Addiction Archives - Page 4 of 8

Mental Health Month: A Critical Eye on How Drugs Affect the Mind

Posted on May 9, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Drug addiction is a scourge – but we must rationally separate the disease from the person. For decades, this country has operated under the guise that addiction corrupts people and marks them as worthless to society due to their inability to provide economically. It gives up on many who become addicted, and in general, society looks towards people struggling with addiction as flawed or dangerous, or both. Despite advances in human rights, there is still a powerful stigma against not just addiction itself, but those whose mental health suffers under it.

Rectifying this is paramount to a society where addiction is less of a problem, and potentially eliminated. Often, addiction is identified as a chronic brain disease and can affect mental health. While food and sex addiction exist, it is very rare and separated from drug addiction through the distinction of addictiveness. Things like sugar, sex and gambling can turn into an emotional dependency, but physical dependency to drugs like alcohol and heroin is caused by how your brain interprets and reacts to these substances.

Understanding how the brain reacts to drugs – and understanding the mental health of people struggling with addiction – can help people distinguish the disease from the person, and set aside moralistic ideas for a better, more scientific approach.

Drugs And Your Mental Health

Drugs affect the your mental health because they bind to specific receptors in your brain’s cells. Basically, the structure of a cell is as such that it has certain ports for the entry and exit of different intracellular elements. In the brain, brain cells have ports that receive neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters affect the way you feel and think and play a role in many other physical and autonomous functions.

What drugs do is they bind to the cells in the guise of natural neurotransmitters, thus making you feel a certain way.

Taking alcohol as an example, once alcohol enters the bloodstream, some of it passes through the blood-brain barrier – a special membrane to keep most foreign elements out of the brain – and it attaches itself to the neurons’ GABA, serotonin, NMDA (memory) and acetylcholine receptors. GABA is a neurotransmitter that affects the way you move – as an agonist, alcohol’s effects on the brain through the GABA receptor lead to slurred speech and trouble walking.

As it also binds to serotonin, on top of releasing your inhibitions and slowing you down, it also makes you feel good – being tipsy is the combination of alcohol’s effect on your chemical happiness, combined with the way it alters your brain’s ability to control movement.

A separate effect happens with each drug commonly used today. Opioids slow the body’s respiratory system and numb pain, while inducing euphoria. Stimulants like cocaine give you a massive jolt in both happiness and motivation, while taxing the heart muscle and reducing appetite.

These drugs are all highly addictive, and completely different from hallucinogens like LSD or magic mushrooms, but all impact your mental health in a negative way.

How Addiction Starts

Psychoactive drugs include anything that manipulates or changes the way you think drastically. Sugar isn’t psychoactive, even though the consumption of sugar naturally releases endorphins. Caffeine, however, is psychoactive, even though its effects while consumed as a beverage like coffee or tea are negligible and cannot be classified as clinically addictive.

LSD is also psychoactive, but not addictive – while it also binds to the serotonin receptors in the brain, LSD has not reportedly been the cause of any overdose or addiction, and its main attraction is its ability to induce vivid visual hallucination.

What sets drugs like alcohol and heroin aside from the rest is the sheer overwhelming power with which it attacks your brain. Caffeine can make you feel a bit more productive and increase anxiety slightly at high dosages, but alcohol will change the way your brain functions and alter your brain’s structure through repeated excessive use. The same goes for heroin, cocaine, nicotine, and other addictive drugs. Their effects cause the brain much stress, and as a coping mechanism, it tries hard to develop a tolerance against said mental health effects.

This tolerance backfires, however, as it also deadens your brain towards many other sensations. In short, as an addiction progresses, it becomes the only thing in life that still satisfies you, and this produces an emotional and psychological obsession that affects your mental health. Addiction is born.

Why Addiction Is Hard To Beat

Addiction is a matter of both emotional and physical dependence. As an addiction progresses, the brain and the body have a harder and harder time to let go of the drug and live without it. Attempting to do so without waning off first might lead to symptoms of withdrawal, which range from flu-like with drugs like heroin, to possibly fatal for drugs like alcohol.

Emotionally, addiction either causes or is caused by a need to escape from reality, making the prospect of completely committing to reality through sobriety both very daunting, and not very attractive.

Getting high keeps you happy and staves off the shakes and the pain. Going sober only makes your body crave the drug more, to the point where you feel like a thirsty man in a hot desert, with no sign of water or civilization in view anywhere, on any horizon.

The mental health and motivation necessary to overcome that feeling must be immense, which is where addiction treatment jumps in.

Getting The Help You Need

Addiction treatment has come a very long way from the days of old, and we’ve developed countless psychiatric and medical tools to help combat the effects of addiction, in some cases lessen the power a drug has over a person and utilize therapeutic tools – from alternative medicine to talk therapy – to develop a patient’s mindfulness and get them through the early days of recovery.

A unique mix of factors surrounds each case of addiction: causes, circumstances, possibilities, and more. Reputable professionals evaluate these factors and develop a treatment plan concurrent to each case, without opting for a cookie-cutter approach. To combat addiction effectively, the medical and mental health community recognizes that specificity matters.

All roads lead to Rome – choosing the one right for you may take time, but if you don’t stop moving forward, you will get to your destination. In the case of addiction, that destination is the point at which you’ve become completely comfortable with your sobriety, and no longer fear relapse. It can take months, years, or decades – but each step of the way is worth the effort it took to make that step.

The Negatives Of Addiction For Those Around You

Posted on April 26, 2018 by JohnAdmin

A common misconception for addicts in denial is the idea that their habits are only hurting them, and no one else. They see themselves as in-control and capable of stopping if they wanted to. Yet the negatives of addiction, regardless of whether you’re in denial or completely aware of the nature of your actions, is deeply damaging not only to you but to those around you as well.

As a disease, addiction primarily affects the user. Drug users are all susceptible to developing an addiction, with numerous factors contributing to the chances of becoming physically dependent on a drug, and psychologically addicted to its effects. But addiction is more than just a disease – or just a choice, for that matter. It’s a complex condition, one that affects several lives per case. Here are some of the ways in which the negatives of addiction affects those around you.

Generate Conflict Between Spouses

Partners will feel it first and feel it the hardest. Being in a relationship with someone struggling with addiction can be incredibly frustrating and at times very painful – especially if they fail to acknowledge their problems.

