no matter what kind of drug rehab you choose, is detox. If you are wondering what happens during detox, you are not alone. Many addicts find this to be the most frightening aspect of getting clean. It’s possible that the program you choose will expect you to go through detox before entering, but most offer detox services. To detox means taking the couple/few days necessary to stop using substances and wait while the last of them leave your body. You can expect to feel withdrawal symptoms during this process, including anxiety, irritability, fatigue, headaches, nausea and insomnia. However, many detox programs offer more comfortable medicated or holistic detox options.

What Happens During A Drug Rehab Intake?

Once you have detoxed, whether at your chosen facility or at a specialized detox center, you will go through intake at your rehab program. This involves being assessed by the professionals working in the facility, including a doctor or nurse, a therapist or psychiatrist, and other addiction specialists. You will also be expected to go through some paperwork. If you feel uncomfortable filling out and signing forms in your current state, ask if you can bring a trusted friend or family member along to help.

During this initial period you will also begin to shape your treatment plan. If you have chosen a successful drug rehab, you can expect to have a plan individualized for your specific needs. It will be based on the assessment done during your intake, as well as on your own input and should be approved by a doctor or nurse who will go over it with you. Your plan may change as you go through treatment and your needs change.

What Do You Do In Drug Rehab?

Once you have a treatment plan in hand and you have successfully detoxed, you will begin your treatment. The implementation of your treatment plan makes up the bulk of your experience in rehab. Make sure it is explained to you in advance, and don’t hesitate to ask questions about it so that you know what to expect. You will likely participate in daily counseling sessions. Some will be with just you and your therapist, while others will be group sessions in which you will be asked to open up with your fellow addicts in recovery.

You may also engage in recreational activities and educational workshops. These will be strictly scheduled so that you are always doing something and so that your downtime is kept to a minimum. This does not mean that you will never be alone or allowed to reflect, just that your time in rehab will be busy and engaging.

Direction For Your Continuing Recovery

Finally, as your time in rehab is nearing an end, you can expect to work with your therapist or other experts at the rehab facility to plan your future. The caring professionals with whom you have been working will not simply send you out the door hoping for the best. They will help guide you toward a future that is full of life and free of addiction.

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Smoking quitlines are telephone-based services that provide support and advice for people trying to kick the habit. In combination with the care provided by an addiction specialist or other qualified health professionals, use of one of these services can significantly increase the chances that a current cigarette user will successfully stop smoking. In a study published in May 2014 in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research, researchers from three U.S. institutions used information from a project called the National Adult Tobacco Survey to estimate how many U.S. smokers know that smoking quitlines exist.

Why Smokers Know About Smoking Quitlines, But Don’t CallIn the majority of cases, adult and teenage users of cigarettes in the U.S. and throughout the world are addicted to nicotine. Nicotine addiction is common among smokers, in part, because of the need to use the drug repeatedly in order to keep feeling its desired effects on the brain’s pleasure levels. Once a nicotine addiction is established, frequently repeated brain exposure to the drug also helps account for the difficulties that commonly appear during smoking cessation attempts. In fact, even people who eventually quit smoking typically fail to break their reliance on cigarettes/nicotine at least once.

Addiction specialists and public health officials know that the odds of achieving smoking cessation success go up sharply for people who seek professional help and use one of the proven methods for quitting smoking. These methods include nicotine replacement therapy, the use of either of two nicotine-free medications called buproprion (Zyban) and varenicline (Chantix), and the use of any of several forms of behavioral therapy or counseling.

Smoking Quitlines

Some people aren’t sure exactly where to turn when they make the decision to stop smoking. Others may lack some or all of the resources needed to secure help from a doctor or involvement in a smoking cessation program. Smoking quitlines are publicly available options that provide smoking cessation-related information and advice to anyone interested in pursuing smoking cessation, regardless of considerations such as place of residence or level of income. All 50 states in the U.S. have such quitlines established, the National Cancer Institute’s Smokefree.gov reports. In addition, some quitlines operate nationally. As a rule, state and national quitlines employ counselors specifically trained to give advice remotely and direct callers to appropriate sources of support in their local areas.

How Many Smokers Know About Quitlines?

