About Drug Abuse

Many people do not understand why or how other people become addicted to drugs. It is often mistakenly assumed that drug abusers lack moral principles or willpower and that they could stop using drugs simply by choosing to change their behavior. In reality, drug addiction is a complex disease, and quitting takes more than good intentions or a strong will. In fact, because drugs change the brain in ways that foster compulsive drug abuse, quitting is difficult, even for those who are ready to do so. Through scientific advances, we know more about how drugs work in the brain than ever, and we also know that drug addiction can be successfully treated to help people stop abusing drugs and lead productive lives.

Drug abuse and addiction have negative consequences for individuals and for society. Estimates of the total overall costs of substance abuse in the United States, including productivity and health- and crime-related costs, exceed $600 billion annually. This includes approximately $193 billion for illicit drugs, $193 billion for tobacco, and $235 billion for alcohol. As staggering as these numbers are, they do not fully describe the breadth of destructive public health and safety implications of drug abuse and addiction, such as family disintegration, loss of employment, failure in school, domestic violence, and child abuse.

Signs Of Drug Abuse

Symptoms Of Alcohol Addiction

Alcohol addiction is common for a variety of reasons, including its socially accepted nature and legality. Studies have shown that men are five times more likely than women to have a serious alcohol abuse problem and more likely to be binge drinkers. Alcohol is physically addictive, like heroin, which makes it one of the hardest substances to beat in recovery. This is also coupled with the relative ease with which most people can obtain alcohol.

Signs that your male loved one is suffering from a severe problem with alcohol consumption include:

• Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol nearly every day or every day
• Hiding drinking or drinking alone
• Driving while drunk or after drinking
• Problems at work, including drinking on the job
• Defensiveness about drinking, including denial of a problem
  Spending time with friends at the bar and coming home late frequently
• Gaining weight, due to the empty calories of alcohol, or losing weight because they aren’t eating often enough
• Inability to have “one or two,” at social drinking events and getting excessively drunk
• Strong physical cravings for alcohol or bad mood when they haven’t had anything to drink in a while – signs of withdrawal
• Nausea, anxiety, and other physical problems after quitting drinking for a period of time

For men, alcohol can serve as a socially acceptable way to bond with friends, so having two beers while watching a movie or out fishing isn’t necessarily indicative of a problem. Only through sustained and obvious struggles related to alcohol can you truly diagnose a problem. Watch out for these signs and monitor your loved one’s behavior to get a grasp of how serious their addiction may have become. An intervention may be necessary at some point.

Signs Of Marijuana Abuse

If you’re worried that your loved one is suffering from addiction to marijuana, please watch for these signs:

• Smoking marijuana every day or even multiple times a day
• Showing signs of anxiety or frustration when he cannot smoke marijuana
• Signs of paraphernalia (rolling papers, joints, pipes, etc.) and the scent of marijuana in his home or on his person
• Extremely relaxed behavior with signs of cognitive impairment
• Frantic or obsessive search for new sources of marijuana, such as buying it through a dealer
• Replacing anti-anxiety medicines with marijuana without the advice of his doctor

Even if marijuana isn’t physically addictive or severely dangerous to use, it may still cause severe problems in your loved one’s life. For example, he may run into trouble with the law if smoking marijuana is illegal in your state or if he is smoking marijuana without a medical marijuana card. It can also cause problems with friends and at work or may even contribute to a car crash if he drives while under the influence. That’s why it’s still so important to get him into rehab soon.

Signs Of Cocaine Abuse

If a person is abusing powdered cocaine and they don’t want you to know, they may disappear to use the drug and then return in a very different mood. They may seem excited and act more confident and exhibit a greater sense of well-being. They may be more excited sexually and talkative. Their energy will be pumped up and they probably will not have very much appetite for food and will not have a normal sleep pattern.

Traces of white powder around a person’s nose are also a sign of cocaine use. While many people snort the drug (thus leaving the powder), some will dissolve and inject it. A few will ingest it, which can lead to severe intestinal damage.

