Cocaine was regarded as a status drug in the year 1970s for the reason that cocaine was pricey. The introduction of inexpensive crack increased the ease of access of this substance, and crack has become the drug of choice for many drug users, especially for inner-city disadvantaged youth. This has been the beginnings of the growing crack addiction. Crack’s convenience, ease of concealment, wide availability, and low cost has increased its use. The fact that crack is smoked rather than snorted has added to its popularity.

Moreover, drug addiction is not only occurring to people on the streets. It is a common fact that celebrities have their “shining moments” when it comes to substance abuse. They may look pleasant and very much happy in front of cameras, but their deepest secrets are yet to be exposed. A number of celebrities have already been into rehabilitation to fight their crack addiction, heroin, or even alcohol addiction.

Long before Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears hogged the headlines with their wild child antics, there was Drew Barrymore. At the age of nine, Drew was already smoking cigarettes. She was an alcoholic at 11, a marijuana smoker by 12, and a cocaine addict by 13. She went to rehab twice and even attempted suicide when she was 14. Currently, that is all in the past. Her wild child days behind her, Barrymore has grown into a sober, responsible and productive woman. Aside from starring in a slew of hits, she has also become a producer, forming the production company Flower Films with friend and partner Nancy Juvonen in 1995. Her company is responsible for hits like Charlie’s Angels and 50 First Dates. Quite a turnaround for a woman with a childhood as messed up as hers.

There are actually two sides to this Oprah-Winfrey-was-a-drug-addict story. On one hand, there’s the unforgettable TV moment in the 90s when she tearfully admitted in her own talk show that she had smoked crack cocaine while in her 20s, but never said anything about dependence on the drug or anything else. On the other hand, there’s the more recent allegation made in a tell-all book by a previous boyfriend that Oprah was actually a regular cocaine user in the 80s, and was in fact under the influence during her show tapings.

Right now, we can clearly see that Oprah Winfrey has triumphed over the use of cocaine. As of September 2008, Forbes has predicted Oprah to acquire wealth worth over $2.7 billion. CNN and Time Magazine hailed her “arguably the world’s most powerful woman”. She is quite the success story, sordid drug past or not.

Anyone of all walks of life could be a victim of crack addiction. Life is largely unpredictable. One time we are laughing with friends living the good life, the next time we know, we are shaking and craving for a drug we never thought we couldn’t seem to live without. People may be aware of the effects of drugs if abused, yet they still give in to curiosity, probably, or to pressure and thus end up living miserably. However, there is still hope for every addict in this world. Life doesn’t end in addiction. Giving up is ends life.

Alcohol is one teratogen that could greatly have an effect on the woman’s pregnancy. People may not be aware of its danger and still allow a woman to drink alcoholic drinks during her pregnancy, but the effect of this would be carried by the baby for the rest of his or her life. Alcohol is one of the known causes of mental and physical birth defects specifically in the United States. Though, this is only a probability, the rate is high.

For one, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a disorder that can occur to the embryo when a pregnant woman ingests alcohol during pregnancy. Alcohol crosses the placental barrier and can inhibit fetal weight, create distinctive facial stigmata, damage neurons and brain structures, and cause other physical, mental, or behavioral problems. The main effect of FAS is lasting central nervous system damage, especially to the brain. Developing brain cells and structures are malformed by prenatal alcohol exposure, often creating an array of primary cognitive and functional disabilities including poor memory, attention deficits, impulsive behavior, and poor cause-effect reasoning, as well as secondary disabilities for example, mental health problems, and drug addiction.

The signs and symptoms of a having fetal alcohol syndrome are low birth mass, small head circumference, developmental interruption, organ dysfunction, facial abnormalities, including smaller eye openings, flattened cheekbones, and indistinguishable philtrum (an underdeveloped groove between the nose and the upper lip), epilepsy, poor management, poor socialization skills, such as difficulty building and maintaining friendships and relating to groups, lack of curiosity, learning difficulties, including poor memory, inability to understand concepts such as time and money, poor language comprehension, poor problem-solving skills, behavioral problems including hyperactivity, inability to concentrate, social withdrawal, stubbornness, impulsiveness, and anxiety.

