Health

Teenage Substance Abuse Problems

September 11, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

: Image by kr4gin via Flickr

Being a teenager in today’s society is a challenge, to say the least. It’s a stressful time for young kids and their parents alike. No one really knows why, but substance abuse has become a part of teenager’s lives. Although most teenagers don’t necessarily become drug addicts in their later years, drug use is without a doubt risky business for teenagers. Young kids don’t realize it, but even the smallest amount of drug use (for example, alcohol and marijuana) has negative consequences. Unfortunately, school and family relationships are undoubtedly the most affected areas of drug abuse.

How Can You Tell When a Teen is Using Drugs?

Possibly the most telling sign of drug abuse is a teen’s preoccupation with drugs. Drug use overshadows all other activities and becomes a part of the teen’s daily life. Friendship groups and family relations change. Other warning signs may include the use of more dangerous drugs like cocaine, amphetamines, and heroin. Since kids do their best to hide their drug use, drug detection is a big challenge for parents.

There’s no single cause for drug addiction in teens. Instead there are several pathways to his/her drug problems. It develops over time, and doesn’t necessarily begin as full-blown problem with addiction.

Warning Signs

Some of the factors that may place teens at risk are:

Lack of supervision from parents
No communication between parents and kids about the dangers of drugs
No set rules or boundaries against drug use
Inconsistent and/or excessive discipline
Conflict in the family
A history of alcohol or dug abuse in the family
Favorable attitudes regarding drug or alcohol use from parents and peers

The following are individual risk factors

Impulsive behavior
Psychological stress
Emotional instability
A perception of low harmfulness from drug use
Extension drug use by peers

Early detection is the key to helping kids with drug problems, and the earlier a drug user seeks help for his/her problems, the better. Now more than ever, parents need to have open communication with their children about drugs.

Filed Under: Addiction, Health, Substance Abuse Tagged With: Cocaine, Health, Substance abuse

Addiction: A Perplexing Problem for Psychiatrists

September 3, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

After decades of studying drug use, the phenomenon never ceases to puzzle psychiatrists. One psychiatrist reported that his patient said he continues to snort cocaine even though it doesn’t make him high anymore. People’s habits and addictions are hard to explain, and even more perplexing to diagnose and eventually cure. Cocaine addicts prefer a cocaine high more than anything else in the world, including eating, drinking, and sleeping. Apparently the patient mentioned earlier simply lost the euphoria that he experienced from cocaine, and eventually he lost he job. When his wife threatened to divorce him, he sought help from a professional.

It hasn’t been until recently that psychiatrists are beginning to understand the growing problem of substance abuse and addiction in our country. However, for years professional people have understood the attraction of recreational drugs like cocaine, alcohol, and opiates. These people know that their patients take drugs in order to activate the brain’s reward system and experience what many addicts call euphoria.

A medical definition of addiction may be difficult to nail down, but most people know what it means. Put simply, addiction is doing something you can’t stop. even though it interferes with your daily life.

Addictive Characteristics

The following are common characteristics people who are chemically dependent share:

1. A desire for increased amounts of the substance in order to achieve the same effect.
2. Using the substance for longer periods of time.
3. A prolonged desire for the substance (or failed attempts to cut down or stop using it).
4, Spending a lot of time trying to obtain the substance.
5. Giving up or cutting back on everyday activities (important social, work, or family activities).
6. Continued substance use/abuse even though it causes problems (social and legal).

Addictive Behaviors

For most addicts, addiction can involve any type of behavior, an addiction may involve a wide range of behaviors (e.g., gambling, spending money, eating, having sex). However, these behaviors interfere with an addict’s normal life or routine). In addition, addicts tend to get defensive when people criticize their behavior.

Filed Under: Addiction, Health, Substance Abuse Tagged With: Addiction, Health, Substance abuse

How Drug Abuse Affects the Brain

September 1, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

: Image via Wikipedia

Researchers are discovering that drug addiction can be prevented. Community leaders, medical professionals, and families have developed nationwide programs to help put a stop to drug abuse. It’s important for everyone to understand the risks involved when people take drugs. It’s a serious problem in our country, and people need to be aware of it. Most people believe that the majority of people spending time in jail are addicted to drugs, alcohol, or both. It’s important for the community to know that drugs are dangerous. However, by the same token, drug addiction can be prevented as along as people don’t abuse drugs in the first place.