Dilated pupils and eyes that are overly sensitive to light are symptoms of cocaine use that you can watch for. Other symptoms of cocaine use include runny noses and after long use, nosebleeds and damage to the inside of the nose. A cocaine user may also dissolve and inject the drug, in which case you might find needle marks on arms, legs, hands, feet or neck and discarded syringes left around the place cocaine is consumed.

As powder cocaine’s effects only last an hour or less, the user may leave periodically so he or she can use more of the drug.

Signs of Cocaine use:

• Dilated pupils
• Runny nose (snorting)
• Nosebleeds (snorting)
• Track marks (injecting)
• Burned lips or fingers (smoking)
• Fast heart rate
• Euphoria
• Overconfidence
• Unusual excitement
• Aggressiveness
• Paranoia
• Poor judgment
• Delusions

Signs and Symptoms of Methamphetamine Use

Methamphetamine is not the number one drug that is abused in most countries, but it is one of the most addictive and one of the most destructive. It’s important that parents and other family members are able to tell when someone they care about is abusing methamphetamine.

Methamphetamine can be swallowed, snorted, injected or smoked. If you are looking for traces of meth use, therefore, you may find small bags of white powder or crystals or syringes. Other items that could be left behind after meth abuse are small pieces of crumpled aluminum foil, soda cans with a hole in the side or the shafts of inexpensive ball-point pens that might be used to snort the drug.

Some meth users abuse the drug over and over, a form of binging known as a “run.” They may inject the drug every few hours until they run out of supplies or become too incapacitated to continue.

Meth Abusers:

• Do not sleep for long periods
• Lose his or her appetite
• Lose large amounts of weight
• May appear unusually active
• Can seem nervous and anxious

What Happens to Your Brain When You Take Drugs?

Drugs contain 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 cause this disruption: (1) by imitating the brain’s natural chemical messengers and (2) by overstimulating the “reward circuit” of the brain.

Some drugs (e.g., marijuana and heroin) have a similar structure to chemical messengers called neurotransmitters, which are naturally produced by the brain. This similarity allows the drugs to “fool” the brain’s receptors and activate nerve cells to send abnormal messages.

Other drugs, such as cocaine or methamphetamine, can cause the nerve cells to release abnormally large amounts of natural neurotransmitters (mainly dopamine) or to prevent the normal recycling of these brain chemicals, which is needed to shut off the signaling between neurons. The result is a brain awash in dopamine, a neurotransmitter present in brain regions that control movement, emotion, motivation, and feelings of pleasure. The overstimulation of this reward system, which normally responds to natural behaviors linked to survival (eating, spending time with loved ones, etc.), produces euphoric effects in response to psychoactive drugs. This reaction sets in motion a reinforcing pattern that “teaches” people to repeat the rewarding behavior of abusing drugs.

As a person continues to abuse drugs, the brain adapts to the overwhelming surges in dopamine by producing less dopamine or by reducing the number of dopamine receptors in the reward circuit. The result is a lessening of dopamine’s impact on the reward circuit, which reduces the abuser’s ability to enjoy not only the drugs but also other events in life that previously brought pleasure. This decrease compels the addicted person to keep abusing drugs in an attempt to bring the dopamine function back to normal, but now larger amounts of the drug are required to achieve the same dopamine high—an effect known as tolerance.

Long-term abuse causes changes in other brain chemical systems and circuits as well. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that influences the reward circuit and the ability to learn. When the optimal concentration of glutamate is altered by drug abuse, the brain attempts to compensate, which can impair cognitive function. Brain imaging studies of drug-addicted individuals show changes in areas of the brain that are critical to judgment, decision making, learning and memory, and behavior control. Together, these changes can drive an abuser to seek out and take drugs compulsively despite adverse, even devastating consequences—that is the nature of addiction.

How to Help a Loved One

It is both important and useful to have some guidelines when you’re dealing with an addicted person. To help you in this crisis situation, here are some Do’s and Don’ts.