Spouses or partners may at first begin doubting each other, harboring suspicions, and eventually feeling betrayed when realizing that their significant other has been stealing away to use or drink or has been drinking excessively. If they happen to react defensively upon being confronted, things will only get worse. Fear and shock turn into contempt, as fights draw out, and eventually, the the negatives of addiction grow to the point that help is needed.

Before getting treatment, an addicted person can cause a lot of havoc in their relationships with other people.

Destroy Relationships Between Generations

Parents using drugs can have a direct effect on their relationship with their kids, while teens using drugs will strain the relationship they have with their parents. Some parents might feel like they can successfully hide the negatives of addiction from their children, only using while away or not in their presence.

But drugs have a lasting effect, reducing a person’s capability to think and reason, sometimes leading to reckless behavior. Their drug use will noticeably affect their ability to carry out their parental responsibilities, and the aftermath of a high can be a painful and traumatic experience – not just for the parent, but the child as well. In most cases, only one parent struggles with addiction while the other deals with parental responsibilities and tries to help their partner, creating an incredibly stressful situation due to the negatives of addiction.

When teens use drugs, their parents begin to worry and cast blame. They seek an explanation for why their child might be caught up in this issue, worried that they’re to blame and that drug use was a direct consequence of their upbringing. In other cases, parents might resort to extreme and ineffective parenting methods to stop their kid’s drug use. However, punishment and anger usually cause the development of more issues piling on top of each other, rather than resolving addiction.

It can be difficult for parents to communicate with their children in general, but that’s made virtually impossible through addiction. Many parents seek professional help to get their kids clean, as they struggle to find a way to talk to them and have them open up.

Create Strife Over Finances

A family’s coffers will always take a massive hit when addiction is involved. Supporting a drug habit can be very expensive, a situation that becomes even worse when children are involved. Many families struggle financially to help their loved one get better and have been struggling for as long as the problem is ongoing.

Outside of treatment, many people while first struggling with the negatives of addiction will find clever ways to siphon off financial resources with which to procure more drugs. Not only is the financial aspect damaging, but the betrayal of trust is another big issue.

Produce Several Health Risks For Others

Smoking in the presence of others increases their risk of lung cancer significantly, as does drinking while pregnant or in the operation of dangerous machinery – including cars. Drunk driving kills over 10,000 a year and leads to over a million arrests. Far too many drivers drink and swerve, putting themselves and everybody on the road at danger.

Drunk or drugged while at work can also lead to severe injuries and death, and about a quarter of the workforce drinks during the workday at least once a year, while a solid tenth of workplace fatalities involve victims under the influence of alcohol.

Getting Help With The Negatives Of Addiction

If you’re struggling with the negatives of addiction, then the best thing you can do is get help immediately. Recognizing that you have a problem is a solid step in the right direction and deciding to adamantly combat this problem is the next one. There are different treatment options, clinics, and rehab centers all over the country, offering programs specifically suited to each individual’s addiction and circumstances.

Addiction can be overcome, and a sober life isn’t just possible – it offers so much more than a life filled with drug use.

Intervening For A Loved One

Interventions can effectively help you convince your loved one that they need help. They could also set off an unexpected outburst of anger if handled poorly. However, if you do it right, you could help them make their first constructive step towards a better life. The key is that they must make that step.

What you must do is point out that that step exists. It’s a good idea to consult a professional before deciding to stage an intervention, first to determine if your loved one truly exhibits signs of addiction, and secondly to help you set up an intervention that will work. There are therapists, family counselors and interventionists, all of whom are qualified to help you identify problems with your loved one and stage your first intervention.

Some suggest to first try and talk to your loved one alone, if you notice strange behavior. If they’re clearly struggling with the negatives of addiction but don’t acknowledge their need for help, then the next step may be to stage a group intervention with friends and family. It’s important to clarify why their behavior is troubling, and how it has been affecting everybody. Sometimes, an outside perspective can help someone realize how far their behavior has gone.

If you are going through a hard time trying to help your loved one fight their addiction, don’t forget to take care of yourself as well.

Mixing Alcohol And Drugs Is Deadlier Than You Might Think

Posted on April 20, 2018 by JohnAdmin

The idea behind mixing alcohol and drugs is usually to “improve” on a user’s experience. Experimenting with drug combinations might lead to new highs, or ways to deal with a drug’s immediate negative “comedown” effects. However, in reality, mixing alcohol with other drugs only serves to create an extremely dangerous and very potent combination, landing you in the ER or worse.

Knowing how alcohol interacts with different drugs may help give you an idea of why you should never mix booze and pills.

How Alcohol And Xanax Mix

Perhaps the deadliest combination on the list, alcohol mixed with sedatives or anti-anxiety drugs (benzodiazepines) like Xanax or Valium creates an extremely powerful sedation effect that not only potentially knocks you out, but also slows down your breathing and negates your coughing reflex, rendering you unable to breathe and unable to cough up vomit or any other blockage.

This is because alcohol and sedatives are extremely similar. Both are depressants, which means they have a calming and sedating effect on the body and the brain, lowering inhibition, slurring speech, and slowing down breathing.

Because they both require the same enzymes to be properly metabolized, the use of both sedatives and alcohol causes each substance to spend much more time in the user’s bloodstream, greatly amplifying the effects of each drug. In other words, a “normal” dose of alcohol mixed with a “normal” dose of Xanax is much more powerful than each drug individually.

Beyond using the same enzymes in the liver and causing the same sedative effects, using multiple drugs at once – also known as polydrug use – greatly amplifies your chances of struggling with multiple addictions.

How Booze And Opiates Kill

While alcohol and sedatives are extremely dangerous, they’re abused as often as opioids and booze are. Prescription painkillers (or opioids) are natural or synthetic derivatives of opium. Heroin, another commonly abused opioid, is also often taken alongside alcohol. When consumed together, these drugs also cause a “slowdown” of the body’s processes, often leading to death through oxygen deprivation.

Unlike Xanax, opioids are metabolized separately from alcohol. However, taking both at the same time can make the dangerous side effects of heroin and prescription painkillers – namely, the risk of passing out and choking to death – much more pronounced.

Beyond that, opioids are also known for being some of the most addictive drugs in the world. Up to 5% of all prescription drug users end up getting hooked on painkillers, with recovery taking months or years.

