Drug abuse is an ongoing issue around the world, affecting individuals and families alike. Having a drug addiction, or knowing someone who has one, can be incredibly challenging. The process of dealing with drug addiction can be lengthy, but with the right support, you can find the treatment you need.
Substance use disorder has the potential to have harmful effects on both your body and mind; it’s important to seek the right help when you suspect a drug addiction is brewing. If you’d like to find out more about the effects of abusing drugs, continue reading.
Understanding Drug Abuse
Addiction is a chronic disease characterised by drug seeking and use that is compulsive or difficult to control, despite the harmful health consequences. It can be hard to notice the signs of addiction, and many drug users remain in denial about their actions.
Substance use disorder, commonly referred to as drug addiction, involves the misuse of both legal and illegal drugs. This can include taking prescription medications when you don’t need them or using illicit substances frequently. Misusing these drugs often leads to a range of physical and psychological consequences.
How Can Taking Drugs Affect You?
People with addiction often have one or more associated health issues, which could include heart or lung disease, stroke, cancer, or mental health conditions. It’s crucial to get help if you believe that you have an addiction.
Whether it’s yourself or a loved one who’s battling drug addiction, seeking help is key to a happy and healthy future. More often than not, drug users are unable to comprehend the potential health problems they’ll face as a result of substance abuse. The effects of drug abuse vary from person to person, depending on how severe the addiction might be.
Psychological Effects
Substance misuse is closely linked to the development of mental disorders. People with a substance use disorder might struggle with mental health disorders such as anxiety disorders, depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, personality disorders, and schizophrenia.
Having both a drug addiction and a mental health disorder can be challenging to manage, with the potential to create a vicious cycle. Acknowledging your addiction and understanding that the tedious effects of abusing drugs can seriously impact your body are important.
Social Effects
The social consequences of drug abuse are equally significant, and drug addiction can impact both yourself and the people around you. Substance abuse often has a strain on relationships, which sometimes leads to isolation and alienation.
It’s not uncommon for family members to feel shame or embarrassment when it comes to dealing with relatives who have a drug addiction. Members may feel anger, frustration, anxiety, fear, worry, and depression.
Although it’s difficult to live with a drug addict, it’s vital that you offer support and remain by their side throughout this challenging period. In most cases, those struggling with drug use face stigma and discrimination.
Impact on the Body
Abusing drugs can have severe effects on your body’s health. The specific impact depends on the type of drug abused, the frequency and duration of use, and the method of consumption. Drugs alter brain chemistry, affecting neurotransmitters responsible for mood, pleasure, and cognition.
Taking drugs frequently can impact your heart rate and blood pressure, often putting users at risk of a heart attack or stroke. These risk factors are usually ignored by drug addicts, despite their knowledge of the consequences.
Smoking drugs such as cannabis could damage your lungs, even more so after long-term use. Smoking drugs potentially causes an increased risk of respiratory infections or, in worse cases, lung cancer. Drug use can also increase the risk of contracting infections. HIV and hepatitis C (a serious liver disease) can occur from sharing injection equipment.
Overall, drug abuse weakens the immune system, which ultimately makes those abusing drugs more vulnerable to illness and infection.
Tackling Withdrawal Symptoms
For many individuals, facing the sometimes harsh withdrawal symptoms that come with quitting drugs can serve as a barrier to seeking professional help for addiction. Withdrawal symptoms vary depending on the person and what drugs they’ve been taking. The long-term misuse of drugs often results in some challenging withdrawal symptoms.
Whether you’ve been struggling with a drug or alcohol addiction, it’s crucial to understand the symptoms you might face when you decide to quit. Drugs such as cocaine come with some complex withdrawal symptoms, including a depressed mood, agitation, vivid unpleasant dreams, and fatigue.
Alcohol withdrawal syndrome ranges from mild to severe; severe and complicated alcohol withdrawal might present with hallucinations, seizures, or delirium tremens. Regardless of how severe you believe your withdrawal symptoms might be, it’s important to seek help and detox from drugs in a safe environment, under the close supervision of healthcare professionals.
Do You or Someone You Know Have a Drug Addiction?
Are you battling with drug addiction, or do you know someone who is? If so, now is the right time to seek drug addiction treatment. Here at Verve Healthcare, we offer expert support to those in need of rehabilitation; we offer a referral service like no other, helping individuals find the best-suited rehab clinic to attend.
Regardless of the type of drug that you’re addicted to, we can help. Whether you’re battling an addiction to heroin or cocaine, we can connect you with a suitable rehabilitation centre. In addition to drug addiction, we’re also able to help individuals struggling with ongoing mental health conditions.
Rehab isn’t just available to help those taking illicit drugs; it’s a safe space for people to get better no matter their issues. Having helped many individuals suffering from substance use disorders find specialist rehab clinics, our dedicated team has a wealth of knowledge and experience when it comes to finding rehab centres for people to go to.
Either you or your loved one must get the right help. Rehab offers detoxification, allowing you to withdraw from drugs in the safest environment possible. Attending rehab puts you one step closer to a healthy future, and makes living in the real world without drugs much easier.
You can attend therapy sessions, whether alone or in a group setting, and meet other individuals experiencing the same issues as you. If you’d like to find out more about our expert referral services, please don’t hesitate to contact us today. We look forward to hearing from you soon and being able to help kickstart your recovery journey.