Drug Abuse:
I think many people can relate to this section. Many kids, teenagers, early adults have their first encounter with drugs and alcohol through someone in their family or a close friend. Me personally, I have never done drugs, and I’m not planning to either. I don’t know the effects they have on the body, unless the drugs we talk about are the ones doctors prescribe to help me get better from an illness, and even then I sometimes don’t take all the medication. I won’t lower myself to be pressured by peers, though on some accounts I have, but never with any kind of substances. However, this area really hit me at home, because I have friends, and I have members in my family that got sucked into the life of such substances. One story I’ll tell you about, happened a couple of years ago when I was still in high school. My close friend, her name I won’t mention, but she was high on my list of special friends. She was the innocent type, but she also wanted the popularity, she wanted to fit in with the cool crowd come our freshman year of high school. Instead of sticking with her old friends, she left our friendship for one that changed her life. She wanted to be cool, so she changed her entire life style.
*let me pause here* we all know what the basic top common substances are: Marijuana, cocaine, Heroin and alcohol are, well we should, but anyway I’ll explain what they are in my own terms.
Marijuana, in short to be blunt is a plant. (You can say its weed, grass or herbs, point is, it’s still a plant.)
Cocaine: believe it or not, well you should believe it anyway, but cocaine is nothing but leaves extracted from a coca plant. You sniff it, or inject it some people I use to know use to put in their brownies to make them “special.”
Heroin: Dun-Dun-Dun! This one is the most highly addictive drug! It’s Illegal, and it’s illegal for a reason people! It’s made from morphine, and other things from poppy plants. (Something around there, but it’s very bad, and I think you can die if you take too much of it?)
Alcohol: this one is pretty easy. There are different types of drinks that have alcohol. It’s a depressant, in other words it SLOWS DOWN VITAL FUNCTIONS! That’s why when people get wasted; they can’t talk right because their speech is slurred. They can’t walk right, and some walk as if they are on a boat in the middle of a storm. It has different effects on certain people, some can’t react quickly, and some lose self control. For every alcohol beverage a person consumes I think it kills a million or so brain cells.
Note* these are my own words, from what I remember in classes, and just what I kinda learned personally. Feel free to add on or correct me if I'm wrong*
So like I was saying, my friend got involved in the wrong crowd, things happened and the next thing she knew, she got hooked on marijuana, cocaine, alcohol and other substances. Every now and then we would run into each other, she would talk about how she couldn’t go a morning without smoking pot, couldn’t go to sleep if she didn’t have some sort of substance to calm her down.
She used to smile, smile! When she talked about her boyfriend at the time (husband now) learned how to grow marijuana, had recipes for LSD, and other bad stuff for the human body. I would never forget what she told one day though. Three years ago, year 2009, I randomly bumped into her at a church gathering in mission. We talked for a while, and all seemed fine until she told me, if I had been smart for just one second, and not get high off my ass I probably wouldn’t have trouble falling asleep at night, struggling to keep myself together, or worry about when I run out of something and if I had enough money to get some more. It will probably never stop.
Today, I'm not sure if she's still taking drugs, and drinking, but from what I can tell on her facebook...she hasn't stopped.
Another one of female friends had gotten herself her first boyfriend, couple of years back. He was the typically bad boy type. Though, I didn’t want to associate myself with him, I didn’t want to lose my friend so I put up with his company. Man, I tell you I never would have though someone could go as many days and night without sleep while continuously drinking like that guy could. During those times, everyone stayed away from him, because the guy would destroy every little thing in his way, nearly burned his house down one time because he drank till he lost control. Eventually, he got a court order to get help with his addiction. That in and of itself ended horribly. He would sweat a lot, skin started paling, his body would shake, his mood worsened. He rarely slept, and when he did he would wake up screaming for a drug or begging for alcohol anything to help calm him down. My friend eventually left him, because I guess it was too much for her to handle, but since I befriended his cousin, I checked in some times to see how he was doing.
