It is essential to understand the signs of cocaine use. This drug appears in the form of a white powdery substance. It reacts with the CNS, the central nervous system, and is useful in its impact on the same. Cocaine is most commonly snorted. However, it can also be smoked. The action of smoking cocaine is referred to as freebasing. You may also dissolve this drug to form a solution that you then take intravenously.
Cocaine is known as blow, coke, powder, or snow. It is typically manufactured from coca plant (the leaves). This plant grows naturally in some parts of South America. Health providers use cocaine for many known medical purposes. It has been applied to anesthesia in surgery, for instance. Using cocaine for recreation is dangerous and unlawful.
Cocaine, on the streets, looks like a fine powder that is white in color. Dealers on the street will often mix/cut it with various substances such as talcum powder. They do this to add to the volume sold, which increases profits. Some dealers mix the drug (or lace it) with other chemicals - including but not limited to fentanyl (a potent opioid) and amphetamine. They do this to both raise their profit margin as well as increase potency.
Mixing cocaine with such synthetic opioids as fentanyl is very dangerous. Many people have overdosed thinking that they were taking their regular cocaine brand, not knowing that fentanyl had been added in.
Although many persons know that cocaine is addictive, many of them insist on brushing this off. Every passing day, nearly 2,000 US citizens dabble with the drug for the first time.
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Cocaine is highly addictive. What starts as a simple experiment may quickly morph into a life-threatening addiction. The consequences suffered may be devastating on a personal, familial, professional, and financial scale.
People snort cocaine powder through the nose or rub the drug into the gums. Some users, on the other hand, will dissolve it in water before inject the resulting solution into their veins. Others still mix it with depressants like heroin, creating a speedball. Speedballs have been known to cause fatal overdoses.
Another popular way of cocaine administration is smoking the drug. This cocaine will have been processed into freebase cocaine that appears in the form of rock crystal. You may heat this crystal to produce vapors. You would then inhale the vapors directly into your lungs. This is what is known as crack cocaine. It's called crack cocaine because of the distinct crackling sound that the rock makes while being heated.
Some smoke the drug by sprinkling it onto tobacco or marijuana. Crack cocaine is incredibly addictive - much more so than regular cocaine. It takes over lives completely and succeeds in doing damage to multiple internal organs.
Most people who abuse cocaine do so in binge patterns. They take the drug repeatedly in short time-space, and at higher doses. This allows them to stay perennially high.
Cocaine abuse and addiction are related, but they are not the same. Some people abuse cocaine who can quit on their own. Addiction, when established, is a different beast altogether.
Cocaine use and abuse increase dopamine levels in brain circuits. Dopamine will usually recycle back into cells where it was released, effectively closing the signals passing from nerve cells. Cocaine inhibits this reuptake, leading to large dopamine amounts building up in the brain.
This dopamine flooding reinforces drug abuse behaviors, as the brain's reward circuit becomes accustomed to dopamine overloads and gets less sensitive to it. The result is the user taking more substantial amounts of the drug to feel high.
Cocaine use disorders range from mild to severe. The criteria are hinged on cocaine's negative impact on the user's life.
Cocaine is very addictive. However, it may be difficult to recognize an addiction to it. Craving cocaine and ignoring consequences resulting from using it may point to a growing addiction. Some people use the drug so that they can perform simple tasks at a higher speed. In large amounts, the drug may lead to violent and bizarre behavior.
The effects of using cocaine will take root almost instantaneously before disappearing after a few minutes. How long cocaine effects will be around will be dependent on the method of administration. The same applies to the intensity of the impact. Smoking or injecting the drug will lead to more intense highs, but the highs will also be shorter-lived. Snorting this chemical could lead to a high lasting between 15 and 30 minutes. Smoking the drug will only lead to a 10-minute high at most.
A person who uses cocaine regularly will develop a dependence on it. This means that to feel healthy and function normally, the person will require to use it. Dependence leads to tolerance. Once tolerance has been established, withdrawal symptoms will appear in the advent of cessation.
Many cocaine abusers do so in environments where other drugs are being used as well. As such, many cocaine users also develop a dependence on other drugs such as alcohol and marijuana - which is one of the typical signs of cocaine use. This practice of using and abusing multiple drugs is known as poly-drug abuse. It is dangerous, especially for the debilitating effects it may have on the CNS.
A lot of the time, cocaine is used alongside alcohol. The practice is so common that for many recovering cocaine addicts, alcohol is a trigger for cocaine relapse. As such, you should resist all drugs during the recovery period.
Using heroin and cocaine together is pretty much the most dangerous of all cocaine combinations. Cocaine and heroin speedballs kill many people daily due to fatal overdosing.
Withdrawal from cocaine rarely produces physical symptoms. However, psychological symptoms may range from fatigue to depression. Giving up cocaine typically doesn't require detoxing. It is also not life-threatening in most cases.