Through years of study, researchers are beginning to understand how drugs interfere with the brain’s communication system. The nerves in your brain are responsible for calling, sending, receiving, and analyzing information. Drugs actually interfere with the brain’s natural communication system in many ways. Interestingly, drugs imitate the brain’s messengers. For example, heroin and marijuana have the same structure as the brain’s chemical messengers, so they are capable of imitating those messengers.

The chemical messengers in your brain are referred to as neurotransmitters. Since drugs have a similar structure as the neurotransmitters, they transmit abnormal messages and fool the brain. Drugs like meth and cocaine transmit large amounts of these messages to the brain.

Drugs also stimulate the reward portion of the brain with a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for controlling peoples actions like movement, emotion, and motivation. It also makes the brain respond favorably to behaviors like eating, sleeping, and spending time with loved ones. Heroin and marijuana over stimulate the brain’s reward and produce a feeling of joy to the user. Drug users describe it as a feeling of euphoria.

In order for drug users to re-experience a feeling of euphoria, they continue to abuse drugs. After repeated usage, the brain reduces the amount of dopamine receptors in the brain. When this happens, it becomes more difficult for the user to achieve the same high as before, which is the reason why people take larger quantities of drugs.

Filed Under: Addiction, Drug Addiction, Substance Abuse Tagged With: Addiction, Health, Substance abuse

Substance Abuse

August 15, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

: Image via Wikipedia

Substance abuse is also called as drug abuse. Here the substances refer to anything that people use in a way that promotes harmful effects of the substance to the users. Substance abuse is not restricted to tobacco, alcohol, or drugs. It could also be excessive and harmful usage of drug prescriptions for a medical condition.

Substance abuse is a medical disorder as well as a behavioral disorder. Substances that induce a psychoactive effect are highly preferred for this kind of behavior. Psychoactive substances affect mental states and processes.

Substance abuse causes dependence syndrome. Dependence syndrome is a condition that affects people who repeatedly use a substance. After a point of time, the substance controls their day-to-day activities. This makes it difficult for the affected person to prioritize other things than looking for ways and excuses to use this substance.

Illegal drugs can be classified into three categories: stimulants, sedatives, and opiates. Stimulants like cocaine and nicotine excite the nervous system. Sedatives like alcohol calm down a person. Opiates are derivatives of opium. Opium is known to induce partial consciousness. Heroin is an example of an opiate drug.

Heroin and cocaine have the highest addiction-quotients. In other words, these drugs cause a combination of psychological and physical dependence that leaves the affected person unable to quit using it completely. Some people take self-medications to alter their mental processes. This might be a result of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) or general stress. Self-medication is the use of over-the-counter drugs, to relieve stress, or other psychological problems.

There are many symptoms of substance abuse. The general symptoms are: high and uncharacteristic irritability, chronic depression, alcoholism, forgetfulness, promiscuity, breaking laws, antisocial behavior, and morbid orientations.

The causes of substance abuse are mainly attributed to the quality of the adolescent years. Parental negligence will cause teenagers to adopt these behaviors. Peers and companions also influence the overall perception of health and well being in adolescent minds. It is important to also factor-in socialization skills and patterns, in that, it plays a huge role in total abstinence or total adoption of substance addictions.

Filed Under: Drug Addiction, Substance Abuse Tagged With: Addiction, Drug abuse, Health, Substance abuse

Factors that make you a softer addiction target

August 15, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

: Image via Wikipedia

There are hundreds of thousands of people around the world who try out a drug or substance for the first time on any given them. Not all of these people attempt taking a drug again and many of them never take any form of addictive drugs once they have experienced the thrill of trying out something new. Yet, there are several people from amongst those who try drugs for the first time who will not only take drugs again but are at a greater risk of abuse and addiction.

One of the primary factors that lead to addiction is mental stress and disorders. If a person is going through a tough phase in life and has high levels of emotional and mental anxiety, there is a higher chance that such a person would repeatedly use drugs as a means of escape. Substance abuse provides them with a supposedly easy solution to the depression and so mentally stressed people are more likely to move on to addiction.

