The rise of fentanyl use across the United States has grabbed headlines and affected countless families and communities, including communities here in Arizona. Pinnacle Peak Recovery is here to help you better understand this powerfully addictive synthetic opioid and explore your options for treatment.
Between 2022 and 2023 in Arizona, more than 1.2 million residents aged 12 and older admitted to illicit drug use at least once a month.
Fentanyl is an opioid that is 80-100 times more potent than morphine. It is used to treat extreme pain or manage pain after surgery. Fentanyl is commonly administered through injection, but it can also be used as a patch or a lozenge (like a cough drop).
Fentanyl is also known for how it is used illegally. This type of fentanyl is made into a powder or sold as pills. Fentanyl’s strength makes it very dangerous, and this danger is made worse by the fact that some drug dealers mix fentanyl into their other products to make their products cheaper. These products can be cocaine, meth, and heroin as well.
Fentanyl binds to the opioid receptors in our brains. These receptors are the areas that control pain in our bodies. The more someone takes fentanyl, the more the brain builds up a tolerance to it. That tolerance can lead to using more fentanyl to reach the desired high, and the increased use can turn into fentanyl addiction.
Fentanyl use has grown aggressively within the last decade. Within six years, the involvement of fentanyl in opioid overdose deaths rose from 14.3% in 2010 to 46% in 2016. The trend of fentanyl being involved in overdose deaths is still quite staggering. Along with this, the death rate from opioid use also rose from about 47,000 in 2018 to over 49,000 in 2019. More recently, the fentanyl mortality rate rose within the past two years. Data has shown that there was a 63% growth in fentanyl mortality from 2019 to 2020.
While fentanyl has impacted America at large, it has also hit close to home. In Arizona in December of 2021, police seized nearly 1.7 million fentanyl pills and 10 kilograms of fentanyl powder.
One of the most tragic aspects of this is the fact that many people who have fallen victim to fentanyl might not even know that they did. Fentanyl being mixed in with other substances causes more accidental overdose deaths as people don’t know that it is mixed in.
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Fentanyl is potent and is very dangerous because of that. Fentanyl can also cause some side effects. These side effects can include:
Fentanyl can also have more serious side effects, even after using it just once.
Some of these serious effects are:
Something that can accidentally happen while using fentanyl is a fentanyl overdose.
A fentanyl overdose can be fatal. If someone is overdosing, immediately dial 911.
Fentanyl is so potent that even 2 milligrams of the substance can cause an overdose. Fentanyl overdose symptoms can include:
Pinnacle Peak Recovery offers state-of-the-art treatment for fentanyl addiction. Every client we have is unique, which means that they each receive unique treatment. However, most of our clients start at the same place: wanting recovery. We will begin with getting all the fentanyl out of your system, or detox.
One of the first parts of recovery from fentanyl addiction is the detox process. This isn’t an easy process, but Pinnacle Peak Recovery tries to make it easier for you. We believe in a holistic approach to fentanyl detox. This means that we don’t see detox as the only thing taking you to sobriety but one of the steps in the journey to recovery. We also don’t see detox as just physical. Detox is a physical, mental, and even emotional process, so our staff will help you cope with the pain and negative thoughts.
One of the hardest parts of fentanyl detox is the withdrawal process. The early symptoms of opioid withdrawal may include:
There are also later symptoms of withdrawal. These can include:
These are just a few of the possible opioid withdrawal symptoms, but these and the worst withdrawal symptoms are the reason we have medically supervised detox.
Our medically supervised detox program gives clients a safe space to have these symptoms as medically trained staff will be there to give 24/7 support and guide clients through this difficult portion of their recovery process. Because of how dangerous it can be to quit opioids “cold turkey", supervised detox is a necessary first step to safely recovering from fentanyl addiction.
The next step in treatment is usually inpatient services, also known as residential treatment. This form of treatment is when clients stay on-site at the treatment facility. Inpatient treatment can allow clients to focus on their recovery without any outside triggers. Inpatient treatment is beneficial because it includes 24/7 staff that can help with the detox process, individualized treatment plans, and arts and recreational activities as well.
Residential treatment can be short-term or long-term. Short-term stays typically last from three weeks to a month. Because of how brief the stay is, short-term residential treatment is usually an intensive program. This allows clients to still experience the recovery journey within a shorter time frame.
