Effects of addiction persist long-term
Chelsea Zaft
With almost 30 percent of full-time college students meeting the medical definition of drug or alcohol addiction, according to a recent study from the National Center on Addiction and Substance abuse, are students really considering the long-term effects of drugs before trying them even once?Thanks to TV, radio, and print ads, the majority of the public is knowledgeable about the immediate side effects of drug use, like losing hair and teeth and other harmful effects.
But the effects of drug use last for long periods of time in the brain and body even after the user has stopped taking the drugs.
Studies show that even very breif uses of certain drugs can stay in a person’s body for years.
Drugs such as alcohol, opiates, cocaine and other amphetamines trap and increase the amount of dopamine in the brain’s pleasure circuits.
As a result, according to Skip Pollock psychology professor at MCC, the brain reduces the amount of dopamine naturally released by your body each time there is an overload from drug use.
This can lead to depression, irritability, and anxiety.
Another major effect of drug use is on the limbic system, the area of the brain that controls emotions, memory and stress management.
Pollock said this can lead to emotional dysregulation, where one is not able to regulate their emotions.
“It’s not just the physiology. When you have an addiction, that’s your only coping device,” Pollock states.
The use of drugs as a coping device therefore, stunts your mental and social growth, leaving the recovering addict, “to revert back to the coping skills they had before, which is almost like an adolescent, they’re not mature,” according to Pollock.
He added that it is not impossible to learn these social and coping skills, “but you have to work hard.”
“It’s like taking someone out of school in 5th grade and putting them back in 11th grade, they missed so many steps.”
Other long-term mental effects are quite alarming. Studies by the National Institute on Drug Abuse have shown that, “prolonged use of amphetamines, like cocaine, can produce a psychosis similar to acute schizophrenia.”
Methamphetamines also affect the body and can cause, “fatal kidney and lung disorders, brain damage, liver damage, blood clots, malnutrition, and a deficient immune system,” according to a study on kci.org, “The Anti-Meth Site.”
One thing Pollock said he wants people to remember about doing drugs is, “It’s like speeding. Most of the time you can get away with it, but sometimes you kill a kid, and that kid could be you.
