Sleeping Pill Addiction Treatment

All NHS GP surgeries are private companies, contracted to the NHS through service commissioners. 

NHS commissioners monitor data (not your private medical records) with regards to the prescribing of sleeping pills. 

In line with national guidelines, GP’s are encouraged to reduce unnecessary prescriptions of sleeping pills. 

Your GP will invite you in for a consultation to discuss your prescription and agree a reduction plan. 

If you keep missing this appointment they will reduce your prescription without your involvement. 

 

Sleeping Pills, as they are designed to do, work on receptors in your brain to alter chemical messaging. 

If you take them for more than two weeks, on average, your brain becomes used to them. In order to protect itself, the brain alters the way it works. 

This means you have reached a state known as tolerance. 

When this happens, you will need higher doses to have the same effect as the dose you started with. 

If you stop taking them suddenly (or reduce too quickly) your brain won’t be able to adjust in an instant. While it does, it will fire off incorrect chemical messaging. It is this that causes the symptoms of withdrawal. 

 

 

No. 

This is extremely dangerous and, in some cases, can be fatal. 

Forget what you see on television and in the movies. 

Locking yourself in your bedroom with a case of bottled water, some toilet roll and a bucket is not going to work. 

Even if you were able to sustain the symptoms of withdrawal, your brain is going to tell you what you already know: That the quickest way to stop you feeling ill is to take some sleeping pills. 

The problem is that, despite your brain not being back to normal it’s ability to process sleeping pills has reduced: Dramatically. 

You will take an amount you think you need to settle yourself. This is where you run the risk of an overdose. 

While there are emergency medications that can be given, if you are at home, will you be able to call an ambulance? 

There is a saying, within addiction treatment that: “Addiction is addiction and rehab is rehab”. This is very true. 

All addiction, regardless of what caused it and what it is you are addicted to, is treated in the same way. 

There are four elements to addiction treatment: 

• Detox:  A medically supervised detox using the appropriate medication. Overseen by an addiction clinician and supervised by qualified staff. 
• Therapy: Addiction is a symptom of an underlying problem. Understanding what caused that problem puts you in a much better place to overcome them
• Relapse prevention: If you are able to tackle triggering situations when you go home, you are far more likely to stay abstinent and enjoy an active recovery
• Aftercare: All centres provide a minimum of a years post treatment weekly support groups.

Yes. 

As clinicians, we always recommend  a group therapy approach when going into rehab.

Why? Because it works. Group therapy has been the mainstay of addiction treatment for just under one hundred years. 

However, we appreciate that some people want an alternative. 

There are a small number of centres that offer a solely individual therapy model. 

We can signpost you to one. 

Possibly. 

Safety is the overriding deciding factor. 

Usually, it would not be safe to have a home detox for sleeping pill addiction. 

While in house nursing can be arranged and your case managed by a consultant psychiatrist (addiction specialist) this can become very cost prohibitive and far more expensive than residential rehab.

Call and speak to an addiction clinician for free and confidential advice. We can signpost you to a specialist clinician who can help you though we do not provide this ourselves. 

No. 

The 12 steps have been used for over ninety years to help people achieve and maintain abstinence. 

You do not have to follow any religion to take part in the 12 step process. 

While most centres use a 12 step approach, some use a SMART approach or an eclectic model. 

As clinicians, we would always advise a centre that uses a group therapy model. However, we recognise that some people find this too overwhelming and prefer one to one therapy. Thus we can signpost you to centres that don’t use groupwork. 

No. 

Find me a Rehab is a clinician led advisory, signposting and referral service. It’s clinicians discuss your situation and help identify appropriate private, outpatient or statutory services. Advice and referrals are free to the person seeking help. 

In rehab, the therapy programme is a rolling one. 

You can be admitted on any day of the week and join the programme. Some centres admit at weekends.

The time you spend in rehab is guided by your detox needs. 

No centre will admit you for less than a week and will the minimum amount of time they will admit you for depends on the length of time your detox will take. 

While it is not an exact science, an experienced addiction clinician will know how long it will take. 

You may be able to reduce costs by reducing at home (with the consent and involvement of your GP) and then go into rehab for the last hurdle. 

Yes. 

As clinicians we would not recommend you do this but understand why you want to. 

A detox, alone, does not address the reasons that led you to addiction. 

Without therapy, relapse prevention and aftercare, a relapse is inevitable. 

However, treatment options are yours to make. 

A standalone detox is possible but is going to be far more costly than detox and rehab as only private hospitals provide this treatment or boutique rehab centres in London. 

Our clinicians can signpost you. 

 The cost for a weeks admission starts at £1,975