About Substance Abuse (Drug Abuse)
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Learn about the disease, illness and/or condition Substance Abuse (Drug Abuse) including: symptoms, causes, treatments, contraindications and conditions at ClusterMed.info.
Substance Abuse (Drug Abuse)
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Substance Abuse (Drug Abuse) |
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Substance Abuse (Drug Abuse) InformationDrug use disorder facts
How do health-care professionals diagnose drug addiction?Similar to many mental-health diagnoses, there is no one test that definitively determines that someone has a chemical use disorder. Therefore, health-care professionals diagnose these conditions by thoroughly gathering medical, family, and mental-health information. The practitioner will also either conduct a physical examination or ask that the person's primary-care doctor perform one. The medical assessment will usually include lab tests to evaluate the person's general medical health and to explore whether or not the individual currently has drugs in their system or has a medical problem that might mimic symptoms of drug addiction.In asking questions about mental-health symptoms, specialists are often exploring if the person suffers from depression and/or manic symptoms but also anxiety, hallucinations, or delusions, as well as some behavioral problems. Practitioners may provide the people they evaluate with a quiz or self-test as a screening tool for substance use disorders. Since some of the symptoms of chemical dependency can also occur in other mental illnesses, the screening is to determine if the individual suffers from bipolar disorder, an anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and other psychotic disorders, or a personality or behavior disorder like antisocial personality disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), respectively. Any condition that is associated with sudden changes in behavior, mood, or thinking, like bipolar disorder, a psychotic disorder, borderline personality disorder, or dissociative identity disorder (DID), may be particularly challenging to separate from some symptoms of drug use disorder. In order to assess the person's current emotional state, health-care providers perform a mental-status examination, as well.In addition to providing treatment that is appropriate to the diagnosis, determining the history or presence of mental illnesses that may co-occur (be co-morbid) with substance abuse or dependence is important in promoting the best possible outcome for the person. As previously described, the dual diagnosis of substance abusing or addicted individuals dictates the need for treatment that addresses both issues in a coordinated way by professionals who are trained and experienced with helping this specific population. Is it possible to prevent drug abuse and addiction?A number of different prevention approaches have been found to be effective in decreasing the risk of drug use disorder. Lifestyle changes, like increased physical activity and using other stress-reduction techniques, are thought to help prevent drug use disorder in teens. More formal programs have also been found to be helpful. For example, the Raising Healthy Children program, which includes interventions for teachers, parents, and students, has been found to help prevent drug addiction in elementary-school children when the program goes on for 18 months or more. The prevalence of easier access to technology has led to the development of computer-based prevention programs. Such programs have been found to be very promising in how they compare to more traditional prevention programs, as well as how many more people can be reached through technology. What are causes and risk factors for developing a drug use disorder?Like most other mental-health problems, drug use disorders have no single cause. However, there are a number of biological, psychological, and social factors, known as risk factors, that can increase an individual's vulnerability to developing a chemical use disorder. The frequency with which substance use disorders occur within some families seems to be higher than could be explained by an addictive environment of the family. Therefore, most substance use professionals recognize a genetic aspect to the risk of drug addiction.Psychological associations with substance abuse or addiction include mood disorders like depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder, thought disorders like schizophrenia, as well as personality disorders like antisocial personality disorder. Social risk factors for drug abuse and addiction include male gender, being between the ages of 18 and 44 Native-American heritage, unmarried marital status, and lower socioeconomic status. According to statistics by state, people residing in the West tend to be at a somewhat higher risk for chemical dependency. While men are more at risk for developing a chemical dependency like alcoholism, women seem to be more vulnerable to becoming addicted to alcohol at much lower amounts of alcohol consumption compared to men. What are complications of drug addiction?Drug addiction puts its sufferers at risk for potentially devastating social, occupational, and medical complications. Effects of chemical dependency on families include increased risk of domestic violence. Individuals with drug use disorder