Chemical Addiction/Drug Abuse | Stages, Effects and Treatments
Nowadays, the most deadly and dangerous addiction is the chemical addiction. It is usually called as drug dependency or drug addiction. It is addictive or famous among all ages. In the modern world, there are a lot of sources of opium that makes a person addict of this or push that person into the world of deadly and dangerous drugs.
Alcohol, cocaine, weed, tobacco and some more options are the most demanding and famous drugs nowadays. These all drugs are in the form of some modified or processed chemicals. That’s why this is called as a chemical addiction. There are a lot of people that are fallen into the chemical or drug addiction around us.
Causes of Chemical Addiction
Well, the causes of chemical addiction are still unknown. Not known but some factors can cause a person has a high risk of falling into the chemical addiction. According to experts, genetic addiction or factors plays a considerable role in chemical addiction. There are some persons we listen about has some close friends or family members who have the drug addiction, are the reason behind drug addiction.
The environment around the addict is the most common reason for chemical or drug addiction. Stress, peer pressure or family functioning are the most usual reason for the development of the drug addiction for a person. Some mental disorders like bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia can play a role in the drug addiction development. According to some expert’s surveys, at least half of the people became an addict because of mental disorders. Some people, who have no risk factors are becoming addicts.
Common Drugs of Abuse
Many substances are misapplied by the drug addicts. People develop an addiction to many of these chemicals or drugs.
Some of the most common chemical, abused by the addicts:
• Marijuana
• Alcohol
• Cocaine
• Methamphetamine
• LSD or mescaline
• Psilocybin
• Amphetamines
• Heroine
• Morphine
• Codeine
• Oxycodone
Mostly the reason behind the development of drug addiction is recreational chemical use. In some cases, the person uses the chemical or drug as a prescribed medicine and become an addict by the time and also face the drug dependency. This is a growing problem of drug addiction. You should help someone who is a higher addict of chemicals.
The Stages of Chemical Addiction
Many people do not become an addict to drugs when they try the drug for the first time but sometimes it is possible with some drugs. The drug addiction develops in some stages called, drug addiction stages. These stages begin with the social use or experimental drug use. We know that everyone is different and apparently not all people went through the same stages of drug addiction.
According to experts, there are some stages of chemical addiction that include:
1. Experimentation
This is the very first step, taken by a drug addict to get into a high chemical addiction. In this stage, the drug user feels the control over drug use. They only use the drug occasionally. Usually, a drug user uses the drug during the first stage, with friends or in some social activities.
2. Regular Use
After the experimentation, the user makes it frequent. The frequency of using drug gets high at the time. Often they develop some habits as to when or where they should use the drug. Tolerance begins to develop. Then the user needs a high and more frequent dose of the drug to get the same result that they initially got from that drug. It makes their body weak and also makes way for them to crave the drug.
3. Preoccupation or Daily Use
The drug user makes a routine of using the drug daily, often many time in a day. The addict comes to the preoccupation stage with the drug that works, family and also the life of the user suffer. In this stage, the craving for the drug makes the user weak and change his/her behavior as well. The user was starting to hate the social life and makes the drug everything for self.
4. Chemical Dependency
In this stage, the user correctly lost his/her control of the drug use. They start to experience health damages, damage to social relationships and psychological damage or weakness. The user can understand the disadvantages of those damages but cannot give up on taking the drug as the drug dominate them. The user gets obligate and his/her cravenness of drug gets higher over the time and can be the cause of the sudden death of the chemical or drug user. This is the last and deadly stage of chemical addiction and became the hardest thing for the user when he/she want to put him/her self out of this addiction.
Symptoms and Signs of Chemical Dependency
The user of drugs or the addicts may experience a wide range of some severe symptoms and signs of chemical dependency. As I already mentioned above that not all people are the same or went through the same stages or symptoms, but commonly some people can feel one or two symptoms of chemical dependency. Some people can show or experience a wide range of adverse symptoms of drug dependency instead of other addicts.
There are some of the symptoms and signs of drug dependency include:
• Getting high on the drug on a regular basis
• Deteriorating the performance in school, work or at another place
• Loss of interest in daily life and enjoyable activities
• Getting so far from social activities
• Depression
• Suicidal feelings or thinking
• Daydreaming about the drug use
• Preoccupation with the drug
• Spending excessive amounts to buy drugs or chemicals
• Figuring out all the day when to get the next dose of drug
• Doing dangerous and illegal activities while on high drug like driving under the influence, risky sexual behavior, fighting or gets angry on someone without any reason
• Feeling that a healthy and usual life is not possible without drugs
• High cravings for the drug even when the drug is not available
• Experiencing the damage to relationships cause of the drug use
• Pressuring someone to take the drug
• Doing illegal activities to avail the drug like fake prescription for it or stealing
• Losing control of drug and chemical use
• Mentally disturbed or strange behavior
• A headache or common cold
Effects of Chemical Addiction
Chemical or drug addiction leads to many problems and harmful effects. The drug user may put himself/herself in dangerous and worst conditions. Chemical can be fatal if it has taken in a vast amount or dose. An overdose of the drug can be the reason of heart attack or stroke. Depressants cause the failure of the respiratory system of a drug user’s body. You can experience difficulty in breathing, or it can stop your breathing. Mixing more than one drug in the dose at a time can be the reason for your sudden death.
