The Cycle of Drug Abuse


Make no mistake, alcohol and other drug abuse is one of America's leading health and social problems that affects many areas of life and costs every taxpayer money. However, despite all the added complexities by researchers and drug companies, the cycle of drug abuse and addiction can be broken down into more simple components. Once these are understood and seen how they apply to each and every person caught up in substance abuse, it makes the solutions more workable.

The cycle of drug abuse starts with a person having some sort of unwanted situation, pain or discomfort either mentally or physically. This could be an injury, boredom, some type of loss or any other kind of discomfort. At that point someone offers alcohol or another drug in an effort to temporarily relieve this discomfort. The next time the same or similar feeling is present, the person seeks out that drug again to ease the pain or cope with the upset since it seemed to "work" last time and make them feel not so bad. This cycle continues each time the problem is present, turning to drugs more and more to get along in life.

Given the nature of our bodies and the abuse potential of drugs, tolerance builds and more of the same drug is needed to produce the same feeling while at the same time creating a dependency on the substance.



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How Drug Abuse Becomes Addiction


After the person has been abusing one or more drugs and their tolerance and dependency builds, withdrawal symptoms start to appear when the drug's effects begin to wear off. These withdrawal symptoms can include anything from aches and pains to nausea and vomiting or fatigue and depression, depending on the drug. These symptoms obviously create even more undesireable sensations so their solution is to take more drugs to feel better.

Now the individual is at a point where he or she feels that it is impossible to get through the day without being on drugs, and the fear of withdrawal and need to get more drugs becomes their primary focus in life, with all other aspects of living now taking a back seat. This is where drug abuse has become addiction - the continuous seeking and taking of drugs despite any negative consequences. It is an inverted form of survival because the person feels he needs the drugs to survive but those substances are the thing that are actually bringing him closer to death.

By understanding this cycle of drug abuse and how it leads to addiction, successful rehab programs can help to not just treat the symptoms of the drug taking, but also find alternative solutions to the problems faced in life that brought on the drug taking in the first place. As you can see by this description - addiction can happen to anyone and genetics have very little to do with it. Addiction is not a disease, it is an acquired condition that can be fixed with the right help!