The biggest danger in this combination is how common it is. Throughout the years, the American healthcare system prioritized the sale of painkillers to aggressively fight the emergence of chronic pain in America, leading to a flooding of unused and resold prescription medication, as well as a dangerous misuse and eventual abuse of painkillers in hundreds of thousands of Americans. This arose from a combination of aggressive marketing tactics from pharmaceutical companies, as well as a growing concern among physicians that pain was undertreated in the US.

Before an official crackdown, the growth of the internet and the online prescription drug business further fueled the fire. Today, America is dealing with the biggest opioid crisis in history, with overdoses from heroin and prescription painkillers higher than ever before.

Alcohol, Cocaine, And The Brain

Alcohol and cocaine is another common combination because of the widely opposing effects of cocaine and booze on the mind. While alcohol suppresses inhibition, causes slurred speech, and slows a person’s coordination and cognition, cocaine works in the opposite direction as a stimulant, introducing a powerful euphoric high alongside a sharp increase in motivation and energy levels.

However, the use of both at the same time are thought to cancel out each other’s negative effects. In reality, using alcohol and cocaine may dampen the effects of each, causing many to use excessive amounts of cocaine or alcohol to achieve the desired high. This poses a greater risk of overdose and death. In fact, the risk of death is up to 20 times higher when taking both cocaine and alcohol, rather than just cocaine.

The Risks Of Alcohol And Cannabis

On its own, the negative effects of cannabis may be milder than most other drugs. Yet when combined with alcohol, its potency expands greatly. Aside from being a depressant, alcohol is also a diuretic and a vasodilator, meaning it affects the rate at which your endocrine system works, and expands your blood vessels, accelerating the effects of drugs in the bloodstream.

With modern methods of cannabis use including smoking high concentrations through e-cigarettes or consuming THC oils, the effects of THC can be greatly amplified by combining with alcohol. Misjudging your cannabis use while drunk can lead to nausea and vomiting, hallucinations, and more.

What Is Sex Addiction?

Posted on March 22, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Due to the recent opioid crisis and years of pop-culture discussions, our concept of addiction is at times flawed. As a nation, there is still an undeniable stigma against addiction – some see it as a moral weakness rather than an illness. And as a nation, addiction is still too often tied to substances, especially illicit ones, given the role prescription medication and alcohol have played. Yet beyond that, many still see addiction as a matter of substance abuse only. That’s not true however. Addiction comes in many forms, and affects many people, regardless of background. For some, addiction is at the bottom of a wine or pill bottle, while for others, it is in the annals of a pornography website, or the seedy room of a local motel in the form of sex addiction.

Sex addiction, like many other behavioral addictions, can be just as destructive and problematic as an opioid addiction or alcoholism. But to understand why people get addicted to something as commonplace and natural as sex, it is important to clarify our definitions of addiction and understand where it starts.

Defining Addiction

Addiction can be defined as detrimental obsessive behavior. It is when a person experiences a compulsive need to do something to soothe themselves, to the point that it may hurt them and others around them. Yet unlike OCD, addiction is caused by an external trigger and tied to the reward center of the brain. It is intricately tied to pleasure and stress-relief, and to the concept of motivation. Compulsions are tied to fear and anxiety.

Addictive drugs are defined as addictive because they mimic certain neurotransmitters in the brain related to pleasure, happiness, and motivation.

Just like how drugs can become addictive, certain behavior can become addictive due to maladaptive coping. This makes behavioral addictions work like substance addictions in terms of brain chemistry and individual differences in neurobiology, but while substance use can go from innocent experimentation to full-blown addiction, behavioral addiction is typically tied to stress or trauma.

For example: food addictions, or food disorders, are often tied to self-esteem issues, and codependency with depression and anxiety. While substance use can also be a matter of self-medication and maladaptive coping, it often is not.

How Sex Addiction Affect Lives

The important thing to know when talking about sex, addiction and healthy behavior is stress. Stress is a normal part of daily life – and dealing with it is a big part of being human. Everyone copes differently to different stressors – we have our own rituals, living standards and traditions to cope with everyday stress, and we have our own ways of grieving and coping with loss and significant pain.

Yet when the stress is too great, we can get locked in a loop of needing constant relief from that lasting trauma. Certain traumas leave a psychological fracture in people – if not treated or personally overcome, that crack will leave lasting symptoms, including flashbacks, suppressed memories, depression, self-esteem issues and anxieties. Many seek out pleasurable activities to fight the symptoms, from exercise to sex to food and drugs.

While it often is, sex addiction does not have to be linked to trauma. The brain tells us sex is good, because part of our blueprint is the desire to procreate. So, we use sex to deal with stress, until that repetitive behavior becomes a loop we cannot escape from. Some people are more prone to this than others, due to unique intricacies in the brain that vary from person to person.

Healthy Behavior vs. Addictive Behavior

Sex is healthy, and for most people, it is an important part of leading a healthy life. As much as we like to avoid the topic, many of our desires and social behaviors are tied to concepts like libido and sexuality – embracing the importance of healthy, safe, and communicative sex can help address relationship issues and more. Suppressing or avoiding the topic can have negative consequences, and lead to miscommunication, and even sexual violence.

Yet just like any other enjoyable activity, sex can go from being a healthy part of life to becoming a dependence, an issue of self-control and obsession. Sex addiction implies a massive dependence on sex for happiness, fulfilment, and stress relief, to the point that it becomes an unavoidable need for many addicts, to the point where many would go so far as to sacrifice careers, relationships, and fortunes to address this need. Once a behavior crosses the line from being positive to having a massive negative influence, it is time to get help and examine things with a greater perspective.

Treating A Sex Addiction

Treatment for addiction often implies sobriety, but in the case of something like sex or food, it is hard to stay “sober”. Instead of setting patients up for failure with concepts like lifelong abstinence and chastity, the emphasis in sex addiction treatment is put on fixing a patient’s relationship to sex and others and helping them understand where their thought process went wrong – so they can catch themselves in the act and correct their thinking accordingly.

This makes specific treatment difficult to describe, as everyone must find methods that suit themselves best. Developing better coping mechanisms for stress is important, so as not to misuse sex to run away from pain or problems. Relationship counseling can help broken marriages and relationships, while therapy can help you better understand your addictive behavior and give you the tools to stop specific thoughts before they turn into actions.