There are some chemical or drugs used by addicts can damage the brain, and it may take years to overcome that damage. Some addicts who take cocaine may go through the damage to the brain area that controls pleasure. This can be the reason for a condition called, anhedonia. If you have anhedonia, you can’t feel pleasure while doing ordinarily pleasurable activities. Anhedonia may take years to overcome. Continually using a drug or chemical addiction causes legal or financial problems as addict do the illegal things while high on the drug and spends a considerable amount to buy drugs. Click here to get rid of Cocaine Addiction.
These problems may develop and may reach to worst conditions if an addict cannot cover his/her steals or expenses on the drug. Many drug users borrow money to buy chemicals or drugs that they cannot pay back. This can put the drug users in some dangerous and adverse conditions. After the drug user become an excessive addict, he/she lose his/her social respect. According to experts, addicts take more drugs if they lose their respect. These harmful effects of chemical dependency may lead to an intense craving for a drug addict.
Treatment for Addicted Drug User
Rehab Centers
If you are severely addicted to drugs, you should take help from a rehabilitation center around you. You can contact a chemical dependency treatment center to overcome the drug addiction. When the healthcare provider starts the treatment, you may experience mild addiction to the drug, but over the time you will find that the treatment is effective and you will start feeling relax even when you quit.
At the drug addiction center, you can learn to live entirely without drugs in a safe and supportive manner. Rehab centers also teach you how to switch to the healthy life after recovering from long-term drug addiction. Then you return to society again to start a healthy and drug-free life, and the society has not a relapse.
There are many techniques used in rehab centers to treat your drug addiction or dependencies like behavior modification, psychotherapy, group therapy and social meetings or group discussion. Some drug addiction overcomes centers include alternative therapies in their treatment of meditation, yoga, and acupuncture. During treatment, any adverse or confusing conditions must be treated as well.
If the drug user has chronic pain and gets addicted to codeine that was prescribed to relieve the addicts’ chronic pain, after quitting the codeine, the same pain can return at the same form like before. If the addict does not try to take an effective treatment to cure pain, he/she may start using drugs again to numb the pain. According to experts, some chemical addicts have a mental disorder, and they use the drugs to cover the disorders. In that case, the individual should take a prior diagnosis before starting the drug addiction overcoming treatment, otherwise, the treatment will not show the effective results as the individual and health care provider expected.
Detox
When a drug user has physical addiction involved, he/she will have to go through detox process as it is the first step of starting a drug addiction overcoming therapy. While you are going through detoxification, your body withdraws the drugs or chemical, and the detox process lets the chemicals clear entirely out of your body. There are a lot of cases; withdrawal symptoms occur during detoxification. These symptoms cause mild addiction to the drug; you depend on. You will again crave for that drug but over the time and success of the detox process will reduce your craving for the drug and take it to the end.
There is a benefit of pursuing care in a rehab center, and they will provide the best facility such as monitoring during the detox process. If you suffer from some withdrawal symptoms, the rehab center’s staff will help you to get through them. Most rehab centers provide you the detox process that is medically managed. The doctors will wean you off the chemical to that you are addicted instead of stopping it suddenly. Some doctors at rehab center prescribe you medication to making your withdrawal easy. The addiction can be both psychological and physical, in the case, doctors will treat you according to both therapies.
Medication Maintenance
If you are addicted to some narcotics like tramadol or codeine, you may need to go through medical maintenance of addiction. While you choose the medical maintenance to overcome your addiction, you need to start taking the weaker drug than the drugs you are taking currently. Methadone and buprenorphine are the weaker medical drugs. These drugs function your brain receptors as the stronger narcotics, but these drugs deliver a weaker high and fewer side-effects.
In some cases, medical maintenance lasts years for addicts, but some addicts overcome the chemical addiction after few months of starting the medical maintaining process. If you are addicted to these drugs, you can overcome addiction by using the detoxification because methadone is a fewer risky and less addictive drug so you can break your addiction easily.
Recovery from Chemical Addiction
The recovery process from chemical addiction can take much longer time than the chemical dependency treatment program. Most addicts have to continue the therapy of chemical addiction treatment after once they checked out in a rehab center. Without recovery program, the risk of rising of relapse can increase. Recovery from chemical addiction is like to modify yourself from a drug addicted person to a healthy and drug-free living person. This is as important as being out of drug addiction otherwise quitting drugs may not effects you more. After quitting drugs, you still need to modify your behavior and to think to improve yourself after long-term drug addiction.
Choosing a Health Care Provider or a Treatment Facility
Finding a perfect and experienced healthcare provider or treatment facility can make a huge difference in your recovery process. If you want to overcome your drug addiction, you need to choose a recovery consultant wisely. For some drug addicts, this may mean a spiritually or holistic based process. According to a survey, some addicts that want an addiction overcoming program needs strict medical management by an experienced doctor that can strictly recover them, that is what they desire for. There are some facilities available in many rehab centers that cater to teens, women and some other specific groups.
A healthcare provider who treats drug addiction should be supportive, experienced, sensitive, caring, supportive and nonjudgemental. If you choose a drug addiction therapist and you are not feeling comfortable or satisfied with, obviously you need to switch to another health care provider. It is counterproductive to hide some things and conditions from your therapist like your last date of taking a drug or the patterns of taking drugs by you before starting your treatment.
Support of Family & Friends in Chemical Addiction Treatment
If you are higher on drug addiction and want to take a drug addiction treatment recovery, you need support from your family, friends, and also society to get a successful recovery from drug dependency. Before you start the drug addiction treatment program, you need to conduct a discussion with your family. It will help them to teach constructive ways to deal with you. It will also help to keep you relapsing.
Some support group can also be useful for you during the drug addiction treatment. These groups are usually called as anonymous. These groups provide you support so that you do not feel uncomfortable in your journey of recovery.