The primary characteristic of fetal alcohol syndrome is the damage it brings in the central nervous system. Central nervous system damage can be assessed in three areas such as structural, neurological, and functional deficiencies. Structural impairments may include microcephaly (small head size) of two or more standard deviations below the average, or other abnormalities in brain structure. During the first trimester of pregnancy, alcohol interferes with the migration and organization of brain cells, which can create structural deformities within the brain. During the third trimester, damage can be caused to the hippocampus, which plays a role in memory, learning, emotion, and encoding visual and auditory information, all of which can create neurological and functional CNS impairments as well.

When structural impairments are not observable, neurological impairments are assessed. Neurological problems are showed as either diagnosable disorders, such as epilepsy or other seizure disorders, or soft signs. Soft signs are broader, nonspecific symptoms, such as impaired fine motor skills, neurosensory hearing loss, poor gait, clumsiness, poor eye-hand coordination.

When structural or neurological impairments are not observed, all four diagnostic systems allow CNS damage due to prenatal alcohol exposure to be assessed in terms of functional impairments. Functional impairments are deficits due to prenatal alcohol exposure (rather than hereditary causes or postnatal insults) in observable and measurable domains related to daily functioning, often referred to as developmental disabilities.

No evidence exists that can determine exactly how much alcohol ingestion will produce birth defects. Individual women process alcohol differently. Other factors differ the results, too, such as the age of the mother, the timing and regularity of the alcohol ingestion, and whether the mother has eaten any food while drinking.

Alcohol quickly goes through the placental barrier and the fetus is less equipped to get rid of alcohol than its mother, so the fetus tends to receive a high concentration of alcohol, which stays behind longer than it would in the mother’s system. That explains why the child is the one largely affected when in fact it is the mother who consumes the alcohol. This such a sad truth.

Life Threatening Risk: Cocaine Laced with Levamisole

** ALERT **

We always do our best to provide information and help to all of our readers from an unbiased and non judgmental standpoint. In that spirit, we want to make sure that if you or someone you care about is using Cocaine or using Crack that they be aware of the following information and they should seek professional medical help immediately.

Alcohol and other drug programs across California should be on the lookout for a dangerous substance levamisole that is showing up with increasing frequency in illicit cocaine powder and crack cocaine, most recently in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Levamisole is a veterinary anti-parasitic drug and it severely reduces the number of white blood cells in humans leading to an acute condition called agranulocytosis that should be treated at a hospital. Ingesting cocaine mixed with levamisole suppresses immune function and the body’s ability to fight off even minor infections. People who snort, smoke, or inject crack or powder cocaine contaminated by levamisole can experience overwhelming, rapidly-developing, life threatening infections.

Agranulocytosis manifests the following symptoms:

infections that won’t go away or get worse very fast, including sore throat or mouth sores; skin infections; abscesses; thrush (white coating of the mouth, tongue or throat); pneumonia (fever, cough, shortness of breath)

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) began alerting medical professionals, substance abuse treatment centers, and other public health authorities in September about the risks.

Used in veterinary medicine, levamisole is currently approved for use in cattle, sheep and swine as an anti-parasitic agent. Formerly used in human medicine for treating autoimmune diseases and cancer, it is no longer approved for human use.

SAMHSA is working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and other federal and international organizations, as well as state agencies to monitor the levamisole issue. CDC will publish a case report analysis in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and will work with state health departments to systematically collect information on cocaine-associated agranulocytosis cases. Information from this effort will be used to guide treatment and prevention initiatives to address the public health concern.

According to the DEA and state testing laboratories, the percentage of cocaine specimens containing levamisole has increased steadily since 2002, with levamisole now found in more than 70 percent of the illicit cocaine analyzed last July. In addition, a recent analysis in Seattle, Washington, found that almost 80 percent of individuals who test positive for cocaine also test positive for levamisole.

ADP is asking all providers to report suspected and confirmed cases of agranulocytosis associated with cocaine abuse to their local health departments. Cases can also be reported to local Poison Control Centers (1-800-222-1222), which may assist in clinical management and additional reporting. For further medical/technical information, contact Nicholas Reuter, SAMHSA Nicholas.reuter@samhsa.hhs.gov

This Cocaine Related Health Alert was sent to us to help keep you informed. The SAMHSA stands for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). If you or a loved one need help with cocaine addiction or abuse please call the number on this site, or if you require medical attention contact a medical professional right away.

