Beating Heroin Addiction

Heroin abusers don\'t experience the same crazy rage as ice addicts, and the drug does not by and large do the same amount of short-term harm to the body as any number of party drugs. Even so, heroin is still the no.1 destroyer of drug users in the Western world, and if we are going to combat it we will need to understand why.

Heroin is an addictive drug that is processed from morphine and usually appears as a snowy or brown dust. Its street names include smack, H, ska, junk, and many others.

Heroin use is still on the rise and it has become a serious issue in America and throughout the Western world. Heroin use is associated with serious health concerns, including fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion, collapsed veins, and, particularly in addicts who inject the drug, infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

The short-term effects of heroin consumption materialize soon after a solitary dose and disappear in a few hours.

After an infusion of heroin, the user reports feeling a rush of euphoria (\"rush\") accompanied by a warm reddening of the skin, a dry mouth, and heavy extremities. Following this preliminary euphoria, the user goes \"on the nod\" - an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. Mental function becomes hazy due to the depression of the central nervous system.

Long-term effects of heroin use appear after continual use for some time of time. Chronic addicts may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, ulcers, cellulitis, and liver disease. Pulmonary complications, including assorted sorts of pneumonia, may occur also from the poor health condition of the abuser, as well as from heroin\'s depressing effects on respiration.

Heroin abuse during pregnancy, along with the many connected lifestyle factors (e.g., lack of prenatal care) have been linked with numerous adverse end results for babies including low birth mass - a significant risk consideration for ensuing child-development postponement.

In addition to the effects of the drug itself, street heroin may have additives that do not easily dissolve and result in blocking the arteries that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys or brain. This can result in disease or even death of small patches of cells in essential organs.

With habitual heroin use, tolerance develops. This means the abuser must use more to reach the same intensity of effect. As higher doses are used over time, bodily dependence and addiction grow.

With physical addiction, the body has adapted to the existence of the drug and withdrawal symptoms may happen if use is cut down or stopped. Withdrawal, which in repeated users may transpire as early as a few hours after the last administration, produces drug hunger, agitation, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhoea and vomiting, cold flushes with goose bumps (\"cold turkey\"), involuntary kicking movements (\"kicking the habit\"), and other symptoms.

Major withdrawal indicators peak between 48 and 72 hours after the last dose and subside after about a week. Sudden withdrawal by severely dependent abusers who are in poor health is sometimes deadly, although heroin withdrawal is deemed less perilous than alcohol or barbiturate withdrawal.

In many Western societies Methadone is administered to heroin abusers as a alternative to sudden withdrawal. In theory, the methadone is used as an interim aid to help the user get over his or her reliance on heroin The main difficulty with this though is that methadone is even more addictive than the drug it is supposed to be replacing!

This is the irony. Heroin was first created to help individuals who had become hooked on morphine, but it turned out to be more addictive than morphine. Methadone is likewise more addictive than heroin, and it is the addictive quality of the drug that accounts for the terrible number of fatalities.

In the short-term, Methadone is a less dangerous drug than many of its alternatives, but the longer the drug is used and the more intensely the user becomes addicted, the lower the user\'s chances of recovery become.

To learn more about Heroin Addiction visit us at http://www.addictiontodrugs.org/heroin_addiction.php