Cocaine Abuse
Posted by Depression Helper | Filed under Depression Help
The word cocaine is seen as synonymous to the word addiction. Cocaine seems to connote a negative idea and even more, a negative emotion towards people. Indeed, it is a substance known to be easily abused and thus, users eventually become dependent to it and the cycle goes on and on. Like any other drugs, cocaine addiction destroys one’s life. It changes anyone, his perspectives, his motives, perception, and behaviors.
The substance cocaine is a very potent substance. It came from the coca bush leaves. Cocaine consists of two primary forms. The first one is the. It is used for snorting up the nose. The second is freebase, which is better recognized as crack cocaine.This is used for smoking. A small percentage of cocaine addiction is done intravenously. When cocaine is snorted, the cocaine powder gets inhaled up into the nose where it is readily absorbed into the bloodstream. Dopamine gets released when cocaine reaches the brain which stimulates feelings of pleasure. The crack cocaine, commonly called as “crack” is the name for the smokable form of cocaine. Crack is the street name given to the form of cocaine that has been processed into a smokable drug. Smoking crack cocaine sends large quantities of the drug to the lungs, producing an immediate and intense euphoric feeling. The rush is usually very strong, but does not last very long. The rocks of crack cocaine are ignited in a crack pipe and the ensuing vapors get deeply inhaled.
Dosage for pleasure reasons crates an individual who will sooner or later turned into a cocaine addict. With repeated use, the person becomes tolerant with the drug and then becomes dependent with it. The person seemed to be yearning for the drug every now and then. Cocaine addiction is characterized as regularly craving for the drug although the negative consequences of cocaine to the person’s body and mind. The physical signs of cocaine abuse can vary, depending on the person. For one, cocaine works as an appetite suppressant so cocaine abusers often aren’t hungry and end up losing considerable amounts of weight.
With cocaine addiction, the person’s life becomes controlled by the drug. They would not be interested with normal activities of life because they only focus on obtaining and taking the drug. Thus, people around these addicts are affected because they interact every day. Cocaine dependence often involves not only compulsive cocaine use but also a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors. This can often impede with normal functioning in the family, workplace and community. Cocaine addiction also can put people at greater threat for a wide variety of other illnesses. These illnesses can be brought on by the addiction type behaviorswhich includes poor living and health habits that often accompany the lifestyle of an addict and the toxic effects of the cocaine itself.
Experts in the field of medicine is focusing their time on the certain drug that can cure cocaine addiction. The compound GBR 12909 was initially tested as a potential antidepressant. With GBR 12909, the patients’ cocaine-seeking attitudes were eliminated within two hours without disturbing food-seeking behavior. Studies have shown that both GBR 12909 and cocaine slow down the action of a protein called the dopamine transporter. By inhibiting the transporter, both GBR 12909 and cocaine elevate the levels of the pleasure-inducing chemical messenger dopamine outside the nerve cells, a procedure that increases and prolongs dopamine’s pleasurable effects. However, GBR 12909 acts more gradually and pumps up dopamine levels less than does cocaine. By attaching to the dopamine transporter, GBR 12909 also blocks cocaine from binding there. GBR 12909’s chemical attractiveness for the transporter is 500 times that of cocaine, so it binds to the transporter and stays there for a long time. While it’s sitting on the transporter, cocaine has no access to the transporter, so the cocaine can no longer act to bring on euphoria. The therapy using GBR 12909 should be extended so that the medication to have time to carry the dopamine transporter levels back to where they were before the patient started taking cocaine. The breakthrough in the discovery of GBR 12909 could be a gateway to help cocaine addiction victims in dealing with the problem they are so afraid to face.
Cocaine addiction is quite a hard condition. One should seek medical attention.
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