Drug Abuse and Addiction

1. Drug Abuse and Addiction By: Michelle Krieger

2. What is a drug? • A drug is any chemical that produces a therapeutic or non-therapeutic effect in the body. Many prescription drugs that produce therapeutic effects may also cause non-therapeutic effects if taken in excess and/or without a specific prescription.

3. What Is Drug Addiction? • Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences to the addicted individual and to those around him or her. Although the initial decision to take drugs is voluntary for most people, the brain changes that occur over time challenge a person’s self control and ability to resist intense impulses urging them to take drugs. • Similar to other chronic, relapsing diseases, such as diabetes, asthma, or heart disease, drug addiction can be managed successfully. And as with other chronic diseases, it is not uncommon for a person to relapse and begin abusing drugs again. Relapse, however, does not signal treatment failure—rather, it indicates that treatment should be reinstated, adjusted, or that an alternative treatment is needed to help the individual regain control and recover.

4. What is Drug Abuse? • Drug abuse, also called substance abuse or chemical abuse, is a disorder that is characterized by a destructive pattern of using a substance that leads to significant problems or distress. • It affects more than 7% of people at some point in their lives. Teens are increasingly engaging in prescription drug abuse, particularly narcotics which are prescribed to relieve severe pain.

5. The Different Kinds of Substances That are Abused: Virtually every drug has the potential for addiction and abuse. Interestingly, each drug affects the addicts’ bodies and brains in different ways Marijuana Uppers Downers Narcotics Hallucinogens Inhalants Steroids

6. Drug Abuse

7. How drug abuse and addiction can develop: • Problems can sometimes sneak up on you, as your drug use gradually increases over time. Smoking a joint with friends at the weekend, or taking ecstasy at a rave, or cocaine at an occasional party, for example, can change to using drugs a couple of days a week, then every day. Gradually, getting and using the drug becomes more and more important to you. • If the drug fulfills a valuable need, you may find yourself increasingly relying on it. For example, you may take drugs to calm you if you feel anxious or stressed, energize you if you feel depressed, or make you more confident in social situations if you normally feel shy. Or you may have started using prescription drugs to cope with panic attacks or relieve chronic pain, for example. Until you find alternative, healthier methods for overcoming these problems, your drug use will likely continue.

8. How drug abuse and addiction can develop continued : • If you use drugs to fill a void in your life, you’re more at risk of crossing the line from casual use to drug abuse and addiction. To maintain healthy balance in your life, you need to have other positive experiences, to feel good in your life aside from any drug use • As drug abuse takes hold, you may miss or frequently be late for work or school, your job performance may progressively deteriorate, and you start to neglect social or family obligations. Your ability to stop using is eventually compromised. What began as a voluntary choice has turned into a physical and psychological need.

10. Common signs and symptoms of drug abuse: • You’re neglecting your responsibilities at school, work, or home (e.g. flunking classes, skipping work, neglecting your children) because of your drug use. • You’re using drugs under dangerous conditions or taking risks while high, such as driving while on drugs, using dirty needles, or having unprotected sex. • Your drug use is getting you into legal trouble, such as arrests for disorderly conduct, driving under the influence, or stealing to support a drug habit.  • Your drug use is causing problems in your relationships, such as fights with your partner or family members, an unhappy boss, or the loss of old friends

11. Common signs and symptoms of drug addiction: • You’ve built up a drug tolerance. You need to use more of the drug to experience the same effects you used to attain with smaller amounts. • You take drugs to avoid or relieve withdrawal symptoms. If you go too long without drugs, you experience symptoms such as nausea, restlessness, insomnia, depression, sweating, shaking, and anxiety. • You’ve lost control over your drug use. You often do drugs or use more than you planned, even though you told yourself you wouldn’t. You may want to stop using, but you feel powerless. • Your life revolves around drug use. You spend a lot of time using and thinking about drugs, figuring out how to get them, and recovering from the drug’s effects. • You’ve abandoned activities you used to enjoy, such as hobbies, sports, and socializing, because of your drug use. • You continue to use drugs, despite knowing it’s hurting you. It’s causing major problems in your life—blackouts, infections, mood swings, depression, paranoia—but you use anyway

12. Why Do Some People Become Addicted While Others Do Not? No single factor can predict whether or not a person will become addicted to drugs. Risk for addiction is influenced by a person's biology, social environment, and age or stage of development. The more risk factors an individual has, the greater the chance that taking drugs can lead to addiction. Biology. The genes that people are born with -- in combination with environmental influences -- account for about half of their addiction vulnerability. Additionally, gender, ethnicity, and the presence of other mental disorders may influence risk for drug abuse and addiction.Environment. A person's environment includes many different influences -- from family and friends to socioeconomic status and quality of life in general. Factors such as peer pressure, physical and sexual abuse, stress, and parental involvement can greatly influence the course of drug abuse and addiction in a person's life.

