Heroin

It seems America's youth appear to be buying into the very dangerous misconception that as long as they do not use or abuse heroin intravenously, they will not become a heroin addict. Nothing more could be further from the truth.

Heroin Drug Abuse
Not only is heroin addiction and heroin drug abuse at all levels debilitating to the users, long-term heroin abuse will inevitably result in three factors: Tolerance, Addiction and Withdrawal.

Tolerance is of particular importance when discussing heroin drug abuse and heroin addiction. The more a person abuses a drug like heroin the more the person has to take to experience the high. It is because heroin has such a high rate of tolerance that it is so addictive and dangerous.

Heroin abuse turns into heroin addiction the moment the user develops a physical dependency on the drug. With the price of high-quality street heroin coming down and availability on the increase, heroin abuse can become heroin addiction within the first few uses of the drug.

The most challenging aspect of heroin addiction is the withdrawal period. Known as 'dope sickness', withdrawal can be a daily exercise in desperation for the long time heroin abuser. Withdrawal from heroine abuse and heroine addiction can occur as little as two hours after the last dose and symptoms include drug craving, restlessness, insomnia, cramping, vomiting and diarrhea, cold flashes and kicking movements. Symptoms of withdrawal from heroin addiction and abuse occur most visibly between 48 and 72 hours after last use and may continue up to a week or more. Hospitalization among long-term dependent heroin abusers is sometimes necessary as withdrawal from heroin addiction can on the occasion be fatal, although less often than with barbiturate and alcohol withdrawal
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Heroin - Heroin Abuse - Heroin Addiction
Heroin is a highly addictive opiate, and heroin abuse and heroin addiction is more widespread than any other opiate. Heroin is processed from morphine, a naturally occurring substance extracted from the seed pod of certain varieties of poppy plants. It is typically sold as a white or brownish powder or as the black sticky substance known on the streets as 'black tar heroin', and although purer heroin is becoming more common, most street heroin is 'cut' with other drugs or with substances such as sugar, starch, powdered milk, or quinine. Street heroin can also be cut with strychnine or other poisons, and because heroin abusers do not know the actual strength of the drug or its true contents, they are at risk of overdose or death. Heroin also poses special problems because of the transmission of HIV and other diseases that can occur from sharing needles or other injection equipment.

Often referred to on the street as 'smack', 'junk', 'horse', 'skag', 'H', or 'China white', heroin is usually injected, snorted, or smoked. Typically, a heroin addict might inject up to four times a day and sometimes more. Intravenous injection provides the greatest intensity and most rapid onset of euphoria (7 to 8 seconds), while musculature injection produces a relatively slow onset of euphoria (5 to 8 minutes). When heroin is sniffed or smoked, peak effects are usually felt within 10 to 15 minutes. Although smoking and sniffing heroin do not produce a "rush" as quickly or as intensely as intravenous injection, NIDA researchers have confirmed that all three forms of heroin administration can result in heroin addiction.

Injection continues to be the main method of use among heroin addicts, although researchers have observed a shift in heroin use patterns from injection to sniffing and smoking. In fact, sniffing or snorting heroin is now a widely reported means of taking heroin among users admitted for treatment.

Users over 30 years of age continue to be one of the largest user groups in most national data. However, several sources indicate an increase in young users across the country who are being lured by inexpensive, high-purity heroin that can be sniffed or smoked instead of injected. Heroin has also been appearing in more affluent communities.

Immediate and short-term effects of heroin abuse and heroin addiction
Soon after the administering of heroin, the drug crosses the blood-brain barrier. In the brain, heroin is converted to morphine and quickly binds to opioid receptors. Heroin abusers typically report feeling a surge of pleasurable sensations referred to as a 'rush'. The intensity of the rush is a function of how much drug is taken, its potency, and how rapidly the drug enters the brain and binds to the natural opioid receptors.

Heroin is particularly addictive because it enters the brain so rapidly. With heroin, the rush is usually accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, dry mouth, and a heavy feeling in the extremities, which may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and severe itching.

After the initial effects, heroin abusers usually will be drowsy for several hours. Mental function is clouded by the drugs effect on the central nervous system. Cardiac functions slow. Breathing is also severely slowed, sometimes to the point of death. Heroin overdose is a particular risk on the street, where the amount and purity of the drug cannot be accurately known.

Long-term effects of heroin abuse and heroin addiction
One of the most detrimental long-term effects of heroin abuse is heroin addiction itself. Heroin addiction is a chronic problem, characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use, and by neurochemical and molecular changes in the brain. Heroin abuse also produces profound degrees of tolerance and physical dependence, which are also powerful motivating factors for compulsive use and abuse. As with abusers of any addictive drug, heroin addicts gradually spend more and more time and energy obtaining and using the drug. Once they are addicted, the heroin abusers' primary purpose in life becomes seeking and using drugs. The drugs literally change their brains.