The National Adult Tobacco Survey (NATS) is a nationwide project that tracks tobacco use rates, and also tracks the underlying factors that make it more or less likely that any given person will start smoking or continue to smoke after initiating cigarette use. In the study published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and UC San Diego used data from the most recent version of NATS (conducted in 2009 and 2010) to estimate how many smokers in the U.S. know that smoking quitlines exist. The researchers also used the NATS data to identify the demographic factors (racial/ethnic background, gender, socioeconomic standing, etc.) that make it more or less likely that any particular smoker will know about quitlines. In addition to checking awareness levels among current smokers, they checked awareness levels among people who used to smoke and people who had never smoked.

The researchers concluded that more than half (53.9 percent) of current smokers know that smoking quitlines exist. In addition, 34 percent of ex-smokers and 27 percent of people with no history of smoking know about quitlines. Among active smokers who try to quit, the groups most likely to know that smoking quitlines exist are women, people who have recently visited a doctor and people who live in states that devote considerable amounts of money to anti-smoking efforts. Conversely, the groups of active smokers interested in quitting who are least likely to know that smoking quitlines exist include people who make less than $50,000 a year, African Americans and other people of non-Hispanic/Latino descent.

Who Is Most Likely To Use A Smoking Quitline?

Despite the respectable level of awareness of smoking quitlines among active smokers, the authors of the study found that only 7.8 percent of active smokers who attempt to stop using cigarettes call a quitline. The groups of active smokers most likely to utilize a quitline are people who receive advice from a doctor, people who live in states with well-funded anti-smoking programs and African Americans and other people of non-Hispanic/Latino descent. Older adults form the single group of active smokers least likely to contact a smoking quitline. The study’s authors note that awareness of smoking quitlines among active smokers varies widely from state to state.

Discover Which Anti-Smoking Message Is Most Affective On Smokers?

A recent study from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) found that men infected with HIV who use methamphetamine may experience faster T-cell activation and proliferation. In other words, the use of methamphetamine may cause HIV to progress more rapidly to AIDS.

Who Was Studied?

How Is Meth Use Linked To Faster Progression Of HIVThe study looked at 50 men who have sex with men (MSM). The average age of the participants was 46, and each had been on retroviral medication for HIV for an average of four years. Forty-two percent of the participants were white, 20 percent were black and 4 percent were Hispanic.

Once a month for a year, the study participants completed a survey about their adherence to antiretroviral treatment and their use of various party drugs. Twenty of the men reported using marijuana during the study period, 16 used meth, 12 reported drinking alcohol, 11 used cocaine and 13 of the respondents used some other party drug.

The researchers also used frozen samples of a type of blood cell with a round nucleus known as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) to evaluate reservoirs of HIV DNA, cellular HIV RNA, and the activation and proliferation of immune cells named CD4 and CD8 (sometimes known as T-helper cells or T cells). HIV binds itself to CD4 cells, which multiply in order to help combat infection. In this way, the immune system actually makes more copies of the virus it is trying to destroy.

What The UCSD Study Found

The UCSD study found that the men who used meth had higher levels of activated and proliferating CD8 and CD8 cells, poorer CD4/CD8 ratios, and greater reservoirs of HIV DNA that had been incorporated into the genetic material of a host cell—proviral HIV DNA.

The study also found higher cytomegalovirus (CMV) load and shedding in the semen of meth users. While HIV is a sexually transmitted disease (STD), and sexual activity remains the leading cause of HIV transmission around the world, levels of HIV in the semen of an infected man are actually lower than the levels of HIV in the blood. However, HIV levels in semen are higher in a subgroup of men, and the UCSD study found that HIV levels in semen were more likely to be high in the men who used meth. A higher level of HIV in semen makes it more likely that an infected man could transmit the disease through unprotected intercourse. Previous studies have found that HIV transmission among meth users occurs at a higher rate than among other HIV-positive individuals.

Although the participants in this study reported a variety of recreational drug use, meth was the only drug that appeared to have any significant influence on T-cell activation and proliferation, and on levels of proviral HIV DNA.

In order to eliminate variables that could also explain the difference in the progression of HIV, the researchers selected MSM of a similar age, with similar baseline CD4 and CD8 counts, who had spent a similar amount of time on antiretroviral medications, and who were not infected with any other STDs that could contribute to the worsening of their HIV.

