Addicted to morphine: what to do?

Those who spend long periods of time in the hospital receiving morphine can become addicted to this painkiller. For example, morphine is used as a painkiller after surgeries and during cancer treatments. It is incredibly nice when everything ends well, but in some cases patients leave with an addiction to this painkiller. Some people may be prescribed morphine due to pain, but when the symptoms are gone there is no longer a need to take morphine. It is then important to taper off, but that is sometimes easier said than done. In some cases, even the anesthesiologist himself may be addicted to the morphine intended for his patients.

To help you get rid of your morphine addiction, in this blog I discuss treatment against morphine addiction.

Tapering off morphine is important

First, I would caution you not to quit morphine in 1 sitting. In fact, this can have considerable side effects, such as memory loss.

An acquaintance of mine experienced this firsthand when he was in a German hospital for a specific operation. In fact, he was given morphine after the operation. At some point he wanted to go home and was told that he would have to stop the morphine first. Because he wanted to go home quickly, he decided to stop all at once.

Then he took a nap, woke up and didn't remember who he was or where he was. At some point he did realize he was in a German hospital, but he didn't know what for either. So he escaped from the hospital like a real James Bond, to his mind.

He had made it all the way to the exit. Then he realized his stomach was bothering him. Lifted up his shirt, saw the bandages and drainage and decided that apparently he was in the hospital for a reason.

So he sneaked back into the room he came out of and pressed the button for the nurse. Fortunately, when the latter called his name, he remembered everything and played for keeps. For he still wanted to go home quickly.

That evening, the head doctor came by and told him that he had done handsomely with the withdrawal symptoms that day.

This also says something about how difficult and dangerous it is to quit in 1 go. Because although that acquaintance was feeling like sneaky James Bond at the time, the doctors had been watching him closely. If he had continued walking he probably would have been stopped for his own safety.

This is actually the least severe withdrawal symptom. People who have been using morphine long-term may also experience suicidal thoughts, heart attacks, strokes, epileptic seizures, and dehydration if they stop abruptly. You could even end up with epilepsy as a result.

In this story of my acquaintance, he was only using morphine for 5 days. So you understand that you can expect a lot more if you are really using morphine for weeks or months.

Morphine Tapering

So it is important to phase out the amount of morphine. You always do this in consultation with your doctor, especially if you are going into rehab at home where a whole team of medical specialists cannot monitor your amnesia adventures, it is important to stick to this dose reduction.

Of course, you may feel that you do need more morphine than your doctor currently allows you to have. That can be incredibly annoying.

To help stay off morphine, it’s important to deal with pain in a different way than you have up to now. Because of your addiction, you may think you have to suppress every little ache with morphine, even though that’s not always necessary.

Movement

Physical exercise can help you avoid taking morphine until the next moment in your schedule. Research on rats born to addicted rats shows that exercise can help reduce behavioral disorders.

Annoying thoughts can be thought away through exercise, for example, because you need to focus more on your body to avoid losing your balance, for example.

In the process, exercise can also activate the reward system in the brain, just as morphine does.

Coping with pain change

Research published in 2016 shows that morphine can lower the pain threshold. Rats given morphine subsequently had different functioning of neurons that indicated pain.

Researchers therefore indicate that this has important implications for the long-term use of morphine because it can lead to chronic conditions, such as chronic pain—even though that’s exactly what you’re trying to get rid of.

Therefore, it is important to experience pain in a different way. Hypnotherapy is widely used to change pain experience. This does not automatically mean that the pain will go away, but it does mean that you will be less bothered by it.

For example, one technique used in hypnosis is visualizing a kind of volume knob. With that knob, you can turn the pain louder and softer. This allows you to suffer less from the pain.

The first time you practice this with a hypnotherapist. After that, you can perform this exercise during self-hypnosis in your own home, or whenever you see fit.

In addition, you can also use visualizations in which you visualize yourself relaxing in a nice environment, such as on the beach in a nice warm sun or just in the woods if you prefer.

This visualization helps you relax and take your mind off the pain for a moment.

Mindfulness to reduce morphine

Something else to watch out for is that you're going to tend to just take morphine a little earlier. This is basically giving in to your addiction.

Mindfulness can be very helpful in suppressing such impulses. By being in the here and now with your thoughts, you can better focus on what you are working on then. If you are winding down, though, this can take a lot of effort.

Over time, however, mindfulness can become a kind of automaticity, making you more resistant to impulsive decisions.

In the process, it also reduces stress which also reduces your tendency to use morphine.

Reducing Stress

If you have a high-stress profession and have access to morphine, the stress can be a trigger to use morphine. The influence of morphine then makes you feel that the sharp edges of your work are suddenly not so sharp.

For example, do you often work with people whose emotions run high? Then that nice, numbing feeling can be a relief when someone else is being extremely emotional toward you.

Yet this is not the right way to deal with emotions of yourself or others. In fact, this can also influence your behavior causing you to do things that are actually unacceptable.

It is therefore important to reduce stress in order to decrease the need for morphine.

Reduce stress with hypnosis

Reducing stress can also be done with hypnosis. First, it is then important to find out what is causing stress. This may be due to traumatic events in the past, for example, because you were not able to do your job well at one time or it may be due to beliefs you have about how you want to do your job.

For example, someone working in healthcare might think they always have to be empathetic toward clients, but it is precisely in healthcare that people can suffer from compassion fatigue.

Hypnosis can then help explore and change the beliefs that cause stress. The change can then be about, for example, how important the belief is. If the belief becomes less important, it can already create less stress.

In addition, a hypnotherapist can help you develop new beliefs that counteract stress. This can be achieved, for example, through regression therapy or through hypnotic suggestions.

These hypnotic suggestions can include:

When I'm sober I can think better

When I'm sober I make fewer mistakes.

People understand that I am also a human being and not a robot.

I am also allowed to have emotions at work.

These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. Depending on your beliefs or stress triggers, you may receive other suggestions from your hypnotherapist that are more applicable to your situation.

Reward system changes

With opiates, which is morphine, it is important to reward yourself if you manage to stick to the morphine tapering process. When you find that after 1 week you have stuck to your phasing out schedule, you can reward yourself by going out to dinner, to a movie or to those shoes or clothes you have been wanting for a long time.

Because morphine also affects the reward system when you take it, not taking morphine feels like punishment. So to eliminate those negative feelings, you have to put another reward in return.

Want to learn more about how hypnosis can support treatments? Then come to a playshop or check out Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training programs .

Sources:

http://rcm.mums.ac.ir/article_4346.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4037328/

http://journals.lww.com/anesthesia-analgesia/fulltext/2015/05000/Anesthesiologists_and_Substance_Use_Disorders___An.41.aspx

http://journals.lww.com/anesthesia-analgesia/Fulltext/2014/11000/Anesthesiologists_and_Substance_Use_Disorders.2.aspx

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938414005150

http://www.pnas.org/content/113/24/E3441.short