Your may think that opium addiction is a 19th century problem, but opium is still affecting the emotional health, and overall wellbeing, of people today. In fact, with the exception of alcohol, more people die from opiate-related complications than from all other substances of abuse combined. Opiate addiction is impacting the wellness of a whole new generation, in five different ways:
1) Overdose: When you abuse opiates, your body naturally develops a tolerance for the drug to help mitigate its effects. The more you use opiates, the stronger your level of tolerance becomes and so you need increasingly higher doses in order to achieve the same or greater buzz. Users therefore take more opiates, take other drugs to enhance the euphoric effects and even maximise the impact of opiates by taking them in the most effective way possible; by direct injection into the blood stream. It’s easy to see how this can lead to an overdose, as many addicts increase their consumption too rapidly and, for some, the ultimate consequence is death.
2) Suicide: While opium delivers a potent high, in the long run it robs you of your ability to feel happiness, arousal, excitement and many other positive feelings. This state, referred to as Dysphoria, occurs because you chemically stimulate your brain to obtain feelings of euphoria, and so your body becomes desensitized to the processes that causes joyful feelings in the first place. When this happens, you cannot feel joy unless you are high and, eventually, even using opium doesn’t help you to experience positive feelings. This causes many people who are addicted to opiates become despondent and lose hope, repeatedly trying to stop using and failing, which leads them to simply give up and attempt suicide.
3) Disease: The best way to get high is through direct injection, which is why many addicts are greatly at risk of disease. As a result of needle sharing, HIV and Hepatitis C are especially common among those looking for the most intense and fastest acting high. Aside from these diseases, opiate addicts are also at risk of dying from septic shock, cardiac arrest, respiratory depression and in severe cases, malnutrition.
4) Violence: When you’re in the deepest throes of addiction, you might do anything to get you next dose of heroin or Oxycontin. This often means committing crimes to fund your drug abuse, and this can sometimes result in violent situations. Plus, as it is illegal to use these drugs, opiate addicts put themselves in dangerous transactions with dealers, transporters, suppliers and law enforcement. Opiate addiction also reduces your judgement, which means you’re in even more trouble if you end up in a violent situation, as you’re incapacitated by the effects of the drug. You’re more likely to take dangerous risks that you wouldn’t otherwise take, and end up severely harmed or even dead as a result.
5) Withdrawal and Treatment-Related Death: Although coming off the drugs or getting treatment is a positive thing, there are many ways in which opiate addicts can die during this process. In most cases, you die because you completely or partially withdraw from the drugs, which lowers your tolerance for them, but then you relapse and take too much and die from overdose. If you’re in a treatment programme, you might continue to use opiates while on Opiate Replacement Therapy (ORT) drugs, and the combination of these substances can lead to severe complications, new addictions and death in some cases. This is because ORT drugs work by blocking the euphoric effects of most opiates, which you then attempt to overcome by taking more.