If a child has grown up in a family where drug/ substance abuse was an issue, such children are more likely to follow suit. In a psychological response to making their childhood family life seem normal, children coming from families with a history of drug abuse fail to realize that there is anything wrong with substance abuse. It is extremely dangerous when a person considers addiction to be “normal” as they are not only prone to becoming addicts themselves but are eventually more difficult to treat as well.

It also very likely that children who have grown up in families suffering from addiction also have a history of child abuse. Parents who are addicts often neglect their children and can be abusive as well, leading to traumatic situations for the child. Having a troubled childhood and drugs being freely available in the household leads to children using drugs at an early age, which again leads to an addiction that is more intense and difficult to treat. Children from such families need to be monitored or they might become victims themselves.

Filed Under: Addiction, Recovering, Rehab Tagged With: Addiction, Drug addiction, Health, Substance abuse

Recovering from Substance Abuse: Use Bill Consolidation as a Motivator

August 13, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Addictions are strong urges toward a harmful substance or an action. They don’t discriminate and can affect anyone at anytime. Substance dependency can be a devastating matter for a family to endure. If a person is struggling or she’s tried to stop the behavior on multiple times without success, family members should step in and help the person find guidance and direction to get her life back on track. If the person who suffers with the challenge of the substance abuse is open to help, you can use motivational tools to encourage her to begin the healing process.

People suffering from addiction aren’t all the same nor do they look alike. Many are professionals in corporate settings who go to work everyday, hold meetings, shop for groceries, and raise a family. For them, the dependency may be more difficult to cease, since they have an image to maintain and are fearful that someone will find out about their problem. It’s also noteworthy to mention that maintaining a drug habit is costly and creates a financial burden for the dependent person.

With a good program and a plan of intervention that will last awhile, a person can kick the drug habit. In addition to the program, the person will need some other type of motivation to help him realize the great things he can enjoy once he stabilizes his life. If he is in significant debt, which is very common, getting him to do a bill consolidation is effective in showing him how much money he will have left over on a regular basis by consolidating bills. A person may become motivated to work harder to cease the drug habit if she sees that there will be financial resources to buy other things like cars, home furnishings, or clothes. The process of consolidating debt can be very effective, motivating, and endearing when someone shares with an addict all the things he can enjoy with a life.

Filed Under: Substance Abuse Tagged With: Addiction, Health, Substance abuse

Electric cigarettes

June 30, 2010 By admin 1 Comment

: Image via Wikipedia

It is estimated that more than 1.2 billion people, all over the world, smoke cigarettes. Surprisingly, most people are aware of the detrimental health effects that can result from cigarette smoking. Heart disease, mouth and lung cancer, breathing problems, as well as many other health ailments have been linked to smoking cigarettes. Even though this information is widely known, tobacco users continue to smoke – feeling that the benefits of smoking outweigh the health risks that are involved.

However, there is now a better solution for smokers who are concerned about the damage they are doing to their bodies. The electric cigarette, also known as an e-cigarette, gives the user the same associated feelings that they would experience when smoking a standard cigarette, but the smoker does not inhale any smoke, carbon monoxide or tar. E-cigarettes are designed to look like regular cigarettes and allow the user to control their level of nicotine intake. Another bonus of this product is that it doesn’t produce any ash. Rather, E-cigarettes use a rechargeable battery and nicotine cartridges. Say goodbye to ash stains on your clothes! In addition, they also don’t require a flame to be lit, so no more lost lighters!

In the past few years, electric cigarettes have been gaining popularity; there are different brands of these cigarettes that offer a variety of flavors including menthol, apple coffee, strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate. Many companies claim they taste just like a regular cigarette, but there is another more important advantage: they can be used in public areas where cigarettes are not allowed since no smoke is produced! These products are also more cost effective: one e-cigarette lasts longer than a regular cigarette resulting in a savings of up to 75% (estimated) on their cigarette costs. So, the next time you are craving a smoke, consider this: e-cigarettes are a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes.

Filed Under: Drug Addiction, Substance Abuse Tagged With: Cigarette, Electronic cigarette, Health