The rate at which abuse of cocaine is increasing continues to be alarming. Unlike others, people assume that getting high from cocaine may take you longer compared to alternative illicit drugs. This assumption gives users the need to consume it in large quantities to develop the euphoric feelings that addicts experience. Cocaine addiction develops differently on users. One time use of hard cocaine such as crack may cause dependence.
Statistics show that in 2015 alone, more than 5 million people abused cocaine and most of them developed cocaine addiction. The high rate should inform you that cocaine is an addictive substance that should never be experimented on. Cocaine withdrawal is the first step to treating this addiction.
How do you get addicted to this substance?
Cocaine makes neurotransmitter dopamine increase in your brain. This chemical is what causes the pleasure you feel. It also processes reward cues that work on your moods and energy. Sniffing cocaine gets you motivated and more focused. Such effects make you want more of the substance and snorting or injecting it into your bloodstream for long, drives you to addiction.
As you continue sniffing the substance, your brain adapts to this new habit making it not respond as before. Your first time use of crack may be the most intense because the next time, your brain does not develop strong effects.
Why do people get addicted to cocaine?
Highness
Unlike other mild drugs, this substance contains active chemicals that may take a while to get you there, but once you do, it is a high feeling like no other. Most party poopers, therefore, love cocaine for its high sensitivity.
Self-medication
You may be using cocaine due to anxiety and depression to reduce your mental instability. Cocaine modifies your feelings and thoughts giving you temporary happiness. The more you use it to self-medicate instead of addressing why you are depressed, the more you get addicted.
Performance
Athletes have been found to use coke with the belief that it makes them better at the game. Being illegal, some get disqualified from sports and end up in prison.
Peer pressure
Cocaine is known as the drug for the high and mighty. Though expensive, you may find yourself spending your school fees on buying the drugs so that you fit in the cool group in school. This is what translates to the high numbers of teens abusing cocaine. A sense of belonging caused by peer pressure leads to cocaine addiction.
Symptoms of cocaine abuse
Constant agitation
Everything around you may become irritating even when there is no one to distract your attention. The small things may seem too heavy to bear in situations when you use cocaine to self-medicate.
Hyperactivity
Most addicts have been found to become too hyper due to the substance. It makes them more social even when in normal circumstances, they barely socialize. You may find it hard not to engage in every conversation due to more confidence from the chemicals in cocaine. Such hyperactivity is what makes people confident to participate in numerous sexual activities.
Nosebleeds
Being an addict, you are likely to suffer from nosebleeds and get common cold due to sniffing cocaine through your nose. The chemicals affect your veins inside your nose causing a cycle of constant sneezing and nose bleeding.
Pleasure
The first time you smoke crack may make you feel happy and satisfied with life. This feeling is temporary because soon, anxiety is likely to occur.
Lack of appetite
The reason why most users appear skinny is that rubbing cocaine on your gums reduces your appetite. Some people go for few days without eating anything but snacks since they don’t feel the need for food causing addicts to lose weight.
Lack of sleep
Cocaine has an effect of keeping you alert even during the night such that you don’t feel sleepy. This exhausts your body and mind because it works against its normal function. You, therefore, end up straining your eyes and body organs.
Effects of cocaine addiction
Damage to heart muscles
Lack of a dose of cocaine after some few hours causes cocaine withdrawal symptoms such as damage to heart muscles. Your cells around your heart die with every added snort of cocaine. You may suffer heart attacks caused by your heart arteries rupturing. If you are smoking hard cocaine such as crack, you risk chances of tissue inflammation within your body organs.
Brain damage
Harmful chemicals found in cocaine affects the blood flow to your brain. Overbalance on the substance interrupts the normal flow of blood in your brain leading to brain damage. Too much may also alter the chemistry of your brain. It makes you develop greater cravings for the drug such that you cannot do without smoking cocaine.
Bloodborne infectious diseases
Those who prefer injecting it directly often share needles without sterilizing them. An addict does not care about the safety of the needle they are using because they are more focused on satisfying their addiction. From this, you may get infected with HIV and hepatitis C and fail to realize how risky it is to share needles.
Treatment
Behavioral therapies
Being an addict requires support from psychological therapies that help you understand the factors that caused addiction. Contingency management offered in such therapies guides you on a new path of abstinence to help you fight the addiction. They also work on how you interact with others so that you can get rid of peer pressure by replacing old friends with new ones that keep you on track to fight cocaine addiction.
Cocaine detox
As an addict, withdrawing from cocaine may seem like a nightmare, but drug addiction centers help you go through their detox program in different phases to free you from it. Follow the withdrawal timeline that is set within one week and detox from the drug. For example, a Tampa treatment center can help you fight your addiction and support you through detox.
Final thoughts
Getting addicted to cocaine is not as hard as people think. First- time use of crack leaves your body dependent on the drug. The best way to reverse cocaine addiction remains complete abstinence from the drug. Avoid moving with the crowd and live your life without feeling the need to belong because such drugs may end your life.