Long-term residential treatment can be anywhere from a month to six months, and can even go longer in some cases. This type of treatment works best for people who are severely addicted to a substance as that client can start to build life skills as well as coping mechanisms.
Pinnacle Peak Recovery offers outpatient services as well. Intensive outpatient programs (IOPs) are treatment services where clients commute to the facility as opposed to staying on-site. This type of treatment works best for clients who are still needing to balance their work lives. Typically, clients will transition to an IOP after inpatient treatment.
One of the therapy methods we use is dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), which focuses on teaching mindfulness strategies, learning how to deal with triggers in life without turning to opioids, and teaching acceptance.
Mindfulness is a strategy that teaches clients how to remain in the present moment, not worrying about what came before or will come after. Distress tolerance is also learned in DBT. This skill teaches clients how to cope with stressful situations by tolerating those situations and not trying to change what they are. Along with these skills, DBT teaches interpersonal effectiveness. This skill will help clients learn how to respectfully ask for what they want and how to deny someone’s requests as well. Clients will be able to express themselves in a much healthier way while still maintaining their relationships with family and friends.
One of the final blocks of DBT that is learned is emotion regulation. Emotion regulation teaches a person how to change intense emotional reactions that negatively impact their life and celebrate the emotions that lead to a more positive outcome.
Another therapy we use is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which focuses on teaching awareness of negative thinking and how to respond to difficult situations more effectively. Typically, a therapist practicing CBT will encourage you to open up and talk out your feelings. Don’t feel bad if this is difficult for a while. It is perfectly normal to struggle with discussing those feelings and challenging thoughts in CBT.
CBT is a form of therapy that is widely used and works on changing the behavioral and thinking patterns of clients. To change behavioral patterns, CBT might involve:
CBT will change your thinking patterns as well as you will learn about how to use problem-solving skills to deal with certain situations and will develop more self-confidence. You will also learn how to stop your thoughts from overtaking you and how to look at them realistically.
It is not uncommon for CBT to have “homework.” This homework would be practicing outside of the session what you learned in therapy. This could be writing down feelings as you experience them.
Fentanyl claims thousands of lives every year in Arizona.
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One of the most difficult parts of recovery is confronting the people that you affected during fentanyl addiction. Unfortunately, the people we end up hurting the most are the people closest to us: our loved ones. This is why Pinnacle Peak Recovery offers family therapy.
On both sides, there is pain. There is anger, resentment, confusion, and sadness. If those feelings aren’t addressed in the proper way, they can show themselves in different areas of the family’s life. Family therapy aims to have families air out their grievances so they can begin to rebuild the bridges that have felt broken.
Family therapy can address how the family was affected by the client’s addiction, and the client can address what they need from the family to help with recovery. Family therapy is a start toward mending those relationships and growing even stronger together.
Plenty of times, there is an underlying mental health disorder along with an addiction. These are called co-occurring disorders, and these are very common. Pinnacle Peak Recovery understands how common this is, which is why we offer treatment for co-occurring disorders, also known as dual diagnosis treatment.
About one-third of people dealing with mental health disorders also deal with substance use disorder (SUD), according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Some of the most common disorders that clients deal with are:
These are some common ones, but there are many more mental health disorders that clients struggle with while battling fentanyl addiction.
We treat clients holistically, which means that we treat the whole person, not just the addiction. We have an in-depth assessment so we can learn about the client’s history and find out what they might be struggling with. Tackling both the fentanyl addiction and the mental health disorder can help the client in the long run as they can begin to understand the underlying cause of the addiction more, and can get help for the mental disorder to find healthy ways to cope without fentanyl.
Substance use disorders can make the future feel uncertain, but it doesn't have to stay that way forever. No matter how daunting it may feel, healing is always an option. Our team has years of experience with substance use disorders and will work with you to make sure you find the long-term success you deserve.
Whether this is your first time or your 12th time seeking healing, our team will meet you where you are with compassion and evidence-based practices. Through our Proven Process we'll show you the way to healing. Give us a call now to get started.
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Other than as an intoxicant, fentanyl is used for severe pain, typically for severe pain after surgeries.
Fentanyl is one of the most potent substances that is known. It is 80-100 times stronger than morphine. Even a tiny amount (2mg, which weighs a bit more than a light feather) can cause an overdose.
Fentanyl is similar to other opioids such as morphine, but it is synthetic, or man-made, which means that scientists made the substance in labs using the chemical structure of opioids.
