Drug Addiction - Consequences
The Many Consequences of Addiction
There are severe consequences associated with drug addiction. The more the individual uses drugs and alcohol, the guiltier he will feel, and the more depressed he will become. He will sacrifice his personal integrity, his relationships with friends and family, his job, his savings, and anything else he may have in an attempt to get more drugs. His relationships and job performance will go drastically downhill. He ends up losing everything.
Physical Consequences of Addiction
In addition to the mental stress created by unethical behaviour, the addict’s body also adapts to the presence of the drugs. He will experience an overwhelming obsession with getting and using the drugs and will do anything to avoid the resulting pain when withdrawing from them. The new addicted person began to thirst for the drug sometime before this occurs.
He now seeks drugs for what little “pleasure” he gets from them now. But he mostly takes them to avoid the mental and physical horrors of withdrawal. At this point, the drug addict is in a vicious dwindling spiral. The drugs he abuses have changed him both physically and mentally. And his life is drastically different.
Addiction & Drug Personality
There is such a thing as a “drug personality,” which is basically artificial and solely created by drug consumption. Drugs can change the attitude of a person’s original personality to one secretly harbouring hostilities and hatreds he does not allow to show on the outside. It also attacks one’s ambition and capacity to learn and once was a caring person who now seems indifferent. Such traits help us establish a link between drugs and increasing difficulties with crime, production, and the modern breakdown of social and industrial culture.
Quitting and Cravings
When the person initially tries to quit, his cells become used to large amounts of these metabolites are now forced to deal with much decreased amounts. (Metabolites are substances made or used when the body breaks down drugs or alcohol, which then gets trapped in the fatty tissues.) Even as the withdrawal symptoms subside, the body “demands” that the addict give it more of the drug.
Craving is an extremely powerful urge and can cause a person to create all kinds of “reasons” they should begin using drugs or drinking again. He is now in an endless cycle of trying to quit, craving, relapse, and fear of withdrawal.
Alcohol and Drug Addiction – Relapse & Cravings
Eventually, the body will again become used to having lowered drug metabolites. But, because deposits of drug or alcohol metabolites release from the fatty tissues back into the bloodstream for years, craving and relapse remain a cause for concern. Left unhandled, the presence of metabolites even in microscopic amounts causes a reaction as if the addict had again actually taken the drug and can set up craving and relapse even after years of sobriety.
Some drug rehabilitation treatments will address this aspect of addiction or alcohol abuse, while others do not. Finding the right drug rehabilitation treatment is crucial for successful rehabilitation.