Physical dependence develops with higher doses of the drug which quickly leads to heroin addiction. With physical dependence, the body adapts to the presence of the drug and withdrawal symptoms occur if use is reduced abruptly. Withdrawal may occur within a few hours after the last time the drug is taken. Symptoms of withdrawal include restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea, vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps (know as cold turkey), and leg movements. Major withdrawal symptoms peak between 24 and 48 hours after the last dose of heroin and subside after about a week. However, some people have shown persistent withdrawal signs for many months. Withdrawal from heroin abuse or heroin addiction is never fatal to otherwise healthy adults, but it can cause death to the fetus of a pregnant addict.

At some point during continuous heroin use, a person can become addicted to the drug. Sometimes addicted individuals will endure many of the withdrawal symptoms to reduce their tolerance for the drug so that they can again experience the rush.

Physical dependence and the emergence of withdrawal symptoms were once believed to be the key features of heroin addiction. We now know this may not be the case entirely, since craving and relapse can occur weeks and months after withdrawal symptoms are long gone. We also know that patients with chronic pain who need opiates to function (sometimes over extended periods) have few if any problems leaving opiates after their pain is resolved by other means. This may be because the patient in pain is simply seeking relief of pain and not the rush sought by the addict.

Medical complications of chronic heroin abuse and heroin addiction
Medical consequences of chronic heroin abuse and heroin addiction include scarred and/or collapsed veins, bacterial infections of the blood vessels and heart valves, abscesses (boils) and other soft-tissue infections, and liver or kidney disease. Lung complications (including various types of pneumonia and tuberculosis) may result from the poor health condition of the abuser as well as from heroin's depressing effects on respiration. Many of the additives in street heroin may include substances that do not readily dissolve and result in clogging the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain. This can cause infection or even death of small patches of cells in vital organs. Immune reactions to these or other contaminants can cause arthritis or other rheumatologic problems.

One of the greatest risks of being a heroin addict is death from heroin overdose. Each year about one percent of all heroin addicts in the United States die from an overdose of heroin despite having developed a fantastic tolerance to the effects of the drug. In a non-tolerant person the estimated lethal dose of heroin may range from 200 to 500 mg, but addicts have tolerated doses as high as 1800 mg without even being sick.

Heroin abuse, heroin addiction and the risk of HIV/AIDS and other
infectious disease
Because many heroin addicts share needles and other injection equipment, they are at special risk of contracting HIV and other infectious diseases. Infection of injection drug users with HIV is spread primarily through reuse of contaminated syringes and needles or other paraphernalia by more than one person, as well as through unprotected sexual intercourse with HIV-infected individuals. For nearly one-third of Americans infected with HIV, injection drug use is a risk factor. In fact, drug abuse is the fastest growing vector for the spread of HIV in the Nation.

Research has found that drug abusers can change the behaviors that put them at risk for contracting HIV, through drug abuse treatment, prevention, and community-based outreach programs. They can eliminate drug use, drug-related risk behaviors such as needle sharing, unsafe sexual practices and the risk of exposure to HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. Drug abuse prevention and treatment are highly effective in preventing the spread of HIV

Heroin abuse, heroin addiction, and pregnancy
Heroin abuse can cause serious complications during pregnancy, including miscarriage and premature delivery. Children born to addicted mothers are at greater risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome).

Stop using heroin forever without becoming addicted to drug substitutes like methadone
The majority of heroin addiction treatment programs in the United States utilize the 12 steps derived from the Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous programs as their foundation. In the past, the 12 step philosophy was combined with inpatient treatment in a hospital setting for a period of at least 28 days. Heroin addicts would attend AA or NA meetings while receiving group therapy.

Unfortunately, this model proved to be less than successful and the insurance industry has become unwilling to pay for extended stays. The current trend is to admit someone with a heroin problem to a hospital just long enough to get them through the worst of the physical withdrawal from heroin abuse or heroin addiction and then send them to outpatient counseling. This method of treating heroin addiction and heroin abuse is the most widely used and also the least successful.

A more successful approach to the treatment of heroin addiction heroin drug abuse is the utilization of unique therapeutic training drills and instructional courses which address the underlying causes of heroin addiction in an intensive manner and from many different angles. The result is a person who has dealt with the sense of hopelessness which, as it turns out, causes a person to start using heroin in the first place. This individual, in most cases, no longer feels the need to use heroin or any other drugs.

If you or a love one suffers from the ills of heroin drug abuse or heroin addiction and is in need of heroine addiction treatment… please, please let Midwestdrugrehab.com help today!
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