Biology on Drug Abuse and Addiction Essay

Abstract This paper will discuss what drug abuse and addiction is. It also will discuss what effects that alcohol, marijuana, and heroin have on the body. Over the past couple decades drug abuse and addiction is a growing epidemic in the United States. As the years go by more and more people are leaning on drugs to make them forget what’s going on, for fun, or just for personal satisfaction. People never seem to only worry about the feeling they get from using them, but what about the long term effects? What about the body, the brain, your health? Well people like me want to know the effects, so I will be discussing these things throughout this paper. There are many different types of drugs and they all have different effects depending on how often they’re used. I will be going through a list of drugs and what type of effects they have on your body and brain. This isn’t just a simple outline of them, this is more than that I hope you’re prepared. Drug abuse is a repetition of usage of addictive or illegal drugs. Addiction is being abnormally dependent on a habit. Today drugs seem to become the newest trend. Most of it is tried just for fun out of curiosity. Otherwise it used for more psychological problems such as: stress, anxiety, or depression. This doesn’t automatically make it abuse and there is no direct notice of level of drug usage to determine the movement from casual to problematic. When talking about drug abuse and addiction it isn’t about consumption but more on consequences. If your drug addiction starts to affect your everyday life you most likely you’re a drug abuser or you have an addiction problem. Drug abuse and addiction can have many effects on the brain. These repeated usages of drugs can cause the way your brain’s appearance and function. From taking drugs it can cause large amounts of dopamine can be released into your brain. Dopamine triggers feelings of pleasure, which your brain remembers and wants them to reoccur. If you become addicted to any drug it can start to take place of normal healthy things such as eating and drinking (non-alcoholic beverages). When addicted changes in your brain begin to interfere with your ability to clearly think, exercise good judgment, control your behavior, and feel normal without drugs. Your addiction is bad when the urge is so extremely strong that your mind starts to find a way to deny or rationalize the addiction. Let’s start with alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant it slows down reaction time and thinking and other activity with the brain. Alcohol rapidly enters the bloodstream and circulates to all parts of the body within a few minutes. When it reaches the brain it knocks out control centers, causing intoxication. (Hanley Center, 2012, â€Å"Get the Facts about Drugs and Alcohol,† para. 1). The addiction to alcohol is called alcoholism. Alcoholism is genetic. With consumption of alcohol it can cause many psychological effects such as to drink to escape problems, feelings, insecurity, etc. Little do they know that doesn’t solve them that only make those problems worse. Alcoholism can cause malnutrition, shakes, tremors, brain damage, mouth cancer, cancer in the esophagus, cancer in the stomach, heart disease, liver damage, ulcers, and gastritis. There are also many mental effects such as: Erratic behavior, impaired thinking/judgment, slower reactions, loss of self-control, moodiness, slurred speech, double vision, impaired memory, and depression. Alcohol can cause amnesia, because believe it or not the brain cells are not killed from alcohol; They are blocked by steroids that are created by the neurons in the hippocampus when large amounts of alcohol are consume which blocks memory formation. Marijuana is a preparation made from the dried flower clusters and leaves of the cannabis plant, usually smoked or eaten to induce euphoria. When marijuana is consumed it enters the bloodstream and immediately attacks the brain and nervous system. Marijuana isn’t a stimulant, depressant, nor hallucinogen, however it a mixture of all three. It also can be determined on how the person who consumes it reacts from the effects. Marijuana is a mind-altering drug it distorts the users mind. When marijuana is used the chemicals can be located in the brain from three to six weeks and can be detected while getting a drug screen. When marijuana usage is gradually increasing by someone they may start becoming dependent on it because they like the feeling. However when becoming more dependent on it when they go days without they may suffer from withdrawal. With withdrawal they may experience effects like sleeping difficulties, nervousness, and mood swings. Now to get more specific we’ll start with women