The Need for Effective Drug Rehabilitation in Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a beautiful state with warm, friendly people. A drive through the state reveals sweeping expanses of well-cared-for farms, with cattle or horses or even buffalo scattered all the way to the horizon. Into this lovely, largely rural environment, it’s heartbreaking that drug abuse has invaded to take so many lives.

Oklahoma buffalo.

Over the years, the profile of drugs ending lives and destroying families keeps shifting. For many years, methamphetamine was the curse stealing away loved ones and dismantling them physically and morally. In the last several years, a growing prescription drug problem has outstripped the meth problem and is showing itself capable of taking even more lives.

Drug Rehabilitation Right at Home

That’s why the Narconon Arrowhead drug and alcohol rehab center in Southeastern Oklahoma is such a vital resource for the area. Readily accessible to any corner of Oklahoma or neighboring states, Narconon Arrowhead is located in a beautiful rural location just 20 miles north of McAlester. It’s situated in the middle of Arrowhead State Park, overlooking Lake Eufaula. The main lodge houses the clients and classrooms, and dozens of cabins on the property offer housing for personnel.

This is the perfect location for anyone in Oklahoma to find a new, sober life. Here, there is no time limit to one’s recovery. One person may be ready to go home in eight to ten weeks but another may need more time to recover from the trauma and pain of past addiction. Here, the intention that one is ready to face life’s challenges before leaving this supportive environment.

The drug rehab program at Narconon Arrowhead focuses on three main areas: A deep, sauna-based detoxification that helps a person begin to think clearly again; restoring one’s ability to leave the past behind and live in the present; and developing healthy life skills so that sober decisions can be made every day.

This is a fully drug-free program. No drugs are ever administered in withdrawal or during the recovery program and none are recommended after graduation. Of course, anyone with a medical condition would continue on medications recommended by his physician. But because of generous nutritional support and one-on-one work with supportive staff, our clients find that drugs are not needed, not even during withdrawal.

The exception, of course, is the individual who must withdraw under close medical supervision to protect their health and safety. This preliminary detox would be completed before arriving at Narconon Arrowhead.

Once they are rolling on the Narconon program, many of our clients wake up uninfluenced by either drugs or alcohol for the first time in years or decades. This is a whole new life for them. They quickly discover that a productive, enjoyable life without any substance use is the most rewarding way to live.

Painkiller Addiction is Widespread in the U.S.

A patient holds a handful of painkillers.

This problem is by no means exclusive to Oklahoma. It’s national, with the Northeast, Great Lakes and Midwest hardest hit. The problems start with over-prescribing. Doctors were taught to send patients home with a 30-day supply of pills, even for a minor injury or surgery that might cause pain for a few days. After a few days of taking pills, the rest went into the medicine chest where they could be found by someone in a vulnerable state.

Some people began to medicate themselves for physical or emotional pain. Maybe they had extra stress one day and they remembered how mellow they felt when they were on painkillers. Or maybe someone told them what a great high you could get from these pills so they went looking into their own medicine chests.

It could be that their doctor had them on these pills for legitimate reasons but failed to warn them they could get addicted in just a few weeks. However it happened, gradually the number of people dependent on these drugs grew into the millions.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than six million people a month misuse a prescription drug. That could mean that a teen took one of mom’s pills for a headache or it could mean someone has been abusing a painkiller for the emotional shut off it provides and now they can’t quit without severe withdrawal sickness.

A Progression to Heroin Use

In areas with high rates of prescription drug abuse, heroin trafficking normally follows. Chemically, heroin is very similar to the major painkillers—oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine and others. Drug traffickers know this and develop heroin smuggling channels into areas where plenty of prescription drugs are dispensed by doctors.

In Oklahoma, most trafficking still revolves around painkillers and methamphetamine but one statistic reveals an alarming trend. As was reported in 2015, the small number of heroin overdose deaths increased ten-fold over a five year period.

A scenic photo of the rehabilitation facility at Narconon Arrowhead.
Narconon Arrowhead at sunset.

As more law enforcement effort is put into shutting down the pipeline of pills to the public, it’s very likely that more heroin will make its way up from Mexico through Texas and then to Oklahoma City for distribution across the state. After all, those addicted to painkillers can just make the switch to heroin if their pill supply is shut down.

Narconon Arrowhead and the international Narconon network are proud to offer life-saving help to those who wish to put addiction behind them.

Contact Narconon today by calling 1-800-737-5250 for all the details on what makes this healthy way of recovering from addiction so effective.

Learn what makes Narconon Arrowhead the very best choice for anyone in Oklahoma or surrounding areas seeking an effective drug rehabilitation program for a new sober life.


Additional Information for Drug Rehab in Oklahoma