Many people these days suffer from drug addiction. If you or a loved one had become involved with and suffers from substance dependency it is vital to get into drug rehab as soon as possible. Acting quickly will give the addict the best chance of recovery. If you put it off, it can quickly become too late as taking drugs affects and damages the body in many ways. Here are just a few of the ways in which taking drugs can damage your body physically.
- It weakens the immune system and makes you susceptible to many different types of infection.
- It causes an abnormal heart rate that can lead to heart attacks.
- It can cause collapsed veins which leads to infections in the veins, the blood and valves of the heart.
- Nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain are common.
- It makes the liver work harder, trying to clear the substance from your body. This can cause liver damage and eventually, liver failure.
- Drugs can cause seizures and strokes.
- Worst of all perhaps, is the damage drugs do to the brain. This can alter how you think, it can impact daily life due to memory and attention deficit problems, mental confusion and poor decision making.
- It makes your appetite swing wildly in either direction, but mostly you will find loss of weight more the normal. This can be life-threatening if it goes on for too long.
- It increases the temperature of your body, which can impact many different kinds of health problems negatively.
- It can also cause birth defects in babies and learning and behavioural problems in the child afterwards. In addition, users are at high risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases that also put the pregnancy and their own health at risk.
Of course, there are other problems apart from the physical ones. Drugs flood the brain with dopamine, that feel good chemical that soon becomes an essential to the addict. Drugs hi-jack the brain and make it think differently. Once the brain is damaged physically it can cause many consequences such as: –
- Making a person violently and even dangerously angry
- Giving them paranoia so they think someone wants to cause them harm.
- They are likely to suffer hallucinations
- They become impulsive
- They lose control of themselves
- They cannot be depended or relied on to carry out any tasks, let alone important ones.
No addict can get off the drugs they are on by themselves, that is why it is essential to seek help. Residential drug rehab is the best way to recover. It not only helps users over the withdrawal, but offers counselling to address the issues that made the person turn to drugs in the first place.