Various Reasons For Getting Addicted

March 16, 2010 by  
Filed under Health Fitness

Many researchers believe that addiction is both a behavior which can be controlled to some extent and also a brain disease. Plus, since some testing with functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) found that all addictions tend to cause nearly the same reactions inside the brain, there could be one type of control model for addiction health-related issues. In other words, just as there is one disorder or disease labeled asthma, there would be one for addiction, covering all addictions; gambling, smoking, overeating, drugs, etc. Then one main treatment strategy or plan could be used to treat all addictions.

You will have to describe the reality of addiction, all of these components must be considered and understood. There are several essential components of addiction that are considered non-biological. These include cultural and social values, situational factors, ritual, developmental variations, personality differences and cognitive bias.

Environmental risk factors are characteristics in a person’s surroundings that increase their likelihood of becoming addicted to drugs. A person may have many environments, or domains, of influence such as the community, family, school and friends. Their risk of addiction can develop in any of these domains.

Using drugs or other substances becomes abusive and categorized as a “disorder” when the use begins to cause continuing or growing problems in the user’s life. These problems include missing work or school, driving under the influence, legal problems, and problems with friends or family relationships.

Behavior is closely tied to the social and peer groups to which a person belongs. Peer pressure exerts a powerful influence over adolescents and to a lesser, but not trivial, degree over adults. Individuals can easily be coerced into initiating and continuing behaviors such as drug use when surrounded by influential peers.

Sudden weight loss or weight gain. Deterioration of physical appearance and personal grooming habits are some of the symptoms of drug abusers who often try to conceal their symptoms. If you’re worried about a friend or family member might be abusing drugs, look for the following signs like Bloodshot eyes or pupils that are larger or smaller than usual.

Drugs seems to solve the problem or make life better, so you use the drug more and more and get addicted to it. The road to drug addiction begins with experimentation. You or your loved one may have tried drugs out of curiosity, because friends were doing it, or in an effort to erase another problem.

But while drugs might make you feel better in the short-term, attempts to self-medicate ultimately backfire. Instead of treating the underlying problem, drug use simply masks the symptoms. Take the drug away and the problem is still there, whether it be low self-esteem, anxiety, loneliness, or an unhappy family life. Furthermore, prolonged drug use eventually brings its own host of problems, including major disruptions to normal, daily functioning. Unfortunately, the psychological, physical, and social consequences of drug abuse and addiction become worse than the original problem you were trying to cope with or avoid.

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Trying To Understand Addiction

March 16, 2010 by  
Filed under Health Fitness

It is difficult to define exactly how addiction affects people, it has become popular to think of almost any behavior that has a compulsive quality as an “addiction.” Addictions come in all shapes and forms. But for those who have an addiction, or for those affected by the addiction of a loved one or close friend, it’s clear what an addiction means in “real” terms.

There are people with mental health problems use different substances to self-medicate, but end up making things worse. The research gathered at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health in Ontario, more than half of people with substance use disorders also have mental health issues such as anxiety or depression. The relationship between mental health issues and substance use is convoluted.

The removal of the drug or activity causes painful withdrawal symptoms. There are known to be some very common characteristics of destructive addictions such as substance activity or activity that triggers must initially cause feelings of pleasure and changes in emotion or mood. More than physical tolerance, an addiction develops physical and psychological dependence separate from the need to avoid the pain of withdrawal.The body develops a physical tolerance to the substance or activity, so people with addictions so people must take larger and larger amounts of a substance to feel the same effects.

These changes are also responsible, in large part, for the drug cravings and compulsion to use that make addiction so powerful. Repeated drug use alters the brain-causing long-lasting changes to the way it looks and functions. The answer lies in the brain. These brain changes interfere with your ability to think clearly, exercise good judgment, control your behavior, and feel normal without drugs.

The problem is the brain doesn’t realize what it is that is causing the ecstasy reaction. So when this flutter of activity increases the creation of dopamine for the negative behaviors and substances like drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc., it neglects the natural survival instinct reaction mechanisms, replacing them with the ecstasy instead.

Addiction indefinitely causes psychological, chemical, and anatomical changes in the brain. It develops after an initial exposure to the addicting substance or activity. That initial exposure lets addiction to develop, but addiction does not always develop. The cycle of quitting the addictive behavior, going through withdrawal, and relapsing may become self-reinforcing.

Research have shown that the risk of substance use disorders is higher for people who have a close relative with addictions. Few people inherit a vulnerability to the addictive properties of drugs. It’s been argued that in some cases, using substances to self-medicate is a learned behavior to cope with stress. Even if a person has a genetic vulnerability to addiction, it does not necessarily mean he will become an addict.

Close and dear ones play a strong role in substance abuse recovery. There is always a reason why a person develops an addiction. With support from family members who are non-judgmental, a person with addictions is more likely to stay in treatment and have a successful outcome.More often than not other factors that are behind addictions include chaos in the family unit, poverty, having physical, emotional or sexual abuse in the past or present to deal with or conflict.

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Drugs Can Cause Your Life to Spiral Out Of Control!!!

March 15, 2010 by  
Filed under Health Fitness

Has your life spiraled out of control on account of a drug problem? If yes, you may feel isolated, helpless and ashamed. Or perhaps you’re worried about a friend or family member’s drug use. In either case, you’re not alone. Addiction is a problem that many people face.

Do not feel anxious or worried, there is good news! You or your loved one can get better. There is hope, no matter how severe the substance abuse problem may seem and no matter how helpless you feel. Learning about the nature of the addiction, how it develops, what it looks like, and why it has such a powerful hold on an individual, will give you a better understanding of the problem and how to deal with it.

What people often underestimate is the complexity of drug addiction, that it is a disease that impacts the brain and because of that, breaking the addiction is not simply a matter of inner strength and willpower. Several people don’t understand why individuals become addicted or how drugs change the brain to foster compulsive drug abuse.

They mistakenly view drug abuse and addiction as strictly a social problem and may characterize those who take drugs as morally weak. One very common belief is that drug abusers should be able to just stop taking drugs if they are only willing to change their behavior. Through scientific advances we now know much more about how exactly drugs work in the brain, and we also know that drug addiction can be successfully treated, to help people stop abusing drugs and resume their productive lives.

Drugs 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 are able to do this – Firstly is by imitating the brain’s natural chemical messengers and/or Secondly by over stimulating the “reward circuit” of the brain.

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.

Drugs of abuse facilitate unconscious (conditioned) learning, which leads the user to experience uncontrollable cravings when they see a place or person they associate with the drug experience, even when the drug itself is not available. 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 consequences-in other words, to become addicted to drugs.

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