Addictives include illegal narcotics, medicaments and common products. With regard to their effects on human’s body, these substances can be divided into stimulants and depressants.
Stimulants such as nicotine and cocaine cause increasing of energy, excitement and euphoria. This forces to use the drug, and worsen the addiction.
Depressants such as alcohol and barbiturates facilitate relaxation and pain-relief. Addictives such as morphine and methadone act by imitating endorphins, chemicals produced naturally by the body which have effects similar to dopamine.
The choice of America's addict population is heroin. Heroin is highly addictive, and a habit can be appearing in a week to three weeks of daily or frequent use. Continued use of the drug erases pain, anxiety, fear, and depression and all human feeling as well.
The entertainment worldwide leads to a huge demand for marihuana. The common physical and neurological effects include increased heart rate, lowered blood pressure, deterioration of coordination and concentration.
Cocaine or "crack" is the second most popular illegal addictive in Europe after marijuana. The addictive is a potent stimulant of central nervous system. The euphoria is usually followed by feelings of discomfort and depression and a craving to use the drug again. In addition to irritability, mood disturbances and paranoia cocaine use causes several dangerous physical conditions. It leads to disturbances in heart rhythm and heart attacks, and a potentially fatal overdose.
The mixture of cocaine and heroin, known as "speedball" is a particularly popular and dangerous combination, as the effects of the drugs complement each other, but also camouflage the symptoms of an overdose. It has been responsible for numerous deaths.
In modern pain management with opiates’ physical dependence is nearly universal. However, there are patients who don’t function well without opiate treatment.
Common people are well aware of devastating consequences of using such addictives as narcotics, whereas consumption of alcohol, tobacco is believed to be not so dangerous. However, according to statistics, the addictives entailing loss of productivity and the most expensive treatment are alcohol, smoking, and drugs.
The medicine describes alcoholism as a disease that causes addiction. For many people, drinking alcohol is nothing more than a pleasant way to relax. However, people with alcohol dependence have lost reliable control of their alcohol consumption. Alcohol dependence is characterized by tolerance and withdrawal symptoms if drinking is suddenly stopped.
Smoking entails changes in the brain that make smokers resistant to the antismoking messages. Nicotine makes the brain to block out the unpleasant stimuli and the smoker becomes calm and relaxed. Withdrawing of smoking makes a smoker less able to stand up to the stressful situations because the smoker is used to be calm under nicotine effect. The addictive is well-known as one of the most addictive substances ever discovered. Its cultural acceptability and legality permission makes it much more dangerous.