Surely, when someone hears the word cocaine, all he/she could think of is addiction. Cocaine seems to connote a negative idea and even more, a negative emotion towards people. Indeed, it is a substance known to be easily abused and thus, users eventually become addicted to it and the cycle goes on and on. like any other substance addiction, cocaine addiction can harm lives. It changes the individual in many ways, his perspectives, his motives, perception, and behaviors.
The substance cocaine is a very potent substance. It came from the coca bush leaves. There are two primary forms of cocaine. One is the powdery type. It is used for snorting up the nose. The second is freebase, better known as crack cocaine.This is used for smoking. A small percentage of cocaine addiction is done intravenously. 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. The crack cocaine, commonly called 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 substance. Smoking crack cocaine sends large quantities of the drug to the lungs, giving you an quick and intense euphoric feeling. The high is usually very intense, but does not last very long. The rocks of crack cocaine are ignited in a crack pipe and the following vapors get deeply inhaled.
Dosage for pleasure reasons crates an individual who will sooner or later turned into a cocaine addict. With repetitive use, the individual becomes lenient 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 regularly craving for the drug although the negative results of cocaine to the person’s body and mind. The physical signs of cocaine abuse can vary, depending on the person. For one, cocaine works 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 dependence often involves not only habitual cocaine use but also a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors. This can frequently interfere with normal functioning in the family, workplace and community. Cocaine addiction also can put people at higher threat for a wide variety of other illnesses. These illnesses can be brought on by the addiction type behaviors, such as poor living and health habits that often come with 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 a few hours without disturbing food-seeking behavior. Studies have shown that both GBR 12909 and cocaine inhibit the action of a protein called the dopamine transporter. By slowing down the transporter, both GBR 12909 and cocaine elevate the levels of the pleasure-inducing chemical messenger dopamine outside the nerve cells, a process that increases and prolongs dopamine’s pleasurable effects. However, GBR 12909 acts more slowly and pumps up dopamine levels less than does cocaine. By attaching to the dopamine transporter, GBR 12909 also blocks cocaine from binding there. GBR 12909′s chemical attractiveness 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 in order for the medication to have time to bring 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.
