Drug Addiction

Drug abuse or addiction is most hazardous since it kills the abusers, if not controlled or checked. The drug addicts behave in similar ways all over, they crave and compulsorily use a drug not for its therapeutic purpose but for the “high” it produces, obviously when taken in overdoses with harmful effects to health. This addiction often leads the addicts to deviant activities like forging prescriptions or stealing money, just to procure the drug.

Other facts, that the tolerance to a drug, its withdrawal symptoms are not taken for considering the characteristics of addiction, though they are always associated with the addiction. A drug abuser needs to increase the quantity of drug he use or abuse continuously to maintain the level of “high” to his preference; thus tolerance to the drug increases. So the patients with severe chronic pains are given opiate medications like morphine to relieve pain and for them the dose needs to be increased continually to maintain the pain relieving effects of the medicine. So, tolerance increases with regular use of certain drugs like alcohol, opiates or cocaine etc. and this is without any regard of individual’s psychological dependence on the substance. Withdrawal syndrome means when these substances or drugs are discontinued abruptly; the individual suffers from discomforts with certain symptoms or characteristics. Drugs like some antidepressants, oral steroids, benzodiazepines or opiates; when abruptly discontinued produce withdrawal symptoms. So, presence of withdrawal symptoms does not reflect addiction.