Addiction treatment always begins with a desire for change. While the law has provisions in place to allow family members and the courts to forcibly send someone into treatment, treatment itself can only begin when the patient acknowledges the issue and wholeheartedly takes their first step towards a better, healthier understanding of sex.

Sex addiction, like food addiction, cannot be solved through sobriety or even abstinence. There is a natural inclination in most people to seek out a partner and procreate, just as we all go hungry eventually.

The key lies in understanding what led to this twisted relationship with sex, and finding a way to fix it, overcome the issue, and live a psychologically healthy life surrounded by supportive individuals and strong, effective coping mechanisms for stress and struggle.

Some people find their best route towards a life like this lies in group meetings, 12-step programs, or God. Others take a clinical approach, utilizing medicine and talk therapy. Others yet channel their frustrations into productive and creative endeavors. There is no clear-cut way, no tried-and-true method that fits any set of circumstances and necessities. But by working with professionals, you can find the methods that suit you best and overcome your addiction in time.

Personalized Care Makes Transitioning Into Sober Life Easier

Posted on February 28, 2018February 28, 2018 by JohnAdmin

As a disease, addiction has a certain pathology. It develops as a result of repetitive substance use or certain behavior. It is triggered and builds in the reward center of the brain, creating a craving that overpowers a person’s motivation for many other things in life, taking center stage. Addiction can make a person do things they would otherwise never have done. In a way, it changes people, especially at its peak. But there are differences, many of which are not necessarily very subtle. Some people develop a host of co-dependent illnesses as a result of their addiction or had tendencies towards certain behavior that is extremely exacerbated. Others suffer from conditions due to their drug use, including infections, sleep disorders, lesions, paralysis and more. The exact cause and effect of an addiction changes from person to person, based on their personal history of drug use, their family history and medical records, environmental factors, and more; which makes personalized care in addiction recovery so important.

In a way, addiction can be simplified into a loss of self-control, the development of a brain disease that urges its victims to constantly obsess over the object of their addiction, and the pursuit of it. But there is so much more to it on an individual level.

Just as the disease itself can be intricate and complicated, so must the treatment match in its individualized and unique goals. Addiction cannot be treated with a blanket one-size-fits-all program – just as any other complicated disease or mental illness requires a very specific set of tools and a program tailored to each individual. That is where personalized care comes into the picture.

What Is Personalized Care?

Personalized care, or individually-fitted, or tailor-made care, is any form of medicine that tackles a patient’s needs individually, understanding that individual differences between patients matter greatly.

A disease as varied as addiction cannot be tackled on the presumption that one case is just like another, and cookie-cutter treatments do not work as effectively as personalized treatments, nor are they as inclusive, as certain methods are sure to fail with some individuals despite producing excellent results elsewhere.

Personalized care also encourages a deeper understanding of addiction and the many factors that affect its development in an individual.

Why Addiction Treatment Is Individual And Group-Based

Personalized care caters to the individual – and in a way, addiction itself is a battle between you and the disease. But there is more to defeating addiction than being on your own – and many would argue that it’s next to impossible alone.

Personalized care is important in the context that it eliminates cookie-cutter practices and makes it an industry standard to treat patients individually, as per their own circumstances and needs. But that does not mean addiction treatment should only factor the individual.

As such, any treatment has to focus on the individual, while also giving room for people to interact with one another within the treatment, in order to get a perspective of how others live their lives while dealing with addiction, and in order to understand just how addiction can touch the lives of anyone, regardless of gender, race, age or status.

Group meetings, group outings, and encouraging individuals to make new friends in different environments – not just in circles of sobriety, but in relation to their old or newfound hobbies, as well – is important. It helps patients create a circle of friends to rely on when things get tough.

Some treatment facilities even help close friends and family become better “therapists” for after the end of a program, helping them understand addiction, and the do’s and don’ts of helping someone fighting against it.

The Difference Between Treatment And Living

Residential treatments, sober living facilities and outpatient programs – these are possible treatment templates, existing to cater to people throughout various stages of addiction, in various stages of their life. When they end, you are going to be in the “real world”, facing everyday issues from a perspective of stone cold sobriety, with the task to survive, function, and learn to enjoy it all again.

It can take time, and you should never be alone. Whether you’re with family, friends or professionals, the transition from treatment to living life again may be the most crucial aspect of sobriety. While fighting against withdrawal and addiction in a sober living environment is hard, it is an altogether different experience from living your everyday life, knowing where to get what you need to be right back where you started.

Some people make it easier on themselves by moving and cutting off contact to old acquaintances – but the memories are still there, and the stress of living is accumulatively stronger than the stress of treatment.

It is important to be prepare. And there is no better preparation than personalized care. These personalized treatments are your best shot at developing the skills and abilities to stick to your sober routine – and they will help you transition from treatment into a sober life.

Dealing With Addiction In The Long-Term

The treatment is just the beginning. The goal of addiction treatment is not necessarily to beat the addiction within the given time limit of the program, regardless of whether it is three months, or half a year. The goal of addiction treatment is to help each patient build an assortment of tools and skills with which to troubleshoot life’s problems, particularly helping individuals tackle stress and loss and everyday life without succumbing to the urge to use again.

As the months and years go by, each day after day of sobriety well-spent, it may get easier to stay sober and not think about the old days. Sometimes, relapses still happen. But if you survive, it’s certainly not the end of the fight. You simply pick yourself up, go back for treatment, and figure out where things went wrong – where you felt the urge to use so strongly, and how you can go about it the next time.

Each mistake we make throughout our lives is but an opportunity to learn, improve, and prepare. And as long as you’re still living, the fight against your addiction has not failed.

Some days are worse than others. That is what friends and family are for. Stay close to the people who mean the most to you and accept their help when you know you need it. And before you know it, you’ll be out of early recovery, and in for a long life of cherished sober living.

How Addiction Changes Behavior

Posted on February 22, 2018February 21, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Addiction changes behavior because it is a disease of the brain, wherein chemical changes introduced by a reaction to a certain behavior or substance cause a lasting change on the way the brain works, sometimes developing into an unmanageable and unhealthy habit. The brain cannot get addicted to a drug on the first hit. But the first often leads to the second, and so on. If nothing stops the behavior, or if anything encourages it, then a few bad choices can cause can lead to what feels like the loss of choice itself.