and pregnancy. According to research it can cause infertility. Infertility is being unable to become conceive children. Smoking marijuana while pregnant can also cause premature birth and birth defects on the unborn child. Now moving on to the men, did you know that marijuana has been linked to testicular cancer? According to the American Cancer Society they found the germ sub-type tumor non-seminoma in men twice as much in men that consume marijuana than in men who didn’t. This type of tumor is more difficult to treat and is more likely to be found in men in the late teens and early thirties. On to the mental problems, marijuana can cause short term memory, mood swings, impaired reaction time, high irritability, insomnia, anxiety, depression, paranoia, frustration, and confusion. Heroin is a highly addictive analgesic drug derived from morphine, often used illicitly as a narcotic producing euphoria. When heroin is injected into the body it reaches the brain anywhere between seven and eight seconds. Heroin can take immediate effects on your body even after small amounts of intake. Heroin is a depressant. Heroin depresses the part of the brain that controls the â€Å"survive† functions. Some functions are breathing and coughing. The thing that heroin does to the body is that it tricks it to release hormones that stop pains, and ones that cause pleasure. The person who is taking the drug experiences euphoria or extreme happiness. More effects of this drug are difficulties to urinate, retracted pupils, and decreased breathing and heart rate. As heroin becomes more of a habit for people it becomes very much expensive. Once addicted to heroin the user has to use this drug every eight to twelve hours or they can undergo a serious of side effects. The effects that happen when the user doesn’t get what their dosage is called withdrawal. When going through withdrawal the user experiences fever, chills, nausea, diarrhea, and muscle spasms. The symptoms usually last anywhere between five to seven days. Also when experiencing withdrawal it can lead to feelings of anxiety, severe pain throughout the body. Since the body becomes so attached to the drug that when they go without they can potentially die, so it is important for an addict to go detox clinic or hospital to get doses of methadone for a while so they can wean themselves from heroin. Not only does heroin affect you internally, it effects externally as well. Some physical effects are: Sleepiness, skin sores, bleeding, slow breathing, and collapsed veins, heart damage, malnutrition, AIDS, anemia, death. It always seems to be the people who’ve never experienced drug addiction and abuse that are quick to make myths and rumors about it. The first myth is â€Å"Overcoming addiction is simply a matter of willpower. You can stop using drugs if you really wanted to.† That isn’t true. When you use drugs for so long the brain is changed so much that it makes it difficult for the user to quit. The second myth is â€Å"Addiction is a disease: there’s nothing you can do about it† although this is considered to be a disease it doesn’t mean you’re incurable that’s why there are rehabilitation centers and substitutes to help wean you off the drug you are on. My three is â€Å"Addicts have to hit rock bottom before they can get better.† Actually you can start recovering from an addiction at any time, and the earlier the better. Myth four is â€Å"You can’t force someone into treatment: they have to want help.† People don’t have to be your own choice to be done. In most cases the ones who are pushed by their families are most likely to go through with it. Last but not least â€Å"Treatment didn’t work before, so there’s no point trying again. â€Å"Recovery is a lengthy recovery sometimes there are setbacks but relapse doesn’t make it unsuccessful it just gives them reason to do better. Some signs and symptoms of drug abuse are when you begin to neglect responsibilities, when using drugs under bad conditions or taking risk while under influence, when the drugs you use are getting you into trouble, and when the drugs are causing relationship problems. Some signs and symptoms of drug abuse are if you have gained a drug tolerance, you take drugs to relieve withdrawal, you have no control on your drug usage, your life is slowly starting to revolve around drugs, you start to abandon activities you used to enjoy, and the continuance of drugs even after you found out what they do to you. References Robinson, L., Smith, M., M. A. (2012) – Drug Abuse and Addiction. Signs, Symptoms, and Help for Drug Problems and Substance Abuse, Retrieved from http://www.helpguide.org/mental/drug_substance_abuse_addiction_signs_effects_treatment.htm Wade, C., Tavris, C. (2010) . Psychology. California: Prentice Hall