Victims of sex and love addiction has a found a way to help their illness. Sex and love addiction was born. This was created by a former Alcoholics anonymous member. Though, he had been sober, he was unfaithful to his wife for a period of time. He founded sex and love addiction anonymous as an attempt to end his compulsive sexual and romantic behavior.

“Bottom-line behaviors” are persuaded to be identified on members of the organization. The organization identifies these behaviors as “any sexual or emotional act, no matter what its initial impulse may be, which leads to loss of control over rate, frequency, or duration of its occurrence or recurrence, resulting in spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, and moral damage of oneself and others.”

In addition, the Sex and Love Addiction Anonymous uses the 12-step program and the 12 traditions in helping their members recover from the addiction. The excellent thing with the organization is that since everyone is a victim, they are empathic about each other’s experiences and feelings. Thus, they claim to understand what the other person is going through and are able to offer support through sharing and meetings. As quoted, “we found in each other what we could find nowhere else: people who knew the depth of our pain. Together we found hope and the care of a loving Higher Power. Our commitment is to help others recover from sexual addiction, just as we have been helped.”

Sex and Love Addiction Anonymous’ twelve-step program are the following:

1. We admitted we were powerless over sex and love addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to sex and love addicts, and to practice these principles in all areas of our lives.

Meanwhile, these are their Twelve Traditions:

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon S.L.A.A. unity.

2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as this Power may be expressed through our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3. The only requirement for S.L.A.A. membership is the desire to stop living out a pattern of sex and love addiction. Any two or more persons gathered together for mutual aid in recovering from sex and love addiction may call themselves an S.L.A.A. group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or S.L.A.A. as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the sex and love addict who still suffers.

6. An S.L.A.A. group or S.L.A.A. as a whole ought never to endorse, finance, or lend the S.L.A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, or prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

7. Every S.L.A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. S.L.A.A. should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. S.L.A.A. as such ought never to be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. S.L.A.A. has no opinion on outside issues; hence the S.L.A.A. name ought never to be drawn into public controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, film, and other public media. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all fellow S.L.A.A. members.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

As they say, we all are crazy. We all have that craziness within us. It is just a matter of how we manage our differences and extremities that we are able to handle our craziness. Moreover, many ask if mental illnesses really do exist. The English-speaking world has not always used medical language to describe the behavior we now label as symptomatic of mental illness. Illlustrations were sometimes framed in quite different terms, such as possession. What we now call mental illness was not always treated as a medical problem. Non-English-speaking nations in the West have had changes in their linguistic usage and their treatment of the mentally ill roughly parallel to Anglophone countries. Anthropological work in non-Western cultures suggests that there are many cases of behavior that psychiatry would categorize as symptomatic of mental disorder, which are not seen within their own cultures as signs of mental illness.

However, nowadays, it has been discussed that mental disorders are really existing mental conditions that may have caused trouble in a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life.

Mental illness does not choose an individual to carry the burdens of the disorder. Mental illnesses are not the outcome of personal weakness, lack of character or poor upbringing. Mental illnesses are treatable. Most people diagnosed with a serious mental illness can experience a break from their symptoms by actively participating in an individual treatment plan. In addition to medication treatment, psychosocial treatment such as cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, peer support groups and other community services can also be components of a treatment plan and that assist with recovery. The availability of transportation, diet, exercise, sleep, friends and meaningful paid or volunteer activities contribute to overall health and wellness, including mental illness recovery.

Unfortunately, society may be responsible for one’s failure in recovering form a mental illness. When the person is cured inside a medical institution, he or she is given sufficient treatment and is treated as if they are normal. They are given proper care and attention so as to promote recovery. However, when they go out into the real world after some time, society, upon knowing their past, would most likely ridicule them and treat them differently. Society would look at them as someone who still has the mental disorder and resultingly, it would make them feel worse and thus, could trigger an incidence of the mental illness once again.

A person afflicted with a mental illness would feel less of himself. He would think that he I not worthy to live in this world given that he could not act properly anymore. However, support from family and friends would be a great help for the patient to view life differently and positively. Thus it is the role of the family to provide the patient with love and care so as to sustain his recovery.