However, success rates of quitting are higher in rehab settings. In a rehab facility, it is harder to relapse, as drug access is minimal. Interacting with peers who have similar problems to yours can also work. If you are wrestling with a cocaine addiction, perhaps the best step is to reach out to a rehab facility.
Cocaine is highly potent. It also poses severe risks to your overall health. There are both short- and long-term effects of cocaine use and abuse. They range from organ failure to overdose. Abusing cocaine may constrict blood vessels, giving the heart a harder time in pumping blood. This may lead to high blood pressure. The septum and nasal cavity may also be extensively damaged from snorting cocaine.
The effects of cocaine typically dissipate faster than those of many other substances. They will usually be over in 30 minutes. When taken in smaller amounts, the drug produces feelings of happiness, concentration, sociability, and a decreased need for sleep.
However, large amounts are dangerous. They may cause nosebleeds, violent behavior, strokes, heart attacks, and even death. The more common adverse cocaine effects include:
Long term side effects will become more severe depending on the frequency of use and abuse and the quantity of cocaine abused over a lengthy period. Over time, abusing cocaine will negatively impact your kidneys, heart, lungs, brain, and gastrointestinal system. Prolonged drug abuse may lead to harmful physiological and behavioral side effects. Abusers suffer damaged nasal cavities and often go through severe bouts of depression.
Any use of cocaine is unlawful. This is because cocaine is an illegal drug. Over time, using and abusing cocaine will affect your entire body. Cocaine use and abuse may cause drastic changes in your brain cells, nerve cells, proteins, and other elements. Unfortunately, many of these changes are irreversible.
Other effects include:
The method of cocaine administration will alter both duration of effects and the potency of the same. The effects of snorting the drug are short-lived - they will typically last 30 minutes maximum. The effects of smoking or injecting the drug will be even more intense but will last an even shorter period - 10 minutes max.
The fleeting nature of cocaine effects is what prompts many uses to binge/dose frequently. Injecting the drug will make you more prone to an OD than snorting does.
One of the risk factors associated with cocaine is heart strain. Many fatal cases involving cocaine use and abuse include strokes and cardiac arrests.
While many people think that overdosing on cocaine is far-fetched, the truth is that it is not. Large quantities of the drug, especially when injected or smoked, may lead to an overdose. An overdose may be intentional or unintentional.
Deaths from overdosing on cocaine have been known to occur for first-time users. Many people who abuse cocaine abuse alcohol too. Alcohol is a depressant. The stimulant-depressive combination takes its toll on the central nervous system, and overdosing is easier.
Overdosing on the drug could lead to heart attacks, irregular heart rhythm, seizures, and strokes. Some overdose symptoms include anxiety, agitation, trouble breathing, high blood pressure, hyperthermia, and hallucinations.
Some of the typical signs of cocaine use may include but are not only limited to:
You need to admit that you have a growing problem with this drug so that you can open the door for recovery. While you do not necessarily need detox for cocaine, many rehab centers recommend it. Therapy will follow shortly after.
These treatment options will deal with your addiction and allowing you to live a sober life. Make no mistake; however: the psychological dependence which results from cocaine abuse is a severe condition, and it may be hard to overcome.
If you are considering treatment for addiction to cocaine, you must seek a substance abuse evaluation. An addiction professional will help you determine the right support type. Their determination will be based on several factors, including addiction severity, your living environment, and any medical and psychiatric needs you may have.
Inpatient treatment is one of the top ways to manage addiction. Rehab programs in an inpatient setting will give you an environment where you won't be tempted to use cocaine. An inpatient program will be useful in helping you live a healthy life where you are not reliant on cocaine to live normally. The typical rehab program will include:
Once a former user leaves treatment, he or she must have a support system. Groups such as Cocaine Anonymous offer an excellent support system. These groups are instrumental in warding off potential relapses.
The groups connect addicts who are all going through the same problems. The experiences shared will be similar in most cases. The former users and addicts will also have invaluable advice to ward off relapses and deal with low moods, among many other things.
Multiple groups are specifically created for persons in recovery from cocaine addiction. Cocaine Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are examples. These organizations all have chapters all over the country, and they all use 12-step programs to provide practical courses of action as well as long-term sobriety.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy, also known as CBT, is a popular technique for treating addicted persons. CBT therapists train their patients to make out harmful thoughts about themselves. These thoughts often serve as triggers for relapses. They also teach their patients to recognize situations where they may experience temptations and desires to use again.
With this knowledge, a patient can prevent relapses by ensuring the environment he or she is in is as ideal as possible. This therapy also gives you a sense of accountability and urgency to manage and overcome the typical signs of cocaine use, which will keep you motivated to maintain your long term sobriety.