Drug Abuse Addiction: A Misunderstood Problem

Too often people don't truly comprehend the real reason why a person develops a drug abuse addiction or how drugs can alter their brain to stimulate compulsive drug abuse and addiction. They wrongly perceive drug abuse and drug addiction as something that is surely a social problem only and may discriminate those who abuse drugs as morally powerless. A persistent and general belief is that drug abuse addiction individuals should be fully capable of just quitting drugs as long as they are willing to alter their attitude and behaviour. Again and again, what people often simply and underestimate is the complication of drug abuse and drug addiction. It is a serious disease that impacts the very brain itself and as a result, ceasing drug abuse and drug addiction is not plainly a matter of an individuals' willpower. Through current scientific advances we are now able to understand much more in regards to how precisely drugs affect the brain. Furthermore, we now know that drug abuse addiction can be successfully treated to assist individuals' in stopping the abuse of drugs and carry on their normal lives.

Drug abuse and addiction can be a huge burden on society. There have been approximate estimates of the overall costs of drug abuse in the USA alone, which includes health costs as well as losses in productivity, to surpass 500 billion dollars annually. As distressing as these figures are, they don't adequately and fully convey the breadth of detrimental public health and safety implications, which involve domestic violence, school failure, family disruption, loss of employment, child abuse, and many other types of deviant crimes.

To truly understand what drug abuse and drug addiction is, we need to know that it is a continuous, relapsing brain disease that induces uncontrollable drug seeking and use and abuse in spite of harmful and damaging consequences to the drug abuser who is addicted and to all those who are close to them. Drug abuse and addiction is defined as a brain disease for the reason that the abuse of drugs advances changes in the function and also the structure of the brain. Even though it is undeniable that for most drug addicts the initial decision to take drugs is purely voluntary, over the course of time the alterations in the brain, as a result of abusing drugs over and over again, can greatly affect an individual's self control and capability to make logical decisions, while at the exact same moment send extreme impulses to take more drugs.

It is these very extreme changes in the brain that makes it so difficult for an individual who is addicted to absolutely cease from abusing drugs. Fortunately, there are existing treatments that assist people to neutralize drug addiction's strong damaging effects so that the drug abuse and drug addiction individual can recapture some semblance of self control. Studies have shown that incorporating drug abuse addiction treatment medications along with behavioural therapy is one of the most successful ways for majority of drug abuse and addiction patients. When a treatment method is customized to each drug abuse and drug addiction patient's patterns along with psychiatric aid can lead to long term continuous recovery and a life without the need for further drug abuse.

Very much like other chronic or relapsing diseases such as heart disease or diabetes, drug abuse addiction can be managed quite successfully. Additional, it's not unusual for a drug abuse and addiction person to backslide and start abusing drugs again. We must be clear that relapse does not indicate failure, rather, it demonstrates that proper drug abuse and drug addiction treatment should be reintroduced, modified, or that other forms of drug abuse addiction treatment is required to help the individual retake self control and recover.