How Substance Abuse Takes Hold: A Psychological Perspective

70–75 years ago, substance abuse was only referred to as heroin abuse, and the people who were taking substance abuse used to live in large cities. Today, millions of people from all over the world are substance abusers from all parts of society, including people from all age groups.
The high excessive rates of alcohol or the rise in cases of cocaine (or drugs) show that substance abuse has become a major problem in today’s society.

An individual who is abusing; their behavior is hazardous to himself as well as to society (others). The term substance abuse is also called drug abuse, which involves cocaine, alcohol, or drugs.

It may be defined as the excessive taking of a substance (such as alcohol) or a drug that produces effects on an individual’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, and mood and could lead to antisocial behavior.

It includes the substance that is taken not for the treatment of a disease or health problem without the advice or direction of a doctor. If we talk about the history of drugs or usage of drugs, from 130 to 201 A.D., opium was thought to resist poison, snake bites, cure headaches, fevers, epilepsy, asthma, spitting of blood, and a variety of other diseases.

And it was used for about 5,000 years. So, the use of drugs in the history of civilization is not new. People have been using drugs for centuries, such as spirits, herbs, and potions, to reduce feelings of sadness, unhappiness, boredom, tension, and loneliness.

When the drugs were used moderately, society accepted their use. But when drugs have been taken in excess, society has declared the substance abusers criminals and the drug use illegal.

The effects of substance abuse have been classified into two categories: long-term and short-term. Long-term effects refer to those signs and symptoms that appear over the repeated consumption of a substance or drug for a long period of time. For example, heavy users of substances may show loss of energy and drive, slow and confused thinking, impaired memory, and other respiratory diseases.

Short-term effects refer to those signs and symptoms that appear after a single dose of the drug and cause despair within a few hours or days. For example, after a small dose of marijuana, the user gets a high experience.

This small amount of drugs or repeated use of them affects the user mentally or emotionally. This means that the drug has become a central part of the user’s life. His thoughts, feelings, emotions, and day-to-day activities are evolving around the drug, which made him think of continuing this consumption to satisfy his craving.

This dependence is known as psychological dependence, and it is very dangerous to a person’s thoughts and feelings. Psychological dependence makes the person addicted to drugs. He likes the way the drug made him feel and wants to re-experience those feelings.

The drug and its effects make the person believe that he cannot function properly without the use of the drug. His thinking becomes so central to the drug that it becomes an escape from reality, and when he takes the drug, his problems and frustrations vanish and everything seems alright.

Psychological dependence makes an abuser return to drug use even if the abuser has been withdrawn from the physical dependence on drugs. When the body learns to adapt only to live with the drug, it increases tolerance levels and requires a high dose of the drug to function.

When the abuser gets addicted to the usage of drugs, it causes physical dependence, which the abuser experiences if she suddenly stops using the drug.
Moreover, the body learns to function without the drug, but the withdrawal signs and symptoms do not despair.