13. Drug Abuse Facts: • The drug that is abused can be an illegal drug such as crack or steroids, inhalants such as gasoline or household cleaning solvents, or prescription drugs used inappropriately such as abusing codeine. • According to research studies, one of the essential drug abuse facts that many users fail to understand is that continuous and repeated drug abuse often escalates into drug dependency. • Ironic aspect about drug abuse is the fact that those who abuse drugs the most are frequently the most clueless about the negative and damaging consequences of their drug-related behavior.

14. Effects of Drug Abuse on the Individual: • People who use drugs experience a wide array of physical effects other than those expected. The excitement of a cocaine effect, for instance, is followed by a "crash" : a period of anxiety, fatigue, depression, and an strong desire to use more cocaine to alleviate the feelings of the crash. Marijuana and alcohol interfere with motor control and are factors in many automobile accidents. Users of marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs may experience flashbacks, unwanted recurrences of the drug's effects weeks or months after use. Abrupt abstinence from certain drugs result in withdrawal symptoms. Drug overdose is a constant risk. There are over 10,000 deaths directly attributable to drug use in the United States every year; the substances most frequently involved are cocaine, heroin, and morphine, often combined with alcohol or other drugs. Many drug users engage in criminal activity, such as burglary and prostitution, to raise the money to buy drugs, and some drugs, especially alcohol, are associated with violent behavior.

15. Effects of Drug Abuse on the Family: • The user's preoccupation with the substance, plus its effects on mood and performance, can lead to marital problems and poor work performance or dismissal. Drug use can disrupt family life and create destructive patterns of codependency, that is, the spouse or whole family, out of love or fear of consequences, inadvertently enables the user to continue using drugs by covering up, supplying money, or denying there is a problem. Pregnant drug users, because of the drugs themselves or poor self-care in general, bear a much higher rate of low birth-weight babies than the average. Many drugs (e.g., crack and heroin) cross the placental barrier, resulting in addicted babies who go through withdrawal soon after birth

16. Effects of Drug Abuse on Society: • In the workplace it is costly in terms of lost work time and inefficiency. Drug users are more likely than nonusers to have occupational accidents, endangering themselves and those around them. Over half of the highway deaths in the United States involve alcohol. Drug-related crime can disrupt neighborhoods due to violence among drug dealers, threats to residents, and the crimes of the addicts themselves. In some neighborhoods, younger children are recruited as lookouts and helpers because of the lighter sentences given to juvenile offenders, and guns have become commonplace among children and adolescents.

17. What Happens to Your Brain When You Take Drugs? • Drugs are chemicals that tap into the brain's communication system and disrupt the way nerve cells normally send, receive, and process information. There are at least two ways that drugs are able to do this: (1) by imitating the brain's natural chemical messengers, and/or (2) by over stimulating the "reward circuit" of the brain.

18. Prevention Is Key • Drug addiction is a preventable disease. Research has shown that prevention programs that involve the family, schools, communities, and the media are effective in reducing drug abuse. Although many events and cultural factors affect drug abuse trends, when youths perceive drug abuse as harmful, they reduce their drug taking. It is necessary, therefore, to help youth and the general public to understand the risks of drug abuse and for teachers, parents, and health care professionals to keep sending the message that drug addiction can be prevented if a person never abuses drugs.

19. Getting help for drug abuse and drug addiction • Recognizing that you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery, one that takes tremendous courage and strength. Facing your addiction without minimizing the problem or making excuses can feel frightening and overwhelming, but recovery is within reach. If you’re ready to make a change and willing to seek help, you can overcome your addiction and build a satisfying, drug-free life for yourself. • Recovering from drug addiction is much easier when you have people you can lean on for encouragement, comfort, and guidance.Support can come from: • family members • close friends • therapists or counselors • other recovering addicts • healthcare providers • people from your faith community

20. “Drugs” Before and After Shots Drug Abuse and Addiction is not joke. Don’t believe me just watch this video and then ask yourself is this a joke? Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJIjWlLa8MU&feature=related

21. Just Remember Just Say No to DRUGS!

22. Work Cited Page • http://helpguide.org/mental/drug_substance_abuse_addiction_signs_effects_treatment.htm • http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/drug-addiction/DS00183 • http://www.nida.nih.gov/nidahome.html