Drug Abuse, Mental Disorders, and My Experience with Them

Life is full of hardships. Everybody has their own unique challenges that others may or may not know about. Specific challenges in specific are anxiety, depression, disease, addiction, etc. have major effects not only on the individuals who have these types of issues but also on their friends and family. These issues mainly affect one’s mental state and if someone isn’t healthy mentally, many other aspects of their life suffer. That’s why it is so important to get things like this treated and taken care of so these individuals don’t have to suffer.

Addiction can have serious negative effects on a person. Some individuals are more prone to addiction than others due to genetics, personality, environment, etc. With that being said, the end result of addiction is still the same which is an individual addicted to a substance. But how does addiction occur in the first place? Although all addictive substances don’t have the same effect on a person visibly, they do have a similar mechanism and effect on the brain. Most drugs high jack and alter the brains reward system. The brains reward system is tied to seeking thinks like water, food, sex, etc. things we need to survive. A drug triggers this reward system similar to how any of the survival behaviors would. The trigger causes the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, that passes the sensation on to the next nerve. When drugs are abused, a lot of them will cause immense amounts of dopamine to be released thereby causing a feeling of euphoria. People will then chase that “high” but after repeated use, the amount of dopamine released is less and less therefore creating a reliance on the drug to release dopamine. So, the brain becomes “rewired” and the individual will then seek out the drug like they would seek out food or water (Lipp, 1991). Not all drugs work mechanistically this way but almost all create the intense craving/need for the drug. I know a couple of individuals who have struggled with drug addiction. They have gone to rehab multiple times in order to get clean but ended up falling back into those addictive habits. As someone that is looking at the situation from the outside in, I always think “just stop” but after someone has abused drugs for long time their brain doesn’t think rationally anymore. I sometimes catch myself thinking that if they would just quit participating in that type of behavior a lot of the other issues in their life would go away as well. But like I said earlier, the brain thinks it needs the drug in order survive which takes immense self-control to quit for good. Of course, it’s not impossible to quit a drug addiction. There are lots of people who have but it’s much easier said than done.

Of course, addiction isn’t the only thing that can affect and alter the brain and its process. Things like anxiety, depression, bipolarism, etc. are brain disorder that affect many people nowadays and the severity of these disorders are very wide ranging. The disorders themselves are also very complex because scientists don’t really know what causes most of them. Like depression has been thought to be caused by a lack of neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Although, dopamine doesn’t really make sense to me because dopamine is more associated with movement and the pleasure center, but serotonin makes much more sense because it regulates mood. Scientists aren’t sure why there isn’t enough serotonin in the synaptic cleft, but they think that is because either the serotonin doesn’t have enough time in the synaptic cleft or the enzymes that make serotonin aren’t making enough. Not sure which it is but the way they are treating it is using SSRI’s which allow serotonin to stay in the synaptic cleft longer to interact with the receptors normally (Schimelpfening, 2021). But in all reality, there could be many causes of depression like environmental factors, genetics, age, etc. and not just due to a chemical imbalance. When one has one mental disorder, a lot of times, they will also have others. Like individuals that have depression, many also have bipolarism and visa versa (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education, 2021). Mental disorders are very hard to understand and relate to coming from an outsider’s perspective. I know people who suffer from depression and anxiety and trying to relate and offer support is sometimes very difficult. But as someone who doesn’t have mental disorders or had any experience with them, it seems very simple to me to just be happy or not to stress so much about things but like I said with addiction, it much easier said than done. It’s not as simple as just changing your state of mind, especially when there could be chemical imbalances working against you. So, what has really helped me understand a little bit of what their going through was realizing that its not something that they can control and relating it to an illness that doesn’t go away.

I guess what I am getting at is that imbalances or chemicals alter an individual’s brain and have deeper effects than what meets the eye. I have heard people say, myself included, that you are in control of your body and mind. So, if depressive or anxious thoughts enter your brain just distract yourself and think of something different. Or if you are feeling cravings for a drug don’t act on those cravings. But those individuals’ brains have been altered permanently whether they were born that way or not and need treatment or therapy to help. It’s like expecting a person with ALS to be able to go to the gym and put in a two-hour workout. Its irrational. There are coping mechanisms, medications and years of self-mastery/discipline in order to be in control of mental disorder or addiction rather than them be in control of you. Luckily, we are learning more and more about the brain and the more we understand about it, the better we can help people who have mental illness or addiction.

Schimelpfening, N. (2021, January 5). The chemistry of depression. Verywell Mind. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.verywellmind.com/the-chemistry-of-depression-1065137

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2021, February 16). Bipolar disorder. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bipolar-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355955

Lipp, J. (1991). Possible mechanisms of morphine analgesia. Clinical Neuropharmacology, 14(2), 131–147. https://doi.org/10.1097/00002826-199104000-00003