Do: Maintain your own balance and integrity. Don’t let the addicted person draw you into using drugs or alcohol with him/her. Also don’t let him convince you that you’re wrong for seeing the problem.

Don’t: Expect results just by asking him/her to quit. It will seldom (if ever) do any good to say, “If you loved me, you’d quit.” The compulsion to get more alcohol or drugs is bigger then he is and it’s usually bigger than his love for his family. It’s just flat-out overwhelming. If you accept this, you can get started on the solution.

Do: Find a rehab program for your loved one. If you have any choice in the matter, ask plenty of questions before selecting one. Find out exactly how the program works, ask if you can talk to someone who has completed the program. The program should make sense to you.

Don’t: If at all possible, don’t choose a 30-day program. The National Institute on Drug Abuse recommends a program of three months or longer for a better chance of sobriety. Addiction sel-dom occurs overnight and there is plenty of destruction of life skills along the way. It takes time to rebuild a life.

Do: If humanly possible, stand by the addicted person in your life. Sometimes, especially when there are kids, it’s vital to remove yourself and the children from the situation. If you can, let the addicted person know that you support him and his recovery. The drugs have already convinced him that he is worthless so when he has support, there is a greater chance he can turn things around during rehab.

Don’t: Put yourself in a situation where you can be abused mentally or physically. If you are vul-nerable due to size, emotional state or other reason, find your own support. Family, counselors, ministers, even law enforcement can and should be utilized. You might feel ashamed or embar-rassed about being in this situation. That’s completely natural. You must speak out for your own protection. You can’t help anyone if you are beaten down or ill yourself.

Do: Insist on rehab as the right answer for addiction. Families with an addicted loved one live in terror of the phone call that tells them that their addicted loved one is dead or has been jailed. Find an effective rehab program and make this the only solution you will accept – not promises that she will “cut down,” “wean herself off,” or “only do it one more time.”

Don’t: Expect that the person will immediately take off for rehab when you first approach him. You may have to intervene. Either find a professional interventionist who has successfully got-ten many people to rehab or get together with all your family and the addict’s close friends and cut off all means of escape. If some have been providing money or shelter, they must agree that rehab is the only option. There must be no way out other than going to rehab.

Do: If you are going to stage an intervention, it must be done from caring and love. Criticism or blame will only push the person further into his unconfrontable guilt. Drugs are already his solu-tion for this guilt.

Don’t: Assume that his going to rehab means that everything has been resolved. He will need your love, guidance and support during rehab and afterwards as he establishes a new, sober life for himself. Help him move back into life in a step-by-step manner, maintaining your support.

Substance Addiction Resources

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) leads the Nation in scientific research on the health aspects of drug abuse and addiction. It supports and conducts research across a broad range of disciplines, including genetics, functional neuroimaging, social neuroscience, prevention, medication and behavioral therapies, and health services. It then disseminates the results of that research to significantly improve prevention and treatment and to inform policy as it relates to drug abuse and addiction. Additional information is available at drugabuse.gov or by calling 301-443-1124.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) provides leadership in the national effort to reduce alcohol-related problems by conducting and supporting research in a wide range of scientific areas, including genetics, neuroscience, epidemiology, health risks and benefits of alcohol consumption, prevention, and treatment; coordinating and collaborating with other research institutes and Federal programs on alcohol-related issues; collaborating with international, national, State, and local institutions, organizations, agencies, and programs engaged in alcohol-related work; and translating and disseminating research findings to healthcare providers, researchers, policymakers, and the public. Additional information is available at www.niaaa.nih.gov or by calling 301-443-3860.

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

The mission of National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery, and cure. In support of this mission, NIMH generates research and promotes research training to fulfill the following four objectives: (1) promote discovery in the brain and behavioral sciences to fuel research on the causes of mental disorders; (2) chart mental illness trajectories to determine when, where, and how to intervene; (3) develop new and better interventions that incorporate the diverse needs and circumstances of people with mental illnesses; and (4) strengthen the public health impact of NIMH-supported research. Additional information is available at nimh.nih.gov or by calling 301-443-4513.