drugs

Self-medications like alcohol, nicotine or caffeine are so part of the landscape that their dangers are almost invisible. And yet quitting these would save more lives and improve health more than all the stunningly ingenious and expensive medical innovations of the past hundred years.

drug money
The medical, food, tobacco and Illegal drug industries compete for the multi-billion dollar market for mood enhancing drugs. Their operations are similar except the players dress and speak differently. They have almost unlimited money for promotion. Governments, dealers, prescribers and shopkeepers are on their payrolls.

effects
Each drug activates or suppresses quite particular parts of the nervous system. Drugs that are merely disruptive in the short term can have devastating cumulative effects over time. Some side-effects worsen so gradually that they are not noticed. Impurities and mis-formulations are wild cards.

Drugs help get through uncomfortable episodes and relieve the stress of poverty, relationships, school and work and the painful feelings that spill over from past trauma.

Relief or joy is immediate but they don't fix underlying problems. On the contrary they interfere with mental and emotional functioning and reduce health, wealth and performance. Many accelerate ageing. Most scramble decision-making and increase the risk of accidents.

The financial and emotional costs are high. They include violence, family breakdown, crime, poverty, corruption, lower productivity and social breakdown.

emotions
We are flying blind if our feelings of pain or pleasure and emotional expression and sensitivity to others are dulled or kaleidoscoped by drugs. It is harder to relate closely to others, stay focused, evaluate the importance of events, estimate risks, work out what we want or distinguish hopes and fantasies from reality. Confidence increases and capability decreases. This increases vulnerability to financial hazards like internet scams and gambling. Drug use and gambling go together.

There is little traction in therapy without the guidance and incentive of emotions or pain to identify what is wrong and motivate us to change. Drugs eventually perpetuate problems and unproductive emotional states.

withdrawal symptoms
Any regular or excessive use is a sign of dependence. The impulse to take mood altering drugs mostly comes from their instant relief of the withdrawal symptoms that subtly play out below conscious awareness in between doses. The first coffee or cigarette in the morning does not give a lift. It alleviates the withdrawal symptoms like fatigue and depression that grow during overnight abstinence. It is taken to mobilise and feel normal.

multiple dependency
Although each drug attracts particular personalities and problems and has its own particular user culture, rarely is anyone addicted to only one. Over-eating, cakes, lollies, coffee, “energy drinks”, sugar, cigarettes, alcohol, chocolate or prescription medications are usually alternated in a daily cycle of self medication. Each provides a lift when the effects of another wears off or counteracts the agitating or fatiguing effects of others. Risk taking and gambling bring adrenalin and the joys of hope to this roller coaster of happiness and despair.

Drug combinations often have unpredictable synergistic effects that can be harmful and even life threatening. Spectacular side-effects like episodes of psychotic rage or exhaustion are usually attributed to the personality of the user.

Gambling, porn, internet addiction, obsessive collecting and risk taking activate much the same hormones and neural pathways in the brain as drug addictions. They can foster a similar detachment and loss of empathy for others and lead to similar financial and emotional harm. The strategies on the side-menu can be used to quit these too.

copyright (C) John Brasted 2008
updated 4. Dec. 2011

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