This video is an attempt to help you understand the effects of cocaine, how to help someone who may be addicted to cocaine and how to perform an intervention for cocaine addiction. Cocaine addiction help is still a big need in the United States with over 1,600 people searching for cocaine addiction treatment each month.
In 2014, an estimated 1.5 million American adults were reported by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) to be current users of cocaine. Over 900,000 adults in the United States were considered to be suffering from addiction to cocaine in 2014. Cocaine is a very dangerous drug and continues to be a problem in the United States, although garnering less media attention than the opioid drug epidemic currently happening.
The overdose rates for cocaine is such a concern today simply because Columbian drug cartels are hitting highest ever numbers. More people are overdosing on cocaine than ever before. The cost of cocaine has gone down, and the purity levels have gone up, making increase in the chances of addiction as well as making it more available to the American public. More and more people are making cocaine with heroin and other opiates, such as fentanyl, which also increases the chances of overdose.
Over 70,000 people overdosed in 2018. One third of those were attributed to cocaine addiction. And again, there’s a thing called what we call a speed ball, which is heroin and cocaine being mixed together and injected. This all increases the chance of overdose as well as increases the chances of addiction. And it’s more and more prevalent today’s time. So it’s actually, it’s a very big concern.
People that are familiar are with cocaine addicts and their behavior can actually use the addiction and the effects of the drug to their advantage. And a professional interventionist is going to know that the cocaine addict is going to be very chaotic, going to be very volatile, there’s going to be a certain amount of psychosis due to the lack of sleep and the lack of food and proper nutrition. But they can also use that to the person’s advantage because the drug is going to have the desired effect for a certain period of time. And then after a while, that effect is not going to be as powerful, and the person’s going to come down. Eventually the person’s going to have to get some food. Eventually they’re going to have to get some sleep. A professional interventionist should be able to do as best to time that to where he can use that to his advantage.
I actually have an example of that. A few months ago, I had a girl that was out in the Virginia area. She was a very high functioning addict, very intelligent person, but was highly addicted to cocaine. And we had gotten together with her family to plan the intervention. And we found out the night before that she had been up all night and hadn’t slept in probably, maybe even close to two days. So her sanity was going to be pretty much in question. So I decided to wait a day. I thought, “You know what? I’m going to see. She’s got to eventually come down in our best interest, in her best interest, to get some sleep.” So we waited an extra day and we went back in the next morning and she was more susceptible and accepting of talking to us.
When a person gets really high on a drug, when they come off of it, it has the exact opposite effect. We call it that the pendulum swing, back and forth. She gets really high, and then she comes down and she gets really low. And that’s when we wanted to talk to her. And she was very griefy, but also willing to talk and actually more accepting of needing to change her life at that moment versus being high on the drug. We ended up getting her in treatment that day after her telling us that she couldn’t go to treatment. Probably that day, probably at least 50 times we ended up a few hours later getting her agreement and I got her on a plane that night. But it was all due to the timing and using the negative effects of the drug to our advantage.
Learn more about our drug and alcohol addiction intervention course for families
Chapters
0:00 Cocaine Addiction Help
0:36 Cocaine Overdose Rates
1:40 What Can Be Done and How
3:13 The Pendulum Swing of a High
3:59 Intervention Online Course