The number of programs for substance abuse treatment in Hawaii has changed drastically in recent times. With so many types of treatments, it is not even that the much feared kind of treatment that it was almost a decade ago. In fact, back in those times the only way to rehabilitate a person from their dependency was the heartrending inpatient treatment.

The inpatient treatment had the patient settle in an unknown place isolated from their friends, families and their near and dear ones. These individuals had to adhere to a constant look through by the medical examiners. Because of the emotional and mental stress that a person had due to this type of substance abuse treatment, the withdrawal symptoms were too horrible to speak about and the chances of someone coming out of a rehabilitation program with their sanity intact were quite few.

Fortunately, substance abuse treatment in Hawaii has gone through a drastic change in the past few years. There are several types of medicines that are available for addiction treatment. With the giant leaps that medicine and science has taken, there is a vast difference between the medicines of yesteryears and today. In fact, today the medicines are advanced and do not have as many and as serious side-effects as the medicines that were used for substance abuse treatment in Hawaii some ten years back.

The advanced medicines today first aim at removing the person's dependence on the substance. In fact, there are medicines today that are prepared to help people who wish to overcome their alcohol addiction, like Antabuse. Once a person is taken through the Antabuse phase, they actually develop an aversion to alcohol, and that plays a large part in the person's final rehabilitation from alcohol. Therefore, people who are looking out for substance abuse in Hawaii, like alcohol, have it much easier than their counterparts had some ten to twenty years back.

There are other medicines that work with the replacement therapy. Methadone, for example, is used for heroin addiction in an effective manner. While a person is going through a Methadone phase, he or she will lose their incessant need for the substance that they are addicted to, in this case, it being heroin. Of course, such kind of replacement therapy has its disadvantages, namely that people may become addicted to the drug itself. Medical history is abound with stories of individuals who were addicted to a certain drug and have wrecked havoc to the world either under the influence of the drug or because of their frustration of not getting that particular drug. Therefore, the importance of these drugs be administered only under strict medical supervision cannot be measured.

In fact, these kinds of drugs are fraught with controversies and gray areas. For example, if methadone is administered to a patient for a fair amount of time, the patient may develop an addiction to the drug, complete with withdrawal symptoms, which will come up if the administration is stopped all of a sudden. Therefore, drugs like methadone should be offered only in an inpatient setting where the drug can be administered under medical care and surveillance. The quantity that is administered should be looked into, as soon as the heroin dependency decreases, so should the amount of the drug administered decrease too.

When it comes to buprenorphine, the alternative medication, there is no addiction for the drug. Since there are no chances of an addiction forming, Buprenorphine is considered to be a safer alternative to the other medicines. Therefore, Buprenorphine is administered to outpatient patients while Methadone is administered to the inpatient patients. Simply put, Buprenorphine has made outpatient treatment for several drug addictions quite possible.

Campral is another drug that has recently been looked into as a substance abuse combatant. Campral is mainly used in the removing substance abuse for alcohol. However, there are no confirmed results as to how Campral actually has an effect on the human system. Medical researchers are still going through the drug and its nature.

There are several other medicines that are available for the patients to be rehabilitated. These medicines not only help counter the addiction, they also help the body to regain its past strength and stamina and helps in strengthening any areas of the human psyche that have been affected by the substance abuse and substance addiction.

The other type of medicines is the aftercare medicines. These medicines are generally provided to the person in a bid to get the person back on track in their personal life, and also improve the functioning of any internal organs that may have taken a beating during their addiction, for example the kidneys and the liver.