Cocaine is one of the most highly addictive substance ever produced. This substance turns on the ventral tegmental area and the nucleus accumbens. These are the areas of the brain that chronicles reward and pleasure. Dopamine gets released connecting to a receptor once a pleasurable event happens. The use of cocaine hampers the reuptake of dopamine. This causes the dopamine to build up in an area in the brain. This maintains the feeling of pleasure.
An extreme elation is felt very rapidly when one is in drug addiction using cocaine. This results to a personl with very high self-esteem, energetic, and the feeling social acceptance. Cocaine users claimed that they do not feel being drugged but rather they feel that they have become the person they always wanted. With high doses, cocaine use can lead to negative behaviors such as impulsiveness, compulsivity, and a high level of anxiety. After the effect of the substance wears off, a sensation of fatigue and gloominess sets in. This is then followed by a great amount of sleep. There is a potent wanting for the substance as a psychological and physiological effect. It has been found out by numerous studies that cocaine addiction has been fueled by alcohol use and marijuana use.
The effect of cocaine wears off very fast. This would make a cocaine user to take regular doses to maintain the effect of cocaine. This set-up is then followed by tolerance. Tolerance is defined as the drug user would want larger quantity of cocaine to achieve the usual effects he experiences.
Before the 1970s, cocaine was very expensive. Only well-off individuals were able to purchase this drug. A time came that the cost of cocaine was reduced that one’s socio-economic status did not matter anymore for this kind of drug addiction. At present, in the United States of America, about 11 percent of people have tried cocaine at least one time in their lives. This sudden drop of cocaine’s cost lead to its pervasive use. Rich and poor have now way in in using cocaine. However, despite cocaine’s price reduction, the problem of rising dosage is still money to pay. Most cocaine addicts are teenagers who don’t have a stable job. In order to buy cocaine, these teenagers resort to theft or prostitution. This is a kind of desperation that makes an individual take on very dangerous behaviors. Studies show a high percentage of cocaine users getting HIV.
Cocaine addiction has two sets of symptoms. The first set is the so-called intoxication symptoms. Part of intoxication symptoms are your heart beating rapidly, dilation of your pupils, nausea, your blood pressure increasing or decreasing, perspiring or chilling, retardation, vomiting, weight loss, chest pain, slowed breathing, muscular weakness, seizures, and changes in your behavior such as affective blunting, changes in sociability, anxiety, hypervigilance, impaired judgment, anger and interpersonal sensitivity. The second set is called withdrawal symptoms. dysphoric mood, fatigue, vivid an unpleasant dreams, oversleeping or problems sleeping, increased in appetite, and psychomotor retardation or agitation.
It is a very dangerous situation when someone says he or she is in cocaine addiction. It doesn’t just have an effect on the user but also the people around him or her. It is best to get in touch with the nearest treatment centers in your country to check the available options for recovery. Fast and intensive treatment is the ingredients needed for faster recovery from this kind of addiction. Who knows? The life you saved might be your own.
Cocaine drug addiction is very popular in the United States with statistics showing that 11% have tried it.
