Drug Addiction: Pleasure or Pain?

Drug addiction: pleasure or pain? Drug abuse can destroy an innocent life even before a person realizes it. It usually starts out as what is thought to be harmless experimentation or done just as recreational fun, but can become devastating or even life threatening. Even though many people feel they won't get addicted to drugs or that they won't cause any bodily damage after only a few times of use, they are still extremely harmful. Drugs can cause irreversible nerve damage to the brain and brain cells and cause tissue damage as well.

As stated by Gluckman (2006), “Drug abuse is defined as the compulsive and habitual misuse of any drug for various purposes, such as achieving calming or euphoric effects, an escape from reality, dulling anxiety, and fighting depression”.

Drug abuse, especially with Methamphetamines, is fast becoming a widespread epidemic across our country and can be linked with criminal activity. Meth can be found anywhere in towns, cities, farming areas, rural areas, and suburbs. It affects everyone in all walks of life from the poverty level to upper class citizens.

In 2003, nationwide urine testing was conducted on males that had been arrested for all types of crimes. Meth was found to be associated with much of the criminal activity. The cities with the highest rate of methamphetamine-positive arrestees were as follows:

Note: Pie chart goes here with information on the cities. Couldn’t get chart to copy over.

Methamphetamines are a man-made substance that can be consumed in several ways. It can be smoked, as like a person would a cigarette or pipe, injected directly into the veins with a syringe, or snorted up the nose in the form of a powder. The “high” that is desired is best achieved when sm...

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...on of some sort. A very small amount of these people receive treatment and many claim they have felt the need for it at some time during their addiction (Gluckman, 2006).

Also according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, there are nearly 2.3 million youth that are between the ages of 12 and 17 who are in need of treatment for alcohol or drug abuse (Gluckman, 2006).

Any kind of drug abuse can be detrimental to a person’s life and the seriousness of the damages it can cause must not be taken lightly. Many people may not know they are addicted until it is too late, until bodily injury has occurred or the situation has become life threatening. Loved ones of someone suffering from drug abuse must know what to look for and how to handle the situation. Information is out there on how to help and it is never too late to break the cycle of drug abuse.