How is an addiction diagnosed?
Addiction is defined as using something over and over and getting harmful consequences but you keep doing it. There is a disconnect in the brain, in part, biological, and in part psychological. The person is just not looking at the consequences of their actions. This is their choice, but the brain in its biological Activity is Aiding And Abetting this dark side of our nature.
Addictions can involve many different substances or behaviors. They feel roughly 1/3 of the beds in any given hospital in the United States. So addictions are common and the consequences enormous.
Healing begins with acceptