Drug Addiction Relief with Acupressure

This is the web page that will focus on Drug Addiction. This page will include background, research, articles, how to start using the points, blogs, facebook, twitter connections and all other networking information. This page will be open only to people who are part of the acupressure study program and are allowing us to assist them to get the best personal results possible and to track their progress.

The link to the points for relief of Drug Addiction are found below. In general you should include the points for Drug Addiction along with the specific points for the part of the body or type of Drug Addiction that you are working with.

Drug Addiction

Acupuncture & Alcoholism
One of the biggest obstacles facing alcoholics and drug addicts when trying to kick the habit is managing to overcome the withdrawal symptoms. However, one treatment that has been demonstrated to offer great help in the ‘drying out’ process is acupuncture.

In a placebo controlled study at the Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, eighty severe recidivist alcoholics were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group were given acupuncture at points specific for the treatment of substance abuse (treatment group) and the other group were given a placebo treatment at nonspecific points (control group).

Twenty one people in the acupuncture group successfully completed the programme compared to only one person in the control group. The results provide strong evidence to suggest that acupuncture could greatly enhance the success of alcoholic and drug abuse support programmes.

Controlled trial of acupuncture for severe recidivist alcoholism. Bullock ML; Culliton PD; Olander

RT Department of Medicine, Hennepin County Medical Center, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis. Lancet Jun 24 1989,

Acupuncture and substance abuse
Researchers at the North Shore University Hospital, USA investigated the use of auricular acupuncture to help treat substance abuse. Patients with comorbid substance abuse problems who were admitted to a psychiatric unit of a general hospital over an 11-month period were offered treatment with auricular acupuncture.

Subsequently and retrospectively, the medical records of the patients were examined to assess compliance, side effects, impact on course, and acceptance of discharge recommendations. The patient’s continuation of treatment in destination pro-grams was also followed.

All-in-all, seventy-seven patients were offered acupuncture: 30 patients refused or had four or fewer treatments (and were therefore used as a control group), and 47 patients had five or more acupuncture treatments.

The results showed that those patients in the treatment group did significantly better than the control group as indicated by the following findings:

• compliance with psychiatric/sub-stance abuse treatment on the unit was 75% in the treatment group vs. 20% in the control group,
• noncompliance or AMA discharge rate was 2% in the treatment group vs. 40% in the control group,
• acceptance of staffs discharge recommendations was 77% in the treatment group vs. 37% in the control group, and
• 58% of the treatment group patients remained in follow-up treatment for at least 4 months, vs. only 26% of the control group patients.

Side effects in the treated patients were negligible, and the researchers concluded that ‘auricular acupuncture appears to be a safe and inexpensive treatment modality that is easily administered and produces significant results’ and went on to recommend ‘its wider application in substance abuse treatment’.

Gurevich MI; Duckworth D; lmhof JE; Katz JL. Is auricular acupuncture beneficial in the inpatient treatment of substance-abusing patients? A pilot study. J Subst Abuse Treat (UNITED STATES) Mar-Apr 1996, 13 (2) p165-71