Addiction treatment is a route to retrieving the ability to choose a better life and reinforce that choice above the ruinous alternative. It takes time, though, because of how addiction changes the brain. Understanding that can give you keen insight into the disease, and help you see just why it can be so difficult to fight against.

How Addiction Changes Behavior In People

Addiction changes behavior, not by forcing them to do something, but by heavily encouraging it. People who struggle with addiction are just that: people, from all walks of life, with a unique and varied list of problems and concerns, living with the symptoms of a disease that compels them to do anything and everything for the next high due to how addiction changes behavior.

This disease does not transform a loving and kind person into a stereotype. But going through an addiction and coming out the other side can change someone. It takes a lot of strength and a lot of time to beat an addiction, and for many, this journey causes them to reflect, consider, reprioritize and, in some cases, relearn what it means to live life.

It is difficult to pinpoint when exactly an addiction begins, but the telltale sign for when an addiction has taken hold of a person is when they try to stop doing something and find that they just cannot. The horror of that realization might be prefaced with justification and excuses for a while – we are all very good at lying to ourselves. But at some point, the truth becomes undeniable, and by then most people are in the thick of it.

The brain’s reward pathways are at the center of it all. Drugs and certain behavior cause the reward pathways to essentially get confused – addictiveness correlates strongly with how pleasurable something is, and the high of an illicit drug is essentially so powerful that the brain is desensitized to other pleasurable stimuli and begins to strongly crave that same high repeatedly. Addiction changes behavior because of the constant need to find the next high and that’s what makes it so easy to fall into the trap.

Other hobbies fall to the wayside, relationships falter, and focus becomes harder to come by. In addition to completely hijacking and manipulating the way the brain keeps you motivated, addictive drugs often damage the brain as well, reducing cognition and problem solving, increasing risky behavior, cutting down on inhibition and memory. These issues all contribute to how addiction changes behavior in a person, making them less reliable, less attentive, cutting into their focus and determination, and changing their motivations in life.

The likelihood of someone suffering an addiction depends on many possible factors, some of which are external (mental health, emotional state/stress, peer pressure, the addictiveness of the drug), and some of which are internal (genetics). But once it happens, getting out is tough.

Seek Out A Professional

Addiction treatment is not an exact science, but it is still best left to professionals. Treatment for addiction comes in dozens of shapes and sizes and determining what to suggest and what to leave out depends entirely on a patient’s circumstances, the logistics of the situation, the extent to which addiction changes behavior in them, and the skills and specializations of available professionals and treatment centers in the area.

Professional help is more than a prescription and some therapy – addiction treatment is a long road, unique for every individual, tailored to their needs. Professionals communicate across all levels of care, helping patients find a path that will get them the best results. While some people have had success in fighting addiction on their own, with the help of friends and family, it never hurts to seek a professional opinion – especially when nothing else seems to work.

Why Is Addiction Shunned?

The mind and the body affect each other, and trouble in one brews trouble in the other. In the same way, a mental illness can be as much a “physical illness” as a compound fracture or the flu. A mental illness can be caused by, or can cause physical change, just as how physical change can cause mental illness. Sometimes it is a matter of genetics, and at other times, external factors (i.e. environmental factors) play a major role instead.

Addiction is a condition caused and linked ostensibly to “feelings”. The inner workings of the brain and the way it struggles to work the same way after substance misuse is hard to see in everyday life, and it makes addiction harder to “see”. Someone struggling with addiction invariably feels certain things differently to others, which makes it an incredibly difficult thing to relate to, something quite difficult for many to feel naturally compassionate towards. When someone has a major gash in their leg, the visceral nature of the injury and its healing process evokes sympathy – an “unseen” condition is harder to empathize with, but it is every bit as real.

Awareness plays a big role. While many lives are touched by addiction indirectly, fortunately only a relatively small percentage of people have struggled through this issue. It is important for others to realize what it truly means, and why it deserves a little more sympathy rather than judgment and prejudice.

Only by approaching addiction both individually and on a larger scale from a place of care and love can we find a solution to it. Individually, support and care are critical for successful recovery. And in society, we could use a little sympathy for the people who struggle with the condition.

Quitting An Addiction

Addiction relies on support. Cravings are a big part of addiction, especially early on in recovery right after quitting, and the key to maintaining sobriety is having people around you who encourage you to stay sober, such as in a Houston sober living community.

The only prerequisite to getting better is wanting to, even after a relapse. From there, your path differs. Some people have incredible success stories, going through decades of addiction and then going sober for one goal or purpose, never looking back and never relapsing. Others have longer journeys, in and out of rehab, through several different treatment methods and centers. Some think that addiction is a life-long battle, while others see it as a chapter.

Regardless of what your recovery journey will look like, quitting addiction is always hard – and always worth it.

Changing the Perception of Addiction as Failure

Posted on February 21, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Addiction is not a failure, yet many have the perception of addiction being failure. To many people, someone who is addicted is morally challenged, emotionally immature, and weak-willed. Addiction is a sign of weakness and failure to them, rather than a disease.

This shows a fundamental lack of understanding in the general population of what addiction is, how it occurs, what it feels like, and what it means to fight it.

Thankfully, addiction is not incredibly common. Only about 6% of the US adult population struggle with substance use. That is enough to make it a nationwide issue that affects most families, but not enough to make it something most people can intimately relate to. So, to truly and effectively fight addiction, at home and in the streets, we must understand it and change the perception of addiction.

The first step to that is dispelling any false notions, such as how addiction is formed, or what being addicted says about a person’s character.

Addiction Can Happen To Anyone

Addiction does not discriminate based on willpower, mental health, intelligence, or personality. Some people are more susceptible to addiction than others, but this depends on their emotional state and the drug itself as much as it depends on their genetic predisposition (family history), and more.

People with addiction cannot be described with a single stereotype – it is a disease that affects people from all backgrounds, all statuses, throughout all ages and races, and across both genders despite the perception of addiction commonly held by the public. Highly influential lawmakers and politicians, celebrities and business people, managers, and academics. From the poorest and least successful to the richest and most gifted, addiction rears its head and wreaks havoc.