are also much less likely to find and keep a job compared to people who are not drug addicted. Children of parents with a substance use disorder are at higher risk for impaired social, educational, and health functioning, as well as being at higher risk for using drugs themselves.In addition to the many devastating social and occupational complications of drug addiction, there are many potential medical complications. From respiratory arrest associated with heroin or sedative overdose to heart attack or stroke that can be caused by cocaine or amphetamine intoxication, death is a highly possible complication of a drug use disorder. People who are dependent on drugs are also vulnerable to developing persistent medical conditions. Liver or heart failure and pancreatitis associated with alcoholism and brain damage associated with alcoholism or inhalants are just two such examples. What are symptoms and signs of drug use disorder?In order to be diagnosed with drug use disorder, a person must exhibit a maladaptive pattern of drug use that leads to significant problems or stress, as manifested by at least two of the following signs or symptoms in the same one-year period:
What are the physical and psychological effects of drug use disorders?While the specific physical and psychological effects of drug use disorders tend to vary based on the particular substance involved, the general effects of addiction to any drug can be devastating. Psychologically, intoxication with or withdrawal from a substance can cause everything from euphoria as with alcohol, Ecstasy, or inhalant intoxication, to paranoia with marijuana or steroid intoxication, to severe depression or suicidal thoughts with cocaine or amphetamine withdrawal. In terms of effects on the body, intoxication with a drug can cause physical effects that range from marked sleepiness and slowed breathing as with intoxication with heroin or sedative hypnotic drugs, to the rapid heart rate of cocaine intoxication, or the tremors to seizures of alcohol withdrawal. What are warning signs that you or a loved one may have a drug use disorder?While specific symptoms that are used to diagnose drug use disorders are described below, warning signs that you or a loved one suffer from the condition include the following:
What happens to your brain when you take drugs?While the specific effects of drugs on the brain can vary somewhat depending on the drug that is being used, virtually every drug that is abused has an effect on what professionals often call the executive functioning areas of the brain. The functions of those areas can be remembered by thinking about the tasks of the chief executive officer in any company: planning, organizing, prioritizing, acting when it is time to act, as well as delaying or preventing action (inhibitory functions) when appropriate. The parts of the brain that tend to harbor the executive brain functions are the front-most parts of the brain, called the frontal lobes, including the frontal cortex and prefrontal cortex. When a person takes drugs, the inhibitory functions of the brain are particularly impaired, causing the person to have trouble stopping him or herself from acting on impulses that the brain would otherwise delay or prevent. This disinhibition can lead to the substance abuser engaging in aggressive, sexual, criminal, dangerous, or other activities that can have devastating consequences for the addicted person or those around him or her. Given that the brain of individuals below about the age of 25 years is in the process of actively and rapidly developing and is therefore not fully mature, drug use that takes place during the childhood or teenage years can have particularly negative effects on the younger person's ability to perform all these essential executive functions. What is drug use disorder?Formerly separately called drug abuse and drug addiction, drug use disorder, also called substance use or chemical use disorder, is an illness that is characterized by a destructive pattern of using a substance that leads to significant problems or distress, including tolerance to or withdrawal from the substance, as well as other problems that use of the substance can cause for the sufferer, either socially or in terms of their work or school performance. The effects of drug use disorders on society are substantial. The economic cost, including everything from lost wages to medical, legal, and mental-health implications is estimated to be about $215 billion. The cultivation of marijuana and production of synthetic drugs like methamphetamine has negative impact on soil and water supplies. Drug law infractions make up the most common reason for arrest in the United States, more than 14 million in 2008.Teens are increasingly engaging in prescription drug abuse, particularly narcotics (which are prescribed to relieve severe pain), and stimulant medications, which treat conditions like attention-deficit disorder and narcolepsy.The term dual diagnosis refers to the presence of both a drug use disorder and a serious mental-health problem in a person. Substance use disorders, unfortunately, occur quite commonly in people who also have severe mental illness. Individuals with dual diagnosis are also at higher risk of being noncompliant with treatment. What is the prognosis of drug use disorder?If treated, the prognosis of alcoholism and other drug use disorder improves but is not without