Researchers do not yet understand why the use of methamphetamine could speed the progression from HIV to AIDS or increase cognitive impairment among men with HIV. One possibility is that meth use corresponds with difficulty sticking to a regimen of anti-viral medication (although the men in this study who used meth reported similar rates of adherence as non-meth users). Risky behaviors common to meth users may also have something to do with speeding health deterioration among men with HIV.

However, the fact that the other recreational substances used by men in the study did not affect their HIV makes it somewhat less likely that risky behaviors associated with drug use will successfully explain the way meth affects HIV. It may be that there is some physiological cause and effect through which meth use directly promotes AIDS progression and increased cognitive deterioration.

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Opioid maintenance treatment is a form of addiction treatment that uses opioid-based medications as safer substitutes for heroin or other powerful opioid substances of abuse. The two medications typically used in this kind of treatment are methadone and buprenorphine. In a study published in March 2014 in the journal Addiction, a multinational German and Swiss research team explored the potential usefulness of an opioid medication called slow-release oral morphine as an alternative to methadone in opioid maintenance treatment. These researchers concluded that slow-release oral morphine appears to be at least as effective as methadone in treating people with opioid use disorder.

Opioid Use Disorder And Medications

Slow-Release Morphine For Opioid Maintenance TreatmentPeople affected by opioid abuse or opioid addiction can receive a diagnosis for a condition officially known as opioid use disorder. Some addiction programs use opioid-based medications as temporary treatments for this disorder in order to help their patients/clients avoid the immediate pitfalls of opioid withdrawal. Others use opioid-based medications as longer-term alternatives for people affected by opioid use disorder.

Both methadone and buprenorphine produce their drug effects inside the brain more slowly than heroin and other commonly abused opioid substances. In addition, they have a lower maximum effect than the typical abused opioid. During opioid maintenance treatment, doctors rely on these characteristics to introduce either methadone or buprenorphine as an alternative to the unrestrained drug intake associated with unaddressed opioid addiction.

When used in this context, both medications allow addicted users to gain control over their drug intake while simultaneously evading the onset of severe opioid withdrawal. Methadone has a stronger opioid effect than buprenorphine and comes in the form of tablets or oral solutions. Buprenorphine is often combined with a second non-opioid medication called naloxone (which helps reduce any risks for buprenorphine abuse) and comes in the form of a tablet or strip placed under the tongue.

Slow-Release Oral Morphine

Morphine is one of the primary mind-altering substances found naturally in a plant called the opium poppy, which acts directly or indirectly as the originating source of all opioid drugs and medications. Pharmaceutical companies throughout the world manufacture purified forms of this substance as treatments for certain forms of mild and severe pain, including surgical pain and the pain associated with various forms of cancer.

Some forms of morphine pass rapidly to the brain after entering the bloodstream and have a relatively short-term impact on the ability to experience pain. Other forms are designed to pass into the brain slowly over an extended period of time and provide longer-term pain relief. Slow-release oral morphine, also known as extended-release morphine, is a specific type of long-acting morphine commonly prescribed for the treatment of significant pain that doctors expect to continue for prolonged amounts of time.

Slow-Release Oral Morphine’s Usefulness In Opioid Maintenance Treatment

In the study published in Addiction, researchers from six German institutions and one Swiss institution used a project involving 157 German and Swiss adults affected by opioid dependence/addiction to examine the usefulness of slow-release oral morphine in opioid maintenance treatment.

All of these individuals previously received methadone as part of their treatment; for a total of 22 weeks, some of the participants received slow-release oral morphine instead of methadone. The researchers monitored each individual’s continuing involvement in heroin use with two weekly urine drug tests and compared the results of the tests gathered from the methadone users to the results of the tests gathered from the slow-release morphine users.

After completing their comparisons, the researchers found that the slow-release morphine users were slightly more likely to test positive for heroin use during treatment than the methadone users. However, the difference between the two groups was minor and insignificant. The methadone users also had somewhat higher chances of remaining active participants in opioid maintenance treatment than the slow-release morphine users. However, the researchers again characterized the differences between the two groups as negligible. In addition, the group using slow-release morphine did not experience serious opioid-related harm during treatment any more often than the group using methadone.

