The brain's chemical processes and circuits can also be altered by long-term drug use. This can impact learning, judgement, decision making, stress, memory, and behavior. Many people who abuse drugs continue to use them despite knowing the negative effects.
Addiction can be defined as an inability to stop. It should not be a threat to your health. It can cause financial, emotional and other problems for you or your family members. Even if you want to stop, you might feel the need to use drugs at any hour of the day.
Addiction is different from tolerance and physical dependence. When a drug is suddenly stopped due to physical dependence, withdrawal symptoms can occur. Tolerance is when a substance's effectiveness decreases over time.
You may develop tolerance or even physical dependence if you use opioids to treat pain for a long time. However, this does not mean that you are addicted. Only a small number of patients with addiction who receive adequate medical care are able to use drugs.
What happens in a person's brain if they use drugs?
Most drugs provide pleasure and flood your brain's reward circuits with the chemical messenger dopamine. A healthy reward system can stimulate people to continue to do necessary activities like eating and spending time together with loved ones. The reward circuit produces dopamine, which can lead to harmful and enjoyable behaviors such as drug addiction. People will continue repeating the activity over and again.
The brain adjusts for drug use by decreasing the reward circuit's ability to respond. This causes a person to feel less high than they did when they first started taking the drug. This phenomenon is called tolerance. They may require more medication to achieve the same effects. These brain changes can cause a person to lose pleasure in activities they once enjoyed, such as eating, drinking, or socializing.
Your brain's reward system is where drugs that can cause addiction may be directed. Your brain is constantly receiving large amounts of dopamine, a neurotransmitter. This can cause a feeling of pure bliss. In an effort to recreate this feeling, you continue to take the medication.
Dopamine will eventually adapt to your brain. To achieve the same effect, you may need to take more of the medication. You might also find that other pleasures, such as food and family time, are not as appealing to you now.
Chronic addiction is defined as persistent drug use and obsessive drug seeking. While most people use drugs freely at first, continued use can cause brain changes and make it difficult for addicts to keep their mind in check. This can also affect their ability to resist the urge to continue using drugs. Relapse is often a result of drug addiction. People who have been treated for substance abuse disorders for years are more likely to relapse. These brain modifications may last for a long time.
Keep in mind that it's typical for people to build up a tolerance to painkillers and require bigger dosages to have the same amount of pain relief. This is typical and doesn't indicate addiction. Higher dosages may be required if you have an addiction, but not for pain treatment. However, if this impact starts to worry you, consult your doctor.
Get help right now; don't wait. Speak to your doctor if your drug usage is out of control or creating issues. It may take some time to recover from drug addiction. There is no cure, but therapy can assist you in quitting and maintaining your drug-free status. Your treatment plan may combine counselling and medication. To determine the best course of action for you, see your doctor.
The drugs that may be addictive target your brain’s reward system. They flood your brain with a chemical called dopamine. This triggers a feeling of intense pleasure. You keep taking the drug to chase that high.
Over time, your brain gets used to the extra dopamine. So you might need to take more of the drug to get the same good feeling. And other things you enjoyed, like food and hanging out with family, may give you less pleasure.