Drug abuse effects include damage to the physical, emotional, and psychological parts of the body. In addition, they compromise the social aspects of regular family, friends and job-related relationships. Drug abuse effects involve the physical body extensively and according to the kind of drugs that are used.
Drug abuse effects injure the brain in a variety of ways, including:
Hallucinations
Mood swings
Chemical imbalances
Over-stimulation of dopamine (the pleasure center)
Disruption of regular sleep/wake patterns
Anxiety and nervous system stimulation
These injuries impede regular brain processing mechanisms. They block the pathways and make the process of decision-making harder. Drug abuse effects cause lapses in memory and exaggerate reactions to events. Effects also include failing to respond to consequences and events in the environment. When someone is preoccupied with the effects of the drug or is focused on the pleasure center of the brain, they fail to notice anything else.
Drug Abuse Effectsand Stress Management
Coping well with stressors is based on the ability to find options to obstacles. This requires observation, patience and reasoning ability. All of these coping mechanisms are compromised due to drug abuse effects. Specifically, they make stress management difficult because they:
Encourage a lack of impulse control
Alter the perception of events
Block the ability to make sound judgments
Promote oblivion; the tendency to focus on the sensations of the 'high' to the extreme
Trigger knee-jerk reactions
Stimulate frustration and anger responses
Other drug abuse effects encompass an array of unexpected and serious symptoms:
Users of cocaine and crack experience a crash in mood elevation after the effects of the drug wear off. The crash is described as feelings of depression, craving for more of the drug, emptiness and irritability. These drug abuse effects are the prerequisite conditions to the addiction. More of the drug is used to get rid of the negative feelings produced by the crash.
Some drug abuse effects spur flashbacks. These episodes are spontaneous recurring instances similar to the high produced by the drug except that they occur at a time when the drug was not in use.
Most drug abuse effects are the symptoms of withdrawal. These include poor physical coordination, nausea, anxiety, paranoia, muscle spasms and abdominal cramping.
More severe drug abuse effects can be caused by the transfer of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases from person to person by sharing needles and syringes.
The most devastating drug abuse effects are overdoses. Overdoses occur when people do not know how much of the drug the body can accept at one time and when increased amounts of the drug are injected or ingested in order to produce the same intensity of drug abuse effects.
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