Benefits Of Easier-Access Morphine For Opioid Maintenance Treatment

The authors of the study published in Addiction concluded that slow-release morphine is apparently just as useful in opioid maintenance treatment as methadone. This is important, in part, because federal guidelines restrict the places in which recovering addicts can receive methadone-based treatment. The authors note that the usefulness of slow-release morphine depends upon the amount of the medication used during opioid maintenance. As a rule, the number of heroin-positive urine tests drops as the amount of slow-release morphine given to a patient/client increases.

If You Or A Loved One Is Struggling With An Addiction…Don’t Give Up, Help Is Waiting – Call Us Now

Helping someone you love admit to having an addiction and agree to get help is a big challenge. It can be tempting to lecture, nag, and even beg your loved one to get help, but sometimes what it really takes is a focused confrontation. When it seems like your loved one will never let go of denial or agree to get help, consider a group intervention. Before you throw one together, make sure you understand what it means to host an intervention, learn how to optimize the chance of success and consider what to do if it fails.

What Is An Intervention?

How To Stage An Intervention | Intervention PlanAn intervention is a planned meeting during which you and other loved ones confront someone who is struggling with addiction. While interventions have traditionally involved asking the addict to sit and be quiet while others talk, more recently they have become more like conversations. The more modern approach allows the addict to bring up his concerns and to ask questions in a safe environment. The idea is to not blame or shame the addict, but to make sure he understands how many people care about him, are worried about him and want to help.

An intervention typically includes a planned approach, specific examples for the addict regarding his behaviors and their consequences, and a statement from all of the participants regarding what they will do if he continues to refuse help. Participants may include family members, friends, coworkers and sometimes an addiction professional.

What Makes An Intervention Successful?

You can never guarantee that your intervention will be successful (success is measured by the willingness of the addict to accept and get help), but you can ensure the best odds of success by carefully preparing for the event. An intervention should start with thorough planning that includes participants, deciding what each person will say and even having an outline for how the event will proceed. Practicing ahead of time is also a good idea, as is asking each person to write down what he or she wants to say.

A good intervention should also include specific consequences. For instance, you might tell the addict that you are cutting off financial support if he refuses to get help. Each person participating should be ready with a consequence to help motivate the addict to accept treatment. It is also important to select the timing of the intervention carefully. It would be best if your loved one is sober, so choose a time and day that this is most likely to be the case. And finally, be ready with treatment options.

When To Rely On A Professional Interventionist

There are addiction professionals who specialize in planning and hosting interventions and if you feel that you cannot handle holding one on your own, consider consulting with one of these specialists. There are other good reasons to turn to a seasoned interventionist professional: if your loved one has a serious mental illness, has a history of violence, cannot be counted on to be sober for the event or if he shows signs of suicidal behaviors or attitudes. In these cases, confronting your loved one may be beyond your abilities.

When An Intervention Plan Doesn’t Work

As you prepare for the intervention, be ready for the possibility that your loved one will continue to deny his problem and refuse to get treatment. Make sure that everyone involved is prepared to follow through with the consequences that you are setting for him. If it means cutting this person out of your life because of the harm he is causing you, be ready to do it. Remember that you cannot control his choices or his behaviors. You can offer him all the help in the world, but only he can accept it.

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Treatment programs for people affected by alcoholism commonly feature medications, some form of counseling or psychotherapy, or a combination of medication and counseling or psychotherapy. Together, a medication called naltrexone and a form of therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy have been shown to produce beneficial results in controlled testing. In a study published in March 2014 in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, researchers from two Finnish institutions sought to determine if the naltrexone/cognitive behavioral therapy combination works as well in a less controlled setting that mimics a typical treatment environment.

What Is Naltrexone And How Does It Work?

Naltrexone And Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For AlcoholismNaltrexone is a medication that blocks access to sites, called opioid receptors, located on nerves in both the brain and certain parts of the body. When used in a person addicted to opioid substances of abuse, this blocking action prevents the characteristic “high” associated with narcotics. For reasons that researchers and doctors don’t fully understand, the same blocking action helps reduce the amount of pleasure derived from alcohol consumption, in addition to decreasing the intensity of any urges to drink more alcohol.

