Addiction to Psychoactive Drugs

Substance Use and Abuse
Social Effects of Psychoactive Substance Use and Abuse
A psychoactive substance is any chemical that has the ability to impact the central nervous system and interfere with the way the brain functions. Stimulants (cocaine, dextroamphetamine, methamphetamine), sedatives (heroin, alcohol), and hallucinogens (psychoactive mushrooms, PCP) are some examples of psychoactive substances. Abusing psychoactive substances not only affects the user but it also impacts those who are around the user. The abuser’s close family members and friends are the most affected by psychoactive substance abuse. The individual's family, relationships, life, employment, education, personality, and health are adversely affected (Narvaez et al., 2015). There are various variables that will determine the extent to which each of these is affected. Some of the variables are a psychoactive substance used and the personality of the user. Social effects of abusing psychoactive substance are quite obscure, unlike psychological and physical effects. Psychoactive substance abuse does have a detrimental effect on society. The Department of Health and Human Services has indicated that there have been around 100,000 deaths that were linked to alcohol each year. These deaths are preventable and they do cost taxpayers a whopping $198 billion annually (Narvaez et al., 2015). Alcohol is one of the psychoactive substances that are legal, yet it has huge adverse effects if not taken in moderation.
Psychoactive substance abuse has been directly linked to crime rates. A majority of criminal offenders do abuse alcohol or other substances. This fact has been noted by the Justice Institute. 80% of crime in the United States is contributed by psychoactive substance abuse. Psychoactive substance use affects a person's brain and this inhibits their thinking, which makes them be easily manipulated into committing a crime. When a person has taken a psychoactive substance, they feel and act differently and this could be the reason for them to willingly participate in a crime. The continued use of psychoactive substance makes the nation an unsafe place to live and increases the fear that people have of certain neighborhoods. Prisons get overfilled with criminals who are minutely aware of the events of the crime they took part in and rehabilitation costs will fall on the taxpayers.
Isolation is what will face an individual who continuously uses psychoactive substances. this isolation is due to their behavior and lack of connection with family and friends. Family members will tend to withdraw from the individual especially if they are not substance users. Isolation will result in the individual seeking further solace in the substances and this increases their addiction and reliance on the drugs.
Impact of Crisis, Disaster, and Other Trauma-Causing Events
Previously a majority of people viewed addiction as a moral failure on the individual. However, as research has been done on addiction it has become obvious that addiction is connected to brain dysfunction that would stem from a crisis, traumatic events, or disasters. Many of the researchers have held onto the belief that a majority of the traumatic events could be from a person's childhood but this is only one of the reasons. When a person is having a crisis either at home or at work, they might begin using addictive substances that in order for them to run away from the problem (Hammersley et al., 2016). with time the person will find that they have become addicted and they cannot function without the substance. Some of the traumas that a person could be suffering from could be physical abuse, sexual abuse, car accidents, parents’ divorce, long-term neglect, or death of parents. When a person is suffering from a traumatic event, there are changes that take place in the brain and body. These changes will have an impact on a person's emotions and behaviors, which can result in a person seeking something that will be associated with happy emotions. Sometimes a person can get addicted to the drugs prescribed as painkillers (Hammersley et al., 2016). Addiction is usually used as an escape from something that the individual is not prepared or is unwilling to face in his or her life.
The dependence will occur as the individual continues to rely upon the substance to relieve their pain or to escape their reality. Provided the individual has not managed to soberly deal with the traumatic event, they will be dependent on their substance of choice. Any exposure they have of their trauma or crisis triggers drug cravings in their mind and his or her body will demand the drug. With time the person will find that they are not able to function without the drug and they will be fully dependent on the drug. The best intervention would be to address the issue head-on. While this might be an uphill task especially if the individual is not willing or prepared to talk about it there are other strategies that could be employed to encourage the individual to talk about their trauma. When the trauma is known then strategies can be implemented that are aimed at reducing their dependency on substances. When a person takes drugs to escape from an event, they are actually trying to numb the emotions or symptoms they are suffering from. Counseling individually and in group sessions would be vital for such an individual. The aim of group counseling is to show the individual that he or she is not alone and there are others who suffer from the same addiction.
Genetic Impact of Chemical Dependency
There are some individuals who are genetically at higher risk of suffering from substance abuse. This could explain why there are some people who will use chemical substances and they will be able to stop using them once they decide. While there are others who will struggle with the addiction. Predisposition to dependency is something that has researchers running around trying to understand the underlying genetics. There are numerous genes that are not properly understood how they function and this might be related to predisposition. The environment too does play a key role in determining if a person will become addicted to drugs. This could explain why children of addicts do tend to also become addicts (Mbarek et al., 2015). Seeing a parent or caregiver abuse and rely on drugs to function could lead a child to experiment with the drug. This could be out of curiosity and this curiosity might lead to dependency. Therefore, while researchers are trying to understand the correlation of genes, one should not ignore the impact of learned behaviors. Children will tend to mimic what they see their caregivers do, and when one is raised in an environment where parents smoke or drink alcohol, they are more likely to also partake in the same. Genetic predisposition is merely one of the aspects that could be used to predict the likelihood of a person forming an addiction.
All animals have the ability to associate a particular food with pleasure, which would make them addicted to that particular food. Addiction comes about in a similar manner. When a person begins liking something so much and they are associating the substance with pleasure they are likely to continue using the substance. This will, in the long run, lead to addiction. While genes have been shown to predispose a person to addiction, there are people who have been brought up by parents who are addicts and they did not become addicts themselves. Therefore, a person's coping skills do have a huge effect on a person's ability to resist addiction.


References
Hammersley, R., Dalgarno, P., McCollum, S., Reid, M., Strike, Y., Smith, A., . . . Thompson, A. (2016). Trauma in the childhood stories of people who have injected drugs. Addiction Research & Theory, 24(2), 135-151.
Mbarek, H., Milaneschi, Y., Fedko, I. O., Hottenga, J. J., de Moor, M. H., Jansen, R., . . . Boomsma, D. I. (2015). The genetics of alcohol dependence: Twin and SNP?based heritability, and genome?wide association study based on AUDIT scores. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 168(8), 739-748.
Narvaez, J., Pechansky, F., Jansen, K., Pinheiro, R. T., Silva, R. A., Kapczinski, F., & Magalhães, P. V. (2015). Quality of life, social functioning, family structure, and treatment history associated with crack cocaine use in youth from the general population. Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry, 37(3), 211-218.