Cocaine Addiction

Cocaine Addiction

Cocaine addiction is one of society's greatest problems today. Individuals addicted to cocaine will do almost anything to get the drug. It has penetrated all levels of our society infecting the rich, poor, and everyone in between. Family members connected to individuals with a
cocaine addiction live in chaos and confusion because they do not understand the underlying mechanics of cocaine addiction.

Cocaine addiction symptoms can be divided into short term and long term cocaine addiction symptoms. Cocaine addiction symptoms can be experienced after as little as one dose as the body craves the pleasurable feelings created by cocaine's first effect on the brain. In fact, cocaine addiction symptoms deliver the double threat of both mind and body associating cocaine use with pleasure and alertness which can lead to an immediate increase use of cocaine. In addition to increased usage, other short-term cocaine addiction symptoms include a decreased need for sleep and food, constricted blood vessels, dilated pupils, fever and increased heart rate.

As cocaine use increases, even short term cocaine addiction symptoms become serious very quickly. Cocaine's effect on the body is unpredictable from one use to the next and the risk of sudden death from heart attack, seizures and respiratory arrest is possible. Other cocaine addiction symptoms that are likely to be experienced early in usage include:

1. Unusual, possibly violent behavior
2. Muscle spasms
3. Paranoia
4. Restlessness
5. Irritability

These cocaine addiction symptoms increase over the long term. Cocaine is highly addictive whether snorted, injected or smoked in crack form. Cocaine users develop a tolerance to the drug and find they need to use more to produce the same effect as that first hit or line. Cocaine use easily becomes compulsive as instant gratification is continuously sought and cocaine triggers the brain's pleasure center. The increasingly large amounts of cocaine taken can lead to increasing irritability, restlessness, paranoia as the personality disintegrates and is replaced by an increasing obsession with obtaining and using cocaine. In some users paranoid psychosis can develop when a grip on reality is lost and the user may begin to hallucinate. In extreme cocaine addiction symptoms this psychosis can become permanent.

The withdrawal symptoms of cocaine are:

emotional.There are no physical withdrawal symptoms from cocaine, which is why people sometimes trick themselves into thinking they aren't addicted to it. "I'm not physically addicted to cocaine." But there's no physical addiction and non-physical addiction – there's just addiction. All addiction occurs in the brain.

Even though there are no physical withdrawal symptoms, cocaine still satisfies the criteria of addiction. People have difficulty controlling how much they use, and they continue to use even though it has negative consequences to their life.

The emotional withdrawal symptoms of cocaine are:

* Tiredness
* Depression>
* Anxiety
* >Moodiness