What Helps With Heroin Withdrawal?

What Is Heroin Withdrawal?

Heroin is a dangerous illicit opioid drug. It is synthesized from the drug morphine; also an opioid derived from the opium poppy plant. While morphine is a prescription drug that doctors prescribe to treat severe pain, heroin does not have any medicinal properties. Instead, it is exclusively a drug of abuse sold on the street and abused worldwide. In the U.S., heroin abuse and addiction are major public health problems. In 2019, nearly 20% of all overdose deaths involved heroin. Notoriously addictive, heroin abuse and addiction have been rising in recent years. If you are addicted to heroin and wondering what helps with heroin withdrawal, treatment is the most reliable path to lasting recovery.

Many people who are addicted to heroin started out with a prescription opioid addiction. They might have been addicted to codeine, oxycodone, or hydrocodone, for instance, and then gravitated to heroin. One of the reasons heroin abuse rates have risen in recent years is that legislatures and medical providers have begun working together to clamp down on prescription drug abuse–especially medications involving opioids. Those addicted to prescription drugs like hydrocodone or Fentanyl could no longer get them with the habitual ease they were once accustomed to. Consequently, they turned to heroin, which could be found with greater ease and also less expense.