I found out that he had to get mental help and I also learned some heartbreaking things from his cousin. He didn't have a good childhood. Well, let me put it this way, the types of things he experienced as a child were so horrendous that I understood why he took so many things that he knew would be harmful for him rather than going to someone for help.
It’s so easy to get addicted to something, but it’s so hard to stop it once it starts.
My definition of an addiction is this: An addiction is something! It could be ANYTHING that a person CANNOT live without for a single second, and will do WHATEVER it takes to get their hands on it, even if it meant sacrificing something.
My own definition of a drug is this: A drug is something that has a serious impact on any part of the body, be it mentally or physically.
If it affects you in some way that you find yourself wanting more, more, more, and more! congratulations you just got yourself hooked on a drug.
I learned many things when talking about drugs and addictions through family, friends, my internships at mental facilities, working with Psychologist Able Ortega. Sometimes, drug addictions don’t just happen because of peer pressure, sometimes they happen because of a serious trauma that occurred in their lives, either young or old. They will take a drug to forget for just a moment the pain of reality. People would drink themselves stupid just for a day or night of freedom of whatever is weighing them down. The misery, pain, guilt, angry, depression, any experience a person has gone through that caused a serious void to form in them they turn to things like drugs or alcohol because they have the mental thought that no one can help me, because they don’t know what it feels like. When in reality, someone out there knows what it’s like, they can relate, and yet several, not all, but a good amount of people foolishly believe the voices they hear, that no, no one will ever know. So some won’t seek help, until well, something really seriously bad happens.
Drugs, Alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs they kill people. One time overdosing can do serious damage to your brain, and body, and some people don’t get so lucky. They either take too much where it kills them, permanently damages themselves, or they can kill someone else by accident and not even know it.
This video clip: is a testimony from Jacob Huffman, he got addicted to several things after being invited to a party. Lisi Sanchez, got addicted to smoking, prescribed drugs, and other substances after being introduced to drugs and Alcohol by her father.
Testimonies
This video: is to help understand addiction and the brain. Addiction and the brain
This video: talks about different types of addictions: The Science of Addiction
Hope you guys enjoyed this post, feel free to post your opinions, views, anything else you guys found interesting that you have learned about drug addictions. Sharing your own personal views, or just sharing your thoughts. Remember that the comment button is at the top of the page!
4 comments:
There's a girl I went to high school with that became very involved with drugs and the environment that goes hand in hand with drugs. I don't know exactly which drugs she has taken but it has dramatically. She was not a close friend but the results are still sad. She was a pretty girl and now she looks 15 years older than her real age. I had a job position where one of my duties was dealing with shoplifters and such. She often would enter the store and yell indistictively, talk incoherently, looked like she was homeless and cause a scene. Friends I went to school with who knew her better describe her as someone who was intelligent in high school but got involved with the "wrong crowd" and she really appears to be another person. With what I have researched and learned, addiction and drugs change the structure of one's brain. For someone addicted, like this girl for instance, would really be a life changing commitment to stay clean and a constant work in dealing with the effects physilogically and psychologically.
From what i've seen, heard and read, most people who get addicted to something do it to fit in the certain "crowds". They do it to please others regarding the risks they may face. However, addiction is not only to drugs but to anything at all and people dont do it just as part of peer pressure, but because they try it and they like it so it becomes an addiction.
Very sad to read you lost friendships over alcohol and substance addictions. You are right, I think everyone can relate to knowing someone who became an addict unfortunately not many can say there was a happy ending to their story.... Addictions, of any kind, change people into someone else. I think the most important step to rehabilitation is support; unfortunately, when a friend or family member falls into an addiction we seem to distant ourselves from them, they might need us the most when trying to accept their addiction and want to change. Very interesting topic but also heartbreaking...
Yes. Taking drugs are very bad. But most people do not think about the consequences until it is too late to turn back. I'm sure they don't think about how it is going to harm them, their family or their future family. But those are people that are selfish and just think about themselves and how good it makes them feel at that very moment. Look at that intervention show on tv. It shows the people getting high off whatever their addiction is and their family are the ones that are suffering.
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