Risk factors exist. However, so do protective factors. While eliminating risk factors can go a long way in preventing addiction in families, it is not a guarantee. However, identifying risk factors and protective factors can give very important context to some families who wonder why someone they know, and love is struggling with addiction. Risk factors include:

Emotional vulnerability and excessive stress.
A disharmonic/dysfunctional home environment.
Peer pressure/addicted peers.
Age & sex (teens and men are more likely to use drugs, while women are quicker to become addicted to them).
Risk-seeking behavior.
Mental illness & self-medication.
Drug use in the family/addiction history.
Lack of opportunity/widespread oppression.

However, protective factors play a role as well. These factors alleviate the risk of addiction in children and adults:

Supportive family members/parental involvement.
A satisfying job & manageable stress levels.
An interconnected community.
Upwards social mobility.
Better education on addiction.
Readily-available counseling and mental healthcare.

However, while these factors tie into why someone may or may not become addicted, they do not imply that addiction is a necessary result of the above risks, or that a protective environment will completely discourage drug use. Life is complicated, and we cannot control all its aspects. What we can do is understand why things might have happened through the right perception of addiction and help those in need find the road they need to better themselves.

Addiction does not begin out of nowhere, either. It is important to address the meaning of choice in addiction.

The Difference Between Choice And Addiction

The key point towards explaining what makes addiction so heinous and why its victims deserve compassion rather than judgment, is the concept of choice and motivation, and what the brain has to do with it all.

Science has addressed that addiction stems from a reaction in the brain’s reward pathways tied to the use of certain drugs. They change the way you think, coupling the motivational processes of the brain with drug-seeking habits. This creates a loop where, instead of thinking about your passions, your future, or even your relationships to others, you relentlessly crave the next high. Nothing makes you as happy as getting the next high does, and resisting that craving is unbelievably difficult.

Yes, addiction always begins with a choice. Multiple choices, in fact. You cannot trigger an addiction with one high – but you can activate the mechanism that leads to addiction, making you much more likely to use again after the first usage of an addictive drug. It is this perception of addiction that is often misunderstood, yet still dangerous.

Generally-speaking, people choose to use drugs before they become addicted – but that can always be considered a mistake, and no human goes through life without making them. Only unlike many other mistakes, the consequences for this mistake are life-changing, and can be often avoidable with proper treatment, support, and compassion.

Just because bad choices lead to addiction does not mean that recovery is as simple as “choosing to stop.” The conscious choice of getting better is an important part of the recovery process, but it is only the first step. This perception of addiction that simply “choosing” to get better is all it takes is what makes relapses so much more damning and painful than they should be.

Relapses, which occur when a sober individual loses their sobriety and goes back to using, are part of the recovery process. They can be wakeup calls, providing those in recovery with a much-needed reminder or lesson that can help them along the way. But if approached from the point of view of failure, they can end sobriety entirely and spell someone’s doom.

Addiction itself is the punishment for making “bad choices”, even when they were simply misguided attempts at escaping from some other pain, or to fit in. But once addiction begins, choice alone is not enough to do the trick. Treatment, on the other hand, can work wonders. If people choose to get help.

The Perception Of Addiction Starts At Home

Addiction is a widespread issue, touching people in all walks of life across the country. But individually, it is best if we put our focus on our families and communities, doing what we can to make things better and change the perception of addiction. If you have a family member in rehab, or in recovery in general, then be sure to communicate with treatment centers to determine how best to help them.

If you have been sober for a while, you might find it helpful to help others and support them on their journey out of addiction. By encouraging people to get help, and proving the efficacy of modern addiction treatment methods, everybody can do a little bit to help fight the issue.

Synthetic Drugs Are the New Danger On The Market

Posted on February 16, 2018February 15, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Synthetic drugs are an unfortunately confusing case of terminology, as most street drugs undergo a lengthy chemical process to make it to the consumer level. However, unlike drugs like alcohol, cocaine, marijuana and even heroin, which are all based on natural plant crops, synthetic drugs are produced in a lab through a mixture of chemicals and require no crop or major field to source their base ingredients.

Instead, synthetic drugs can be produced anywhere given the right equipment, without the need to source vast amounts of plant material from a tract of land. This makes them easy to produce, transport, smuggle in base form and distribute all over the globe, bypassing international law by getting sold online as research material. These dangerous new drugs have come to be described by public health officials as “new psychoactive substances”, or NPS.

Synthetic drugs come in many shapes and sizes, with different names and dangers. We will go over some of the more common examples, and exactly why they are so extremely dangerous – and why they have grown in popularity recently.

What Are Synthetic Drugs?

Synthetic drugs typically count any drugs developed chemically as an alternate version of an existing psychotropic compound, in an attempt (usually) to bypass the law. Also known as designer drugs, these are man-made compounds often capable of a much more powerful high of a similar kind to its natural analog.

For example, cannabis affects the brain in a very specific way. The active compound in cannabis, THC, binds to cannabinoid receptors in the brain and affects your motor function, memory, feelings, pain tolerance, cognition and more.

It has different effects based on how much of the drug is taken, and based on a person’s own individual brain structure, mood at the time, and reaction to the drug. Some people use medicinal marijuana as a prescribed treatment for certain mental health problems, while others smoke or ingest the drug and end up spending hours doing practically nothing.

Synthetic cannabis is far viler. While it is similar in that it binds to the same receptors as THC, it is a far more addictive and powerful drug, and unlike THC, it can be quite easy to suffer from an overdose of synthetic cannabinoids. More on that below.

Aside from being analogous to “natural” drugs in that synthetic drugs bind to the same receptors their effects can be drastically different – and far more dangerous – than those of their already addictive counterparts.

Not all synthetic drugs are designed for addiction and recreational use. Many are developed first as medicine, or studied for medical efficacy, before eventually ending up somewhere far outside a lab. Some synthetic drugs – such as synthetic opioids – are still in use for certain conditions.

Synthetic Cannabinoids

Synthetic cannabinoids bind to the brain’s cannabinoid receptors but have little else to do with THC or cannabis. However, because of recent media around cannabis usage and its potential in certain industries, some people have mistakenly taken on the view that cannabis is completely safe – and that by extension, synthetic cannabis cannot be much worse.

Also known as K2, spice, fake weed and a series of other names, synthetic cannabinoids can be extremely toxic even in “normal” doses. They are typically produced by spraying the cannabinoid mixture onto dried plant material, which is then sold as “incense” or some other innocuous product. However, because of the uneven application of a spray bottle, one hit from the wrong bit of plant material can lead to dangerous side effects and even hospitalization.

