Drug addiction is a devastating disease that can consume the life of anyone subjected to it and can dramatically affect all those who are close or associated with that person. No matter what substance you or your loved one are addicted to, whether it be meth, heroin, cocaine or any number of other drugs, fighting addiction is never easy. Perhaps the reason why so many people struggle with addiction on a daily basis is because of the deep, physical, as well as mental changes in your brain caused by using mind-altering chemicals for extended periods of time that also affect the body and state of mind.
When taking a drug, major chemical changes are happening in your brain that actually alter the way that it functions, and over time, how it grows. Once addicted, the brain needs the chemical to function properly, meaning it actively craves it and goes into a type of shock when it doesn’t receive it. This is what keeps an addicted individual coming back to use the substance over and over, despite the obvious harm, depression and overall grief that repeated use will cause.
The path to substance abuse may start with the person voluntarily choosing to use the drug. Maybe it’s just once at first but over time, a pattern begins to form that alters and bends many of the primary structures of one’s life in order to make room for the alien chemical the addict uses to escape or numb themselves to the pressures of life.
Once addicted, it can be extremely hard to break the addiction. Because of the deep, physical and mental roots that drugs and alcohol grow into, making such a radical change from dependency to a sober life can often times be too much for a person to do on their own. When one realizes that their problem may be more than they can handle alone, they often turn to treatment programs that have been specially designed to handle the problem of substance abuse and help its patients take the appropriate steps toward recovery.
