What does it mean to have an Addiction?
Addiction is a psychological and physical inability to stop consuming a chemical, drug, activity, or substance, even though it is causing psychological and physical harm.
Some addictions also involve an inability to stop partaking in activities, such as gambling, eating, or working. In these circumstances, a person has a behavioral addiction.
Addiction is a chronic disease that can also result from taking medications. The overuse of prescribed opioid painkillers, for example, causes over 100 deaths every day in the United States.
When a person experiences addiction, they cannot control how they use a substance or partake in an activity, and they become dependent on it to cope with daily life.
Every year, addiction to alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and prescription opioids costs the U.S. economy upward of billions in treatment costs, lost work, and the effects of crime.
Most people start using a drug or first engage in an activity voluntarily. However, addiction can take over and reduce self-control.
However, this does not qualify as an addiction until the person feels the need to consume this amount of alcohol regularly, alone, or at times of day when the alcohol will likely impair regular activities, such as in the morning.
Symptoms
The primary indication of addiction are:
- uncontrollably seeking drugs
- uncontrollably engaging in harmful levels of habit-forming behavior
- neglecting or losing interest in activities that do not involve the harmful substance or behavior
- relationship difficulties, which often involve lashing out at people who identify the dependency
- an inability to stop using a drug, though it may be causing health problems or personal problems, such as issues with employment or relationships
- hiding substances or behaviors and otherwise exercising secrecy, for example, by refusing to explain injuries that occurred while under the influence
- profound changes in appearance, including a noticeable abandonment of hygiene
- increased risk-taking, both to access the substance or activity and while using it or engaging in it
Substance Abuse Overview
What is Substance Abuse
Substance abuse can simply be defined as a pattern of harmful use of any substance for mood-altering purposes. "Substances" can include alcohol and other drugs (illegal or not) as well as some substances that are not drugs at all.
"Abuse" can result because you are using a substance in a way that is not intended or recommended, or because you are using more than prescribed. it.
What Is Harmful Use?
Healthcare and Substance Abuse professionals consider substance use as crossing the line into substance abuse if that repeated use causes significant impairment, such as:
- Disabilities
- Failure to meet responsibilities
- Health issues
- Impaired control
- Risky use
- Social issues
In other words, if you drink enough to get frequent hangovers; use enough drugs that you miss work or school; smoke enough marijuana that you have lost friends; or often drink or use more than you intended to use, your substance use is probably at the abuse level.
The Dangers of Illegal Drugs
Generally, when most people talk about substance abuse, they are referring to the use of illegal drugs. Drugs of abuse do more than alter your mood.
They can cloud your judgment, distort your perceptions, and alter your reaction times, all of which can put you in danger of accident and injury.
In the United States, the most commonly abused illegal drugs, in order, are:
Recreational Use: Is it Abuse?
Marijuana
Others argue that casual, recreational use of some drugs is not harmful and is merely use, not abuse. The most vocal of the proponents of recreational drug use are those who smoke marijuana. They argue that marijuana is not addictive and has many beneficial qualities, unlike the "harder" drugs.
But recent research has shown that even marijuana may have more harmful, physical and mental effects. Each year, new scientific studies find more ways that long-term marijuana use is harmful to your health.
Yes, Alcohol Is A Drug
Alcohol is, of course, legal for adults over the age of 21 in the United States, and there is nothing "wrong" with having a couple of drinks with friends or to unwind on occasion. But, it doesn't take much alcohol to reach a harmful level of drinking, and that is when alcohol use can turn into alcohol abuse.
Drinking five or more drinks for men (four for women) in any one sitting is considered binge drinking, which is harmful to your physical and mental health in many different ways.
Nicotine Is the Most Abused Drug
Nicotine is the single most abused substance in the world. Americans are still addicted to nicotine in spite of its well-publicized harmful effects.
Again, just because it is legal, doesn't mean it can't be abused. The fact that the negative health effects of nicotine take a long time to manifest probably plays a role in the widespread abuse of tobacco.
It's Only, Caffeine
Whereas nicotine is the most abused drug, caffeine is the most commonly used mood-altering drug in the world. And yes, too much caffeine can be harmful to your health.
Studies have also found a link between caffeine use and several psychiatric syndromes, including caffeine-induced sleep disorder and caffeine-induced anxiety disorder. Patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, primary insomnia, and gastroesophageal reflux are usually advised to reduce or eliminate regular caffeine use.
Has your substance use become harmful?
If you think this may be true for you, you are certainly not alone. Please give us a call. We will match you up with the right Clinician to guide to in the right direction.