Together, these effects can help a person in recovery from alcoholism avoid relapsing back into a pattern of active drinking. As a rule, doctors give the medication only to recovering alcoholics who have entirely or largely halted their alcohol intake; doctors also typically use naltrexone as part of an overall treatment approach rather than as a sole component in treatment. The medication comes in forms that include tablets and an extended-release injection.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy is the umbrella term for a group of therapeutic approaches that focus on helping patients/clients identify and change thoughts and beliefs that can contribute to a range of harmful behaviors, including the abuse of alcohol and/or drugs.

Specific approaches that fall under this umbrella include rational behavior therapy, dialectic behavior therapy and rational emotive behavior therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy takes place in a limited timespan that usually lasts for about four months. Unlike some forms of psychotherapy that maintain a strict hierarchy between the therapist and patient/client, it features a shared process that calls on the patient/client to take an active role in achieving his or her treatment objectives. The objectives for any given individual are specific to his or her particular situation and self-perceived needs and wants.

Does The Combination Of Naltrexone And Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Work For Alcoholism?

In the study published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, researchers from Finland’s University of Helsinki and National Institute for Health and Welfare assessed the usefulness of the naltrexone/cognitive behavioral therapy combination as a treatment for alcoholism in a real-world environment. They chose this line of inquiry, in part, because of the relative lack of information on the combination in people actively receiving treatment outside of a controlled, experimental setting. During the study, the researchers gathered data from 315 outpatients receiving both naltrexone and cognitive behavioral therapy for a 20-week period. Measurements of treatment success included relative levels of alcohol intake and relative levels of alcohol craving among the participants.

After completing their analysis of the treatment outcomes, the researchers concluded that the naltrexone/cognitive behavioral therapy combination does not work equally well for all people recovering from alcoholism. Those individuals most likely to benefit from naltrexone and cognitive behavioral therapy were people who consumed relatively small amounts of alcohol before entering treatment. Conversely, the individuals least likely to benefit from the combination drank relatively heavily before entering recovery, had never been in a recovery program before and had a fixed pattern of alcohol consumption before entering treatment.

When Naltrexone And Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Works Best

The authors of the study published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse note that, strictly speaking, the combination of naltrexone and cognitive behavioral therapy did not fail to produce good results.

Instead, those individuals who fared poorly often did not take their prescribed doses of the medication, especially when they continued to engage in significant amounts of drinking while taking part in treatment. The authors believe that the fairly low rate of compliance with naltrexone use may pose a serious concern for the real-world treatment of alcoholism, especially among severely affected alcoholics.

Consequently, they also believe that alcohol programs may need to use a more comprehensive set of treatment options in order to help heavily affected alcoholics improve while in recovery. On a related note, doctors can use the extended-release, injectable form of naltrexone (Vivitrol) to overcome some of the problems with medication compliance.

Read Our Other Alcoholism Treatment Posts

Stimulants are drugs that increase your metabolism, heart rate and blood pressure. They make you feel alert, keep you awake, can help you focus, and may cause you to lose your appetite and lose weight. Among drugs that are abused, the amphetamine class of stimulants is both popular and dangerous. In terms of methamphetamine vs. amphetamine, it can be difficult to distinguish between the two, yet there are important differences.

Amphetamine and methamphetamine are prescriptions that help many people, but which also have a high potential for abuse. Another member of this class of drugs, methcathinone, has no clinical use, but has been discovered by abusers and is growing in popularity. It is important to learn about these common, but dangerous stimulants, especially if you are the parent of teens.

Amphetamine vs. Methamphetamine

Differences Between Amphetamine, Methamphetamine, And MethcathinoneAmphetamine is a stimulant drug from which all other members of its group are derived. It is the base drug. As a stimulant, amphetamine acts on the central nervous system. It is most often prescribed for children with ADHD. It helps them to focus. Amphetamine is commonly abused by high school and college students as a study aid. It produces wakefulness and focus, which makes it a desirable tool for studying long hours. The risks, however, are great. Amphetamine causes side effects like nausea, headaches, shaking, insomnia, nervousness and more. It is also highly addictive.

