Cocaine Addiction can be beaten

Cocaine has been the drug of preference for the well-to-do and the artistic elite. It is a highly poisonous chemical that can bring about cardiac attack and loss of life, even when taken in little dosages. It also regularly results in users to undergo psychotic episodes.

Cocaine is a strongly addictive drug that is 'snorted' (ie. sniffed), injected, or smoked. Crack is cocaine that has been processed from cocaine hydrochloride to a free base for smoking. Its street names include coke, snow, flake, blow, and many variations.

Cocaine is a stimulant. The powdered, hydrochloride salt form of cocaine can be sniffed through the nose or dissolved in water and injected. Crack is cocaine that has not been neutralized by an acid to make the hydrochloride salt. This form of cocaine comes in a rock crystal that can be heated and its steam smoked. The term "crack" refers to the cracking sound that is heard when it is heated.

Regardless of how cocaine is used or how often, a user can experience grave heart or cerebrovascular crises, such as a heart spasm or stroke, which could result in sudden death.

Cocaine-related deaths are often a result of cardiac arrest or attack followed by respiratory arrest. Cocaine is a solid central nervous system stimulant that interferes with the re-absorption process of dopamine - a biochemical messenger linked with gratification and movement. The accumulation of dopamine causes unremitting stimulation of reception neurons, which is associated with the euphoria commonly reported by cocaine abusers.

Physical consequences of cocaine use include constricted blood vessels, widened pupils, and increased temperature, heart rate, and blood hypertension.

The period of cocaine's immediate euphoric effects, which include hyper-stimulation, lessened fatigue, and psychological alertness, depends on the method of administration. The quicker the assimilation of the drug, the more intense the high. On-the-other hand, the faster the assimilation, the shorter the length of the desired action. The high from snorting could last 15 to 30 minutes, while that from smoking may last 5 to 10 minutes. Increased use can reduce the period of time a user feels high and increases the risk of dependence.

Some users of cocaine report feelings of restiveness, touchiness, and anxiety. A tolerance to the 'high' may also grow, and many addicts report that they seek but fail to realize as much pleasure as they did from their first contact. Some users will increase their doses to intensify and lengthen the euphoric consequences.

While tolerance to the high can occur, users can also become more sensitive to cocaine's numbing and convulsive effects without increasing the dose taken. This increased sensitivity may explain some fatalities occurring after apparently low doses of cocaine.

Use of cocaine in a binge, during which the drug is taken recurrently and at increasingly high dosages, may lead to a state of increasing bad temper, edginess, and mistrust. This can result in a period of full-blown paranoid psychosis, in which the user loses touch with reality and experiences aural hallucinations.

Other complications allied with cocaine use include disturbances in cardiac beat and heart attacks, chest pain and respiratory failure, strokes, convulsions and headaches, and digestive complications such as abdominal pain and queasiness. Because cocaine has a tendency to reduce appetite, many long-term users also become underweight.

Different ways of taking cocaine can also produce their own dissimilar adverse effects. Regularly snorting cocaine, for example, can lead to loss of the sense of smell, to nosebleeds, issues with swallowing, huskiness, and a persistently runny nose. Ingesting cocaine can cause bowel gangrene due to reduced blood flow. People who inject cocaine can undergo severe allergic reactions and, as with all injecting drug users, are at increased risk for contracting HIV and the various other blood-borne maladies.

When people mix cocaine and alcohol, they are compounding the danger each drug poses and are unknowingly creating a complex chemical experiment within their bodies.

NIDA-funded researchers have discovered that the human liver combines cocaine and alcohol and manufactures a third material - cocaethylene - that heightens cocaine's euphoric consequences, while potentially increasing the risk of sudden death.

For more information on cocaine addiction visit us at http://www.addictiontodrugs.org