Nausea, vomiting, and a dangerously high heart rate are just a few of the possible complications arising from synthetic cannabinoid use.

Synthetic Cathinones

Known infamously as “bath salts”, synthetic cathinones can lead to psychotic episodes and dangerous hallucinations. Cathinones are usually derived from khat, a plant indigenous to Africa and the Middle East, chewed much like South America’s coca plant (cocaine). On its own, chewed khat acts as a mild stimulant. Synthetic cathenones, on the other hand, are sold as cheap yet powerful stimulants with very nasty side effects.

Dubbed Bliss, White Lightning, Vanilla Sky, and a series of other names, synthetic cathinones or “bath salts” can lead to bouts of extreme paranoia, hallucinations, delirium, panic attacks and more.

Synthetic Opioids

A common synthetic opioid still used in the treatment of certain types of pain, including end-of-life, is fentanyl. Fentanyl is an incredibly potent and powerful opiate, several times stronger than heroin and morphine, and thus several times more dangerous. More than a few specs in your bloodstream at once is enough to stop your breathing, which is why it is often administered to patients in the form of a fentanyl lollipop.

However, fentanyl and its ludicrously toxic cousin, carfentanil, have also become part and parcel in certain productions of heroin. Some drug dealers are getting into the habit of cutting their heroin to save on costs, while increasing potency by mixing fentanyl into it. However, the mix ends up being uneven, and in many cases the result is a much more powerful product with certain hits here and there than can – and often enough are – fatal.

Carfentanil should never be used, let alone mixed into heroin. Its potency is so high that officials have dubbed it a nerve gas at one point, citing instances in drug raids where clouds of synthetic opiates from the raid were enough to hospitalize officers for complications from an overdose.

Why Synthetic Drugs Are So Dangerous

Synthetic drugs have become more dangerous than ever due to an influx of materials for local production right in America, as well as a demand for cheaper alternatives to existing drugs for people with the desperate need to get high, and a very low budget for it.

Aside from a reduced cost of production and distribution worldwide, new synthetic drug production out of markets in China fueled by the online drug market and black-market websites has led to the development and sale of many chemicals and finished product right into the US – and into the hands of unsuspecting addicts, causing overdose deaths to rocket up even further.

Drugs are bad – but synthetic drugs are a special kind of evil, in most cases and professional treatment with a stint in a sober living community is often necessary to break the hold synthetic drugs have on people.

Why Is Drug Addiction So Prevalent In Cities Like Houston?

Posted on February 15, 2018February 15, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Like any big city, Houston has its fair share of problems – crime and drug addiction among them. As serious as drug addiction is, it only affects a very small fraction of the total adult population of the US, despite lax attitudes towards alcohol, and in some places, marijuana.

However, in Houston, Texas as well as other large cities in states across the country, the concentration for drug abuse grows and becomes more apparent. So, what it is about big cities like Houston that seems to make the phenomenon of addiction grow?

Drug Addiction In Houston

As is the case with many other big cities in the country, drug addiction is a substantial and growing problem. In Houston alone, heroin and meth are particularly troublesome, causing the most deaths and drug-related crimes in the city for decades. On the flip-side, to accompany high drug usage, Houston also has a prodigious selection of rehabs and treatment centers.

Many factors affect why Houston is struggling with drugs, the biggest being that it is a.) an incredibly populous city in a country with well over a quarter billion people, and b.) the most populous city in the state of Texas, a state that has established drug issues, and struggles to fight against the illegal trade of drugs out of Mexico.

Among other substances, gangs produce and smuggle marijuana, meth, and cocaine over the border into the United States, with meth being the biggest problem in the region, while street heroin and prescription opiates take a second spot.

Methamphetamine has grown to become an issue in Houston. The amount of meth seized from 2014 to 2015 grew by other 400 percent, while Houston reported over 780,000 cases of addiction in 2008 throughout the entire Houston area. In schools, about a third of students report having been sold/offered drugs on school property.

Aside from being the most populous city of Texas, Houston also struggles with growing poverty, a possible factor that contributes to the growth in addiction alongside an explosion in the local drug supply.

Drug Use And Big Cities

Cities grow organically through a continuous cycle of supply and demand in the workforce – opportunities are created by industries pioneering in a region, bringing jobs, and creating a need of real estate and residences around the industry. Decade after decade, the city grows because of its people, and its population grows because it is a city.

But with this growth comes the many downsides of living in an urban environment, especially in poverty. Large cities can become incredibly cramped, destitute, and unhealthy places to live in. For many, drug addiction provides a relief from that lifestyle that otherwise cannot be afforded.

Aside from there, where there are many people, there are many different people problems. Drug dealers specifically target urban neighborhoods to reach a large density of people and sell as much as possible, as quickly as possible, turning cities into the areas in the country with the largest drug problem.

Drug addiction is not only an issue in large cities. All of America is struggling with drugs, particularly opioids, methamphetamine, alcohol, and marijuana. But there are distinct differences in the way urban and rural addictions work.

Reports show that, among other key differences, ages between rural and urban addictions were very different with rural admissions to treatment being typically much younger. In addition, rural addictions primarily revolved around alcohol and non-opiates, while urban addictions had the countryside beat with its opiate abuse.

Why Texas Is Struggling With Drugs

Aside from the methamphetamine problem out of Mexico, another big issue hitting the streets is the recurrence and abundance of black tar heroin being sold, alongside an increase in opioid overdoses, and a decrease in the average age of both overdose victims and patients on opioid medication.

The overall demand for heroin in Texas has increased dramatically, alongside a larger number of reported calls to the Texas Poison Center Network regarding heroin. Although heroin usage has increased, opioid prescription abuse has decreased, suggesting perhaps that some addicts have moved on from getting their fix through street heroin rather than painkillers.

While these drugs picked up, others have dropped in usage. Both synthetic cathinones and cannabinoids have dropped in overall usage since their peak in 2011, and emergency calls due to ecstasy (MDMA) have dropped since 2009.

With its proximity to the border, large population, and its reputation as a major economy, it is no wonder that Texas is a common source of business for drug dealers and manufacturers.

What Can Be Done?

Enacting major political and economic change to help shift the state of healthcare and poverty in the US is not something most people can hope to affect in their lifetime – but there are little differences we can make to create a drastic impact in our own little communities, and with a little luck, within entire towns and city districts. You do not have to look towards politics and policy for answers, nor do you need a lot of money.