However, sometimes, there are people who are not able to adjust to certain events in their lives and are unable to control their emotions and deal with what they are feeling. Just like alcoholism, emotional problem is a serious problem. An individual is not able to function well due to the disruption of its emotions. Usually, people would utilize defense mechanisms as to cover up their emotional problems. However, this would in turn cause some commotion in their daily lives. And, moreover, it could affect the people around them. Moreover, emotional problems could be caused by alcoholism or any addiction problems. When one is addicted, the person does not only become physically attached to the object of addiction, but also he or she becomes emotionally attached to the object of addiction.

Just like Alcoholics Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous is a twelve-step organization. It caters to people whose emotions are causing difficulties in their lives. Emotions such as depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, anger, compulsion, and obsessions are the most common in which the members had to deal with. this organization started on July 6, 1971. Emotions Anonymous meetings are self-supporting by voluntary contributions of its members. Emotions Anonymous is not tied up with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, nor does it endorse or oppose any causes. The main objective of Emotions Anonymous is to show its members how to stay well emotionally and how to help others to become emotionally well.

Here is the 12-step program used by Emotional Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our emotions — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

With emotions anonymous, people in all walks of life are able to look for help from others and may find comfort and guidance from those who have been there and had done that, or even share understanding with people are experiencing the same thing. Indeed, social support is very important and could be a cure to emotional illness.

Most often, this casual habit of eating and eating and eating would eventually affect one’s life, physically, emotionally, and even socially. One tends to overeat which would eventually become an addiction to food. There is no happy effects on food addiction and that is a fact.

Obviously, with too much intake of food or overeating, one becomes overweight. Having an undesirable figure is not jus the peril of being overweight. It also would mean a possible health risk such as heart problems.

The daily pressures of life can be a causing factor fro individuals to eat compulsively. Overeating can be a way of escaping from these daily pressures. Men and Women who are compulsive overeaters will at times bury behind their physical appearance, using it as a blockade against society common in survivors of sexual abuse. These individuals feel blameworthy for not being “good enough,” shame for being overweight, and generally have a very low self-esteem. They use food and eating to handle with these feelings, which only leads into the cycle of feeling them ten-fold and trying to find a way to cope again. With a low self esteem and often constant need for love and validation he/she will turn to obsessive episodes of binging and eating as a way to forget the pain and the desire for affection.

Overeaters Anonymous came into being because of the sad reality being faced by people who overeat. Overeaters Anonymous is a twelve-step program for people with problems related to food including, but not limited to, compulsive overeaters, those with binge eating disorder, bulimics and anorexics. Anyone with a problematic relationship with food is welcomed, as their third tradition states that the only requirement for memberships is a desire to stop eating compulsively.

The sharing of experiences and the giving of hope are what the members of Overeaters Anonymous gets. The members give aid to each other in facing their individual battles with overeating. This cannot be done without the help of the very famous 12 Steps of Overeaters Anonymous which includes the following:

1. We admitted we were powerless over food – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

There is also a custom which is being lived by Overeaters Anonymous Members. They are:

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon O.A. unity.

2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3. The only requirement for O.A. membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or O.A. as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose-to carry its message to the compulsive overeater who still suffers.

6. An O.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the O.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

7. Every O.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. Overeaters Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. O.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. Overeaters Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the O.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

Abstinence is the main action being promoted by Overeaters Anonymous. That is abstinence from compulsive eating. With the support from group and the recovery tools used, the person may not only achieve the desire to be able to control eating habits but also the will power to be in control in one’s life and improve self-esteem.

Originally, heroin was promoted as a non-addictive drug. In fact, the name heroin means “heroic treatment” derived from the German word heroisch. From 1898 to 1910, it was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough medicine for children. However, in 1924, the United States’ “Heroin Act” made it illegal to possess or manufacture heroin in the country.

Today heroin is normally sold as a white powder or as the black sticky substance known as the “black tar heroin”.

Heroin is usually injected. A heroin dependent individual usually injects himself four times a day. Intravenous injection offers the greatest intensity and most rapid set of euphoria. After about 7 to 8 seconds following the injecting, the person would then feel the rush. Intramuscular injection produces as slower onset of euphoria. Injection continues to be the major method of heroin use among addicted users seeking treatment; however, researchers have observed a shift in heroin use patterns, from injection to sniffing and smoking. In fact, snorting heroin is at the present the most widely reported means of taking heroin among users admitted for drug treatment.

