Welcome to Drug and Alcohol Treatment
| ||
Drug Addiction Symptoms Article
This is a selection made from among articles on Drug Addiction Symptoms. For a permanent link to this article, or to bookmark it for future reading, click here.
Effects of Drug Addiction
from:The effects of drug addiction are far reaching and go way beyond just affecting the life of the addict. Drug addiction has an effect on families, companies, schools, and friendships. It also has an effect on the body of the addict and could possibly affect the health of those around the addict.
People who use drugs experience a wide array of physical effects other than those expected. The excitement of a cocaine high, for instance, is followed by a “crash”: a period of anxiety, fatigue, depression, and an acute desire for 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.
Sharing hypodermic needles leads to an increased risk of HIV and some forms of hepatitis. That, along with increased sexual activity among drug addicts can greatly increase the incidence of people becoming infected with AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.
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.
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, and fetal alcohol syndrome can affect children of mothers who consume alcohol during pregnancy. Pregnant women who acquire the AIDS virus through intravenous drug use pass the virus to their infant.
Drug abuse affects society in many ways. 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. The great majority of homeless people have either a drug or alcohol problem or a mental illness—many have all three.
Drug addiction has an effect on all parts of life for the drug user, the family, and society as a whole. The time to get help for an addiction is NOW before its effects become so far-reaching, they cannot be recovered.
Drug Addiction Symptoms Specific links
Blinkx Video Search
- World's largest video search engine. Over 26 million hours of video.
-- http://www.blinkx.com/
My Best Friend is My Penis: Ep 3
- Jon learns the hard way that sometimes three's a crowd. Watch the third episode on Atom.com
-- http://www.atom.com/
Watch Free Videos At Mevio!
- Tons of Free Videos, Only At Mevio.com
-- http://www.mevio.com/
The Best in Fine Living
- Lifes best is one click away.
-- http://www.justluxe.com/
Get Hired
- Earn more money with a better job now
-- http://www.hotjobs.com/
Drug Addiction Symptoms News
Stop-Smoking Drug Could Lessen Symptoms of Autism - About - News & Issues
Stop-Smoking Drug Could Lessen Symptoms of Autism About - News & Issues, NY - I've written to Dr. Anand, asking for more details about precisely which symptoms he hopes will be alleviated by the drug, and how he plans to proceed with ... |
'Insight' deficit may explain denial in drug addiction - Genetic Engineering News (press release)
'Insight' deficit may explain denial in drug addiction Genetic Engineering News (press release), NY - This "insight deficit" appears to originate from impairments in many of the same brain regions that underlie addiction symptoms such as continued drug use ... |
Why are you hooked? - ScienceBlog.com
Why are you hooked? ScienceBlog.com, CA - This study, to me, shows that even drug addiction isn't just chemical. Clearly there is a psychological component that is either present before or because ... |
Web of addiction: The 'gateway' shifts to prescriptions - Herald Times Reporter
Web of addiction: The 'gateway' shifts to prescriptions Herald Times Reporter, WI - By Cindy Hodgson • Herald Times Reporter • November 18, 2008 Editor's note: This installment in the Herald Times Reporter drug addiction series examines the ... |
Stop-Smoking Drug Could Lessen Symptoms of Autism - About - News & Issues
Stop-Smoking Drug Could Lessen Symptoms of Autism About - News & Issues, NY - The finding has led to speculation that existing drugs used to curb nicotine addiction might serve as the basis for potential therapies to alleviate the ... |
Cavan is heroin blackspot with 200 users - Anglo Celt
Cavan is heroin blackspot with 200 users Anglo Celt, Ireland - Since the opening of the new Cavan Drug Awareness centre, a new light has been shed on the massive drugs problem in Cavan town. A senior addiction ... |
Methamphetamine Update: A miraculous shift in attitude - Enterprise-Record
Methamphetamine Update: A miraculous shift in attitude Enterprise-Record, CA - My clients are not addicts. They are in recovery. They have the symptoms of addiction. They have addiction and the overwhelming preponderance of evidence ... |
Great American Smokeout Quit Smoking Tips - WhyQuit (press release)
Great American Smokeout Quit Smoking Tips WhyQuit (press release), SC - Law of Addiction - The law of addiction states, "administration of a drug to an addict will cause re-establishment of chemical dependence upon the addictive ... |
Web of Addiction: Fighting on two fronts - Herald Times Reporter
Web of Addiction: Fighting on two fronts Herald Times Reporter, WI - MANITOWOC — For "Megan," drug addiction started in her mid teens amid her effort to fit in. Soon enough, she was hanging around with what turned out to be ... Web of Addiction: Unraveling the web of addiction to drugs |
NHS Tayside’s £2.7m to fight Hepatitis C - Evening Telegraph
NHS Tayside’s £2.7m to fight Hepatitis C Evening Telegraph, UK - Most will be drug addicts who contracted the potentially serious blood-borne infection through sharing contaminated needles. Without screening many would be ... |