The Waismann Method was introduced in part one of this series as a procedure drug-dependent persons can go through to detoxify them from opioid drugs, among others. The method employs a combination of anesthesia, and the drug naltrexone allowing a patient to avoid serious withdrawal symptoms associated with the abrupt cessation of opiates. The procedure is also used to detox a person from other addictive drugs as well, using different medications, however.
Dr. Michael Lowenstein, Co-director of the Waismann Method in Beverley Hills, CA, is the leading provider of the Method who has helped thousands overcome their addiction to drugs. In part 2 of this 4 part series, a classical detox procedure is explained so you can get a better understanding of what is involved, and why it doesn’t work very well vs the Waismann Method.
The Waismann Method (rapid detox), is a procedure to detox a drug dependent person from the substance he or she is addicted to in a fraction of the time it takes for conventional detox. The patient, according to Dr. Lowenstein, is able to participate in post-detox treatment therapy much sooner, and with more effect, because addict’s minds are much clearer after the procedure. The method, compared to other forms of detox, appears to substantially reduce serious withdrawal symptoms that finds many addicts literally escaping from detox centers to get rid of the serious physical symptoms rather than suffer another nanosecond of the nightmarish detox experience.
Classically, detox procedures have a miserable failure rate due to the residual withdrawal symptoms remaining after the 3 to 7-day process. Typically using clonidine, a medication given to addicts during detox, the drug is intended to make the patient lethargic, and groggy by lowering the blood pressure, which is supposed to take the “edge” off the withdrawal symptoms. With a few Our Fathers, and Hail Mary’s thrown in by staff, the patient must endure anywhere up to a week of pure unadulterated hell. Unfortunately, it’s like making someone suffering from a heart attack run uphill, backward.
Other drugs are administered to alleviate symptoms i.e., diarrhea, runny nose, nausea, aches, vomiting, mental confusion, lack of sleep that can, and does produce hallucinations, cold-sweats, skin-crawl, lower leg syndrome, and cramps. But none of them actually works very well. Often, the procedure has the addict feeling worse than had he/she went cold-turkey. And then there is the debilitating loss of energy; weakness so severe it’s exhausting to breathe.
Is it any wonder then, why drug-dependent persons relapse rather quickly, even defiantly? The patient is expected to somehow participate in a learning environment, read, understand, and sign so much paperwork it looks like an office blizzard occurred, and disclose thoughts and feelings you hardly remember when well. let alone ill. So, here you have patients well done enough to stick a fork in, and serve, while physicians, nurses, psychologists, and a host of other support personnel, scurry about asking, strike that, politely coercing you, to participate in didactics, orientations, more signature marathons, encounter groups, and meetings with a counselor where you might have to write & talk about your life when you were still in your mother’s womb, plus memorize the 12 steps of NA or AA! Keep in mind, when asked to do this, or something similar, the neurotransmitters in your brain are missing in action, at war with each other, or rolling in like an 8-sided tsunami.
Most of the conventional procedures, including cold-turkey, have low success rates because the patient is put into treatment immediately following the detox, and unable to think clearly enough to get anything accomplished. By the time their heads clear up a little, (it can take months), the patient is done with that phase of treatment and sent home with an after-war, I mean aftercare plan, not having retained much but a desire to relapse.
In the 3rd of this 4 part series, the actual Waismann Method will be outlined, what it involves, the benefits, and risks, and why you might want to consider using it.
At the very least, the Waismann Method is another weapon in the arsenal against addiction. At best? It represents freedom. Freedom from the steely grip of drug dependence, and its final hand of judgment, death, if you choose to roll the master’s dice.
In the flow…
