Cocaine Addiction Treatment

The addiction to cocaine can be serious, quickly established with minimal early use, and hard to break the addiction. It has been found in animals to be something they will work very hard to get even a single injection (by pressing a bar over 10,000 times), when given food and water will ignore it for cocaine, and even when punished for taking it still go after an injection. Lethal or toxic doses have to be prevented in animals by controlling dosages.

The brain’s reward system is stimulated even beyond that which they receive from natural functions. This affect on the reward system can cause the user to cease to want to survive and instead repeat the use of the drug. Cocaine addiction is caused by continual use, even damaging the brain and other organs as well. Adverse consequences are ignored, causing no interruption in its use. It only takes as little as 2 weeks to create a dependency leading to the addiction. A single highly potent dose has been seen by researchers to cause the development of a psychological dependency. The same levels of euphoria, after developing a tolerance, cause larger and larger doses to be required.

In order to recognize a cocaine addiction it is possible to look for these symptoms, including but not limited to:

Cardiac problems;

Family responsibilities are neglected;

Job demands are ignored;

Isolation from social activities;

Body needs and hygiene are neglected;

Mucous membrane show signs of disintegration;

The nasal septum collapses;

Personal property is sold to acquire more cocaine;

Mood swings;

Loss of weight;

Change in friends;

Change in daily schedule (staying out all night);

Always having a stuffy, runny nose; and

Constant loss of appetite.

A single dose of cocaine causes extremely pleasurable effects that happen immediately, and don’t last very long. There is a sense of energy from cocaine use along with the intense euphoric feeling that is very short-lived. Use of Cocaine produces caffeine-like wakefulness and hunger is reduced. Feelings of well-being and power at a grandiose level are experienced along with a newfound sense of ability that’s mixed with a counter-intuitive amount of anxiety and restlessness. There are temporary sensations of mastery, replaced with an intense level of depression and sometimes paranoia when the drugs effects begin to wear off. A sense of lethargy then is created with a typical sleep of several days as the abuser “crashes.’

A strong psychological dependence or better known as an addiction occurs with regular use. The withdrawal symptoms from abruptly stopping use of cocaine by an addict can be extreme. Everyone’s recovery period and length of the withdrawal symptoms varies, usually dependent on their usage patterns around the frequency and amount of cocaine use.

As cocaine addicts withdraw, their symptoms can include but isn’t limited at:

Agitation;

Depression;

Intense craving for the drug;

Extreme fatigue;

Anxiety;

Outbursts of anger;

Lack of motivation;

Nausea/vomiting;

Shaking;

Irritability;

Muscle pain; and

Disturbed sleep