Heroin works in the brain by converting itself to morphine then binding quickly to the brain’s opioid receptors. The addict would feel a gratifying feeling. The intensity of the rush would depend on the dosage of the drug. The rush is usually accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, dry mouth, and the heavy feeling in the extremities, which may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and severe itching. After the initial effects, abusers usually will be drowsy for a few hours. Mental function is clouded by heroin’s effect on the central nervous system. Cardiac function slows. Breathing is also severely slowed, sometimes to the point of death. Heroin overdose is a particular risk on the street, where the amount and purity of the drug cannot be accurately known.

Heroin’s long-term effect is another story. Chronic users may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, cellulites, and liver disease. Moreover, the most dangerous long-term effects of heroin is dependence to the substance itself. Heroin abuser eventually becomes too dependent on the drug that he/she spends most of his/her time and energy obtaining and using the drug. When addiction sets in, the individual’s primary goal will be to look for and use the substance. Furthermore, with continuous use, this could cause death to the addict.

Heroin addiction is not free from withdrawal symptoms, once the use is stopped. The withdrawal syndrome from heroin can begin within 12 hours of stoppage of the sustained use of the drug: sweating, malaise, anxiety, depression, persistent and intense penile erection in males, general feeling of heaviness, cramp-like pains in the limbs, yawning and lachrymation, sleep difficulties, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, cramps and fever can happen. There is also a important danger of grand mal seizures, which can lead to stroke possibly resulting in lasting disability including blindness or paralysis, or heart attacks which can potentially be fatal.

The drug heroin is quite lethal especially to those users whose health is in poor condition. It also serves as a teratogen among pregnant users. Among pregnant addicts, not only does the drug affect the user, but it greatly affects the baby.

Heroin addiction is one of the most dangerous substance-abuse problems among all other. With this drug, the person becomes greatly dependent on the drug that it becomes their main purpose of living. Therefore, there is no easy treatment. It requires double time, double effort and double will power to be cured.

Everything only exists in the mind. Infact, whatever we think have a great influence on how we behave and that is usually the system. Everything starts with cognition, what comes next is action. But, what happens when the mind goes awry? Would this mean that the behavior also functions abnormally? Definitely. The mind is a very potent part of us that somehow, whatever it thinks becomes seemingly genuine for the individual when actually it is not. When this happens, our entire personality is affected and could have an impact in our lives as well as affect the people around us.

Psychiatric disorders are mental health disorder. It is a clinically significant behavioral that occurs in an individual that is associated with present distress such as a painful symptom, disability, or a significantly increased risk of death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom. In addition, this syndrome must not be merely an expected and culturally sanctioned response to a particular event. For example, the loss of a loved one. Schizophrenia and major depressive disorder are some examples of mental illnesses. A person is diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder when one experiences the following symptoms: confusion; erratic behavior; hearing voices; hallucinations; headaches; depression; anxiety; fatigue; weight loss; anorexia. If a person has three or more of these symptoms, then he/she might have a psychiatric disorder.

Mental disorders do not have definite causes. However, a mixture of biological, psychological, and environmental factors would supply to the acquirement of certain mental disorders. A few biological factors include genetics, prenatal damage, and substance abuse. Substance abuse could affect the chemical balance in the brain which can lead to it’s dysfunction. Psychiatric disorders can also be hereditary. Example, a person with schizophrenia is said to have a relative also having schizophrenia. Psychological and environmental factors may include abuse. Every individual’s experiences can impact his or her well being. If there are hurting experiences that was not repaired, it might lead to a mental disorder.

Psychiatrical disorders are treated with therapy- behaviors or cognitive, and medications. Antidepressants are used for individuals who are clinicall depressed and anxious. Anxiolytics are used for anxiety disorders. This can be also used by people afflicted insomnia. There are mood stabilizers for bipolar disorders and antipsychotic for psychotic disorders. Furthermore, electroconvulsive therapy is sometimes used in severe cases when other interventions for depression have been unsuccessful. Creative therapies such as music, art, and drama therapy are sometimes used. Also, in line with the cognitive-behavioral treatment, lifestyle adjustments and supportive measures are used such as support groups.

Some disorders are transient and some may last a lifetime. In some way, the given treatment will never take away the disorder but will only lessen the symptom to be able to make an individual live a normal life. Some disorders may be very limited in their functional effects, while others may involve substantial disability and support needs.