All it takes is to spread awareness on recent facts around drug addiction, dispel old myths, build a better understanding of addiction among your friends and family, and most importantly, help those around you who struggle with addiction to this day.

Over 6% of all Americans over the age of 12 struggle with substance abuse and drug addiction. Many of them are our relatives, our friends, our colleagues, or neighbors. Just by reaching out and offering help, addressing the issue without judgment, or by promoting local causes that focus on outreach and change, you can make a little difference and help change lives. In a city of over 2 million people, there is a lot of work to be done when it comes to helping others – but everyone focuses on helping those in their immediate vicinity better take on their life’s challenges, we can all build stronger, better communities. Men and women’s sober living facilities can also provide a safe haven for those trying to stay sober.

Not every attempt will be a success, and not everyone will reach and maintain their sobriety. But anyone can. And no one deserves to be given up on.

Sex Addiction: Addiction Isn’t Limited to Just Drugs

Posted on February 7, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Addiction comes in many shapes and forms. For some people, it’s drugs. For others, it’s gambling. Some people even consider obsessive behavior, like the obsession with falling in and out of love, to be a kind of addiction. Sometimes addiction also comes in the form of some of the things we all love – sex and food, for example. For some, it’s hard to imagine the line between loving sex and food and being addicted to it – but if you have ever seen someone struggling with the issue of food or sex addiction, you’ll know that there is absolutely no mistaking it.

To understand what sex addiction is, and how it is every bit as real as any other behavioral or substance addiction, we have to go back to the roots and examine addiction itself.

How Addiction Works

Addiction works similarly across the board, with differences here and there in terms of circumstances, triggers, and reasons. For example: while there is a myriad of risk factors that contribute to why someone might get addicted, their actual reasons may only include peer pressure, and genetics.

Drugs are commonly more addictive than habits because they’re designed to be addictive. Their effects on the brain create a powerful craving and make you more susceptible to addiction than anything else through the unnatural and high release of dopamine.

But behavior can be just as addictive under the right circumstances, given the right emotional and psychological condition, and the right genetic makeup. Gambling, video games, sex, food, thrills – there are a million enjoyable things in life, all of which give you a “natural high”, which can potentially become addictive under the right circumstances.

Addiction is affected by the addictiveness of the drug or activity (some habits, like food, are naturally enjoyable, while others like gambling and certain video games are purposefully designed to create addiction and “customer retention”), the genetic makeup of a person (people with family histories of addiction are more prone to it), their mental state (self-medicating after a trauma or during a depression is a gateway to a larger problem), environmental factors (high-stress work environment, getting fired, an abusive household), and peer pressure.

The mechanism for addiction takes place in the pleasure centers of the brain: pathways of nerves that activate and respond to behavior by rewarding or punishing you, in order to make you learn or adapt to certain situations. For example: your brain rewards you for high-calorie foods but punishes you with pain for doing something risky. Your natural instinct will make you crave the food and be reluctant about repeating the risky activity.

With addiction, that part of the brain is overstimulated by a massive release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that triggers joy, as well as a series of other reactions in the brain triggering the characteristics of the high. Alcohol and sedatives like barbiturates/benzodiazepine affect the GABA neurotransmitter, making you sluggish, sleepy, and lowering your inhibition. On the other hand, opioids slow your breathing and kill off pain.

For some people, activities can produce a similarly powerful effect, as well as a subsequent craving, and with time, an addiction.

What is Behavioral Addiction

Behavioral addictions do not involve the use of substances and revolve around an unnatural obsession with a specific activity, to the point that it becomes ruinous for you. An addiction is most reliably characterized by how much of your life it touches and threatens, and how far you’re willing to go to hide it, and deny its existence, while being unable or seemingly unwilling to give it up.

The final straw is when you do try to stop and find out that you can’t.

This happens often enough with activities like casino gambling and video gaming, but it can also occur with natural behavior, like sexual intercourse.

These addictions are not easier to break than substance abuse just because they lack a chemical component that ties them to the pleasure center of the brain. In some cases, people are simply extremely susceptible to an abnormal release of dopamine to certain activities, or their addiction might be driven by an outside factor, such as a comorbidity with depression, or a hormone imbalance causing hypersexuality and sex addiction.

A behavioral addiction can only reliably be diagnosed by a professional, like any other disease or condition, but it is safe to say that if your hobby or habit has grown from being a constructive part of your life to becoming a major source of stress and obsession, then you’re on the verge of a big problem. If you or your loved ones are exhibiting an inability to stop their destructive behavior, even after multiple warnings and consequences, professional help may be warranted.

What a Sex Addiction Looks Like

Sex addiction can be exceptionally brutal, because of how quickly it destroys relationships and ruins relations with people in general. Sex addicts will be heavily tempted to sacrifice everything they’ve worked for to get off, including cheating on multiple partners, jeopardizing important business with inappropriate behavior and sexual conduct, and engaging in incredibly risky sex despite the potential consequences.

Sex addiction and hypersexuality are two different things. There is nothing wrong with having a specific kink or sharing in a healthy sexual relationship. Two people with matching libidos who agree to an open relationship may be highly sexually active, but as long as they can operate within boundaries set by both parties and respect the concepts of consent and limitations, they are in control of their desires and ultimately have the ability to draw the line when they feel that their behavior is having severe consequences on the relationships they care about.

Someone suffering from sex addiction is unable to control their behavior, or their urges. Their libido is no longer high, it is driven by an obsession with getting off at all costs, no matter what the consequences might be. And, unlike many who feel the ability to be confident in their sexual choices, no matter how unorthodox, sex addicts often feel shame because of an inability to control how they feel or what they want.

Addiction Treatment for Behavioral Addiction

Addictive behavior is not inherently bad. Gambling can cause addiction, which is why it is regulated – but it isn’t illegal, and for a good reason. Video games can be addictive, but they have their share of benefits, and can be excellent devices of stress relief. And sex is arguably an important part of a successful relationship, and a natural thing to desire, to the point where a low libido can be a problem for many.

But sex addiction is more than desire – it’s an unmitigated problem. Thankfully, addiction treatment works for behavioral addictions as well, giving people the tools they need to tackle their obsessions and overcome them.