blog#1 street drugs

So many people do not understand why individuals become addicted to drugs or how it changes the brain to foster compulsive drug abuse. We as people mistakenly view drug abuse and addiction as a social problem and may think those who take drugs are morally weak. One of the beliefs that we have is, we think a drug user can stop taking drugs if they are only willing to change their behavior, but they can’t. What people underestimate is the complexity of drug addition, it is a disease that impact the brain and because of that, stopping drugs is not simply a matter of willpower.
What is a drug addiction? Drug addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use despite harmful consequences to the individual that is addicted and to those around them. Drug addiction is a brain disease because the abuses of drugs lead to changes in the structure and function of brain. Although, in most cases, the initial decision to take drugs is voluntary, over time the change in the brain caused by repeated drug use can affect a person’s self control and ability to make sound decisions and at the same time send intense impulses to take drugs.
We as people that have never used drugs will say, this person just don’t want to stop abusing drugs and we just give up on them , believing they can stop but they just don’t won’t stop. It’s because these changes in the brain that it is so challenging for a person who is addicted to stop abusing drugs. What do we think happen to the brain after so long using drug?

As a person continue to use 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. As a result , dopamine’s impact on the reward circuit is lessened reducing the abuser’s ability to enjoy and the thing that previously brought pleasure. The decrease compels those addicted to drugs to keep abusing drugs in order to attempt to bring their dopamine function back to normal. And they may now require a larger amount of the drug than they did to achieve the dopamine high, an effect known as tolerance. Long- term abuse causes change in other brain chemical systems and circuits as well, but this is only about a1/10th of what drugs do to your brain, not to mention other struggles. I believe that the only way to be separated from this disaster is to not even start using drugs, because most people have the chose not to ever become a user of drugs. But believe it, there is a solution to this problem.



http://www.medicinenet.com/drug_abuse/article.htm