People in all walks of life could be afflicted with a psychiatric disorder. Based on varying personalities, an individual could possibly build up a disorder of the mind depending on how he/she react to stimulus around his or her environment such as stressful events in one’s life. For example, a loss of a loved one is a traumatic yet natural phase in a person’s life. Everyone in this lifetime will really experience loss. A person’s natural reaction to loss is grieve, anger, pain, and other negative emotions. However, any emotion normally has its limit. Thus, the negative feeling soon subsides and is replaced with hope and strength so as the person tries to recover from the loss. On the other hand, when one’s negative emotion such as sadness does not subside, the diagnosis is different. When an emotion goes ahead to the dysfunction of the life of an individual, the individual is sure to need professional help. This is when we can say that someone has not recovered from the loss and thus has acquired a mental disorder.

We are indeed prisoners of our own minds. Anyone can always say that being happy is a state of mind yet we must also take into account that being sad is also a state of mind.

The substance cocaine is a very potent substance. It is extracted from the leaves of coca bush. There are two primary forms of cocaine. The first one is the. It is used for snorting up the nose. The second is freebase, better known as crack cocaine.This is used for smoking. Few cocaine addicts use it. When cocaine is snorted, the cocaine powder gets inhaled up into the nose where it is readily absorbed into the bloodstream. Once cocaine reaches the brain, dopamine gets released, stimulating pleasurable feelings. Crack cocaine, known as crack, is the word for the smokable form of cocaine. Crack is the street name given to the type of cocaine that has been processed into a smokable drug. Smoking crack cocaine delivers large amounts of the drug to the lungs, producing an instant and powerful euphoric feeling. The rush is usually very strong, but does not last very long. The rocks of crack cocaine are ignited in a crack pipe and the ensuing vapors get deeply inhaled.

A person abuses the use of cocaine when he takes in the drug for pleasure purposes and in inappropriate dosage. With repeated use, the individual becomes tolerant with the drug and then becomes dependent with it. The person seemed to be craving for the drug every now and then. Cocaine addiction is characterized as constantly craving for the drug although the negative costs of cocaine to the person’s body and mind. The physical signs of cocaine abuse can vary, depending on the person. For one, cocaine acts as an appetite suppressant so cocaine abusers often aren’t hungry and end up losing considerable amounts of weight.

With cocaine addiction, the person’s life becomes controlled by the drug. Cocaine addicts are normally not interested with ordinary activities because they only focus on obtaining and taking the drug. Thus, people around these addicts are affected because they intermingle every day. Cocaine addiction often involves not only compulsive cocaine use but also a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors. This can often interfere with normal functioning in the family, workplace and community. Cocaine addiction also can place people at increased hazard for a wide variety of other illnesses. These illnesses can be brought on by the addiction type behaviorswhich includes poor living and health habits that often accompany the lifestyle of an addict and the toxic effects of the cocaine itself.

Experts in the field of medicine is focusing their time on the certain drug that can cure cocaine addiction. The compound GBR 12909 was initially tested as a potential antidepressant. With GBR 12909, the patients’ cocaine-seeking behaviors were eliminated within two hours without affecting food-seeking behavior. Studies have shown that both GBR 12909 and cocaine slow down the action of a protein called the dopamine transporter. By slowing down the transporter, both GBR 12909 and cocaine promote the levels of the pleasure-inducing chemical messenger dopamine outside the nerve cells, a procedure that increases and prolongs dopamine’s pleasurable effects. However, GBR 12909 works more slowly and pumps up dopamine levels less than does cocaine. By attaching to the dopamine transporter, GBR 12909 also stops cocaine from binding there. GBR 12909′s chemical beauty for the transporter is 500 times that of cocaine, so it binds to the transporter and stays there for a long time. While it’s sitting on the transporter, cocaine has no access to the transporter, so the cocaine can no longer act to bring on euphoria. The treatment using GBR 12909 should be extended so that the medication to have time to carry the dopamine transporter levels back to where they were before the patient started taking cocaine. The breakthrough in the discovery of GBR 12909 could be a gateway to help cocaine addiction victims in dealing with the problem they are so afraid to face.

Cocaine addiction is quite a hard condition. One should seek medical attention.