challenges. Recovery from substance dependency is usually characterized by episodes of remission (abstinence from drug use) and relapse. What is the treatment for drug addiction?An unfortunate fact about the treatment of drug addiction is that it remains largely underutilized by most sufferers. Facts about the use of drug treatment include that less than 10% of people with a milder substance-use disorder and less than 40% of those with a more entrenched substance-use disorder seek professional help. Those statistics do not seem to be associated with socioeconomic or other demographic traits but do seem to be associated with the presence of other mental-health problems (co-morbidity).The primary goals of drug-use disorder treatment (also called recovery) are abstinence, relapse prevention, and rehabilitation. During the initial stage of abstinence, an individual who suffers from chemical dependency may need help avoiding or decreasing the effects of withdrawal. That process is called detoxification or "detox." That part of treatment is primarily performed in a hospital or other inpatient setting, where medications used to lessen withdrawal symptoms and close medical monitoring can be performed. The medications used for detox depend on the drug the person is dependent upon. For example, people with alcohol use disorder might receive medications like sedatives (benzodiazepines) or blood pressure medications to decrease palpitations and blood pressure, or seizure medications to prevent seizures during the detoxification process.For many substances of abuse, the detox process is the most difficult part of dealing with the physical symptoms of addiction and tends to last days to a few weeks. Medications that are sometimes used to help addicted individuals abstain from drug use on a long-term basis also depend on the specific drug of addiction. For example, individuals who are dependent on narcotics like Percodan (a combination of aspirin and oxycodone hydrochloride) heroin, or Vicodin, Vicodin ES, Anexsia, Lorcet, Lorcet Plus, or Norco (combinations of hydrocodone and acetaminophen) often benefit from receiving longer-acting, less addictive narcotic-like substances like methadone (Methadose). People with alcohol addiction might try to avoid alcohol intake by taking disulfiram (Antabuse), which produces nausea, stomach cramping, and vomiting in reaction to the person consuming alcohol.Often, much more difficult and time-consuming than recovery from the physical aspects of drug dependency is psychological addiction. For people who may have less severe drug use disorder, the symptoms of psychological addiction may be able to be managed in an outpatient treatment program. However, those who have a more severe addiction, have relapsed after participation in outpatient programs, or who also suffer from a severe mental health condition might need the elevated level of structure, support, and monitoring provided in an inpatient drug treatment center, often called "rehab." Following such inpatient treatment, many people with this level of drug use disorder can benefit from living in a sober living community, that is, a group-home setting where counselors provide continued sobriety support, structure, and monitoring on a daily basis.Also important in the treatment of drug dependency is helping the parents, other family members, and friends of the addicted person refrain from supporting addictive behaviors (codependency). Whether providing financial support, making excuses, or failing to acknowledge the drug seeking and other maladaptive behaviors of the addict, discouraging such codependency of loved ones is a key component of recovery. A focus on the addicted person's role in the family becomes perhaps even more significant when that person is a child or teenager, given that minors come within the context of a family in nearly every instance. Drug dependency treatment for children and adolescents is further different from that in adults by the impact of drugs on the developing brain, as well as the younger addict's tendency to need help completing their education and achieving higher education or job training compared to addicts who may have completed those parts of their lives before developing the addiction.The treatment of dual diagnosis seems to be less effective when management of the person's mental disorder is separate from the care for his or her chemical dependency. More successful are integrated treatment approaches that include interventions for both disorders. Such interventions are all the more improved by the inclusion of assessment, intensive case management, motivational interventions, behavior interventions, family treatment, as well as services for housing, rehabilitation, and medication management. What types of drugs are commonly abused?Virtually any substance whose ingestion can result in a euphoric ("high") feeling can be abused. While many are aware of the abuse of legal substances like alcohol or illegal drugs like marijuana (in most states) and cocaine, less well-known is the fact that inhalants like household cleaners and over-the-counter medications like cold medicines are some of the most commonly abused substances. The following are many of the drugs and types of drugs that are commonly abused and/or result in dependence:
Where can people get more information and help for drug use disorders?
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