Methamphetamine is similar to amphetamine. Like amphetamine, it is a stimulant that increases wakefulness and alertness. It is less often prescribed for ADHD and in rare cases can be used to treat obese patients. Methamphetamine is prescribed less often than amphetamine because it is more harmful. It can cause lasting damage in the brain with long-term use and is extremely addictive. Because prescriptions for methamphetamine are scarcer, users often get it from amateur meth labs. Abusers of meth use it to get a high rather than to study.

Methcathinone vs. Methamphetamine

Another member of the amphetamine stimulant class of drugs, methcathinone, is similar to methamphetamine. Unlike meth, however, it has no clinical use. It is a Schedule I drug in the U.S. because it is dangerous and addictive. It is not prescribed to treat any medical conditions. Methcathinone is chemically very similar to methamphetamine and is also a stimulant.

Like both amphetamine and methamphetamine, methcathinone suppresses the appetite, increases wakefulness, heart rate and energy, and produces alertness in the user. The sense of euphoria that also comes with taking the drug is the main reason people abuse it. The feeling is described as being less intense than that imparted by methamphetamine. As with methamphetamine, methcathinone causes long-term damage and is highly addictive.

All members of the stimulant class of drugs have potential for abuse, but amphetamine, methamphetamine, and increasingly methcathinone are among the most common. Teens and young adults are often drawn to these drugs for either the high, the potential for a study aid, or both. Adults and parents should be aware of these drugs and the harm that they can cause.

If You Or Someone You Love Is Struggling With Stimulant Abuse, Call Us Now – Help Is Available 24/7

Every mother-to-be wants the best for her future child, but when you struggle with drinking that means making a big sacrifice. If you drink a lot and have wondered if you have a drinking problem, and suddenly find out you’re pregnant, it’s like a big and important wake-up call. Now is your chance to get sober and do what is best for you and your baby.

Have I Already Hurt My Baby With Drinking?

How To Stop Drinking When You Become PregnantMany women who get pregnant without having planned for it worry that they have already caused harm by drinking during their early stages of pregnancy. While it is best to not be drinking at all, the most important thing is to stop drinking as soon as you find out. Not all experts agree on just how much alcohol can cause harm to a fetus, but the first few weeks are a time of rapid development. That being said, many women do go on to give birth to perfectly healthy babies.

The real issue is what can happen if you continue to drink throughout your pregnancy. Any amount of alcohol can impact your child and cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. These are preventable illnesses that produce a variety of symptoms in a child whose mother drank during pregnancy. Possible symptoms include unusual facial features, low body weight and small size, poor coordination, hyperactivity, learning disabilities, delays in developing speech and language skills, sleep difficulties, vision and hearing problems, and even organ damage.

How Do I Stop Drinking?

There is no point in feeling guilty about having already consumed alcohol while pregnant. Now is the time to cut yourself off completely, no matter how difficult that may be. Of course if you feel you can’t do it, no matter the risk to your child, turn to addiction professionals to help you get sober and monitor both your health and that of your baby.

If, on the other hand, your problem is not that severe, there are some steps you can take to make giving up alcohol a little easier. First, associate and socialize more with people who don’t drink or in situations where there will be no alcohol. Going to parties where everyone is drinking will make quitting much more difficult.

Learn how to make fantastic virgin drinks. Cocktails are huge right now and there is no reason you can’t join in on the trend. There are plenty of resources available to help you find recipes for delicious mocktails. Or, get creative and come up with your own recipes.

If drinking has been a habit that helps you relax and unwind at the end of the day, replace it with a healthier way to de-stress. Exercise is a wonderful way to relax, and also for you and your baby to stay healthy. Just be sure that you keep your doctor in the loop in case certain types of exercise should be avoided. You can also relax by engaging in a hobby, reading a good book, taking a nice long bath or by meditating.

Giving up alcohol for the health and safety of your baby may be the most important thing you ever do. It won’t be easy if you have made a habit of drinking too much or regularly, but it is doable. Just remember that if you really struggle to get on the wagon, professionals are available to help you.

Learn More – Why Do Women Continue To Drink During Pregnancy?

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