Drug addiction can have a powerful impact on not only your body but also your mind. As scary as that may sound, it’s important to understand just how powerful it can affect us on a psychological level. Learning this alone can be a motivational factor to get clean once and for all.
Here are some ways that being addicted to drugs can negatively impact our psychological state.
1. Anxiety
Addiction to either stimulants or central nervous system depressants can trigger anxiety. Anxiety may be present during “highs” or even appear when one is craving their drug of choice.
Anxiety can present itself in many different ways. Symptoms of anxiety include racing thoughts, sweating, a pounding heart, nausea, hot flashes, and dizziness.
2. Depression
Depression is something that may start or be triggered by drug use or even appear during craving sessions. Other times, depression may be the reason people turn to substance use from the get-go.
Depression symptoms aren’t always obvious, but other times they are. Symptoms may include loss of motivation, sleep problems, eating more or less, suicidal ideation, low mood, and a general negative thinking pattern. It can be difficult to choose a better life when in the midst of depression.
3. Poor Decision-Making
Drugs & addiction can impact the prefrontal cortex of our brains. This is where we make decisions and also the center of working memory. So, if this center is not up to par, we are more prone to do things on impulse or generally not think things through before we do them.
As a result, those suffering from drug addiction may be more likely to have messy relationships, find themselves in and out of jail, and have an unstable life as a whole due to their lack of ability to properly think things through and understand the consequences beforehand.
4. Psychosis
Drug-induced psychosis can occur when one takes too much of a certain drug. This is even more common for folks whose family has a history of non-drug-related psychosis, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Psychosis involves a different perception of one’s world around them. They may experience strong delusions and hallucinations where they feel, experience, or see things that aren’t there. This experience can be scary for both the person experiencing it firsthand as well as the people around them.
5. Loss of Interest
Loss of interest is another impact that drug addiction can have on us psychologically. It may or may not play a role with depression. The change in neurotransmitters in our brains, like dopamine which is the reward center of our brains, when on or getting off drugs can be altered and trigger general loss of interest or boredom, especially when not high.
Conclusion
Addiction consumes us in more ways than we might realize. Not only are drugs toxic to our body, but they can have a negative effect on our mental state as well. From psychosis to poor decision-making, it’s evident that drug use can be frightening. This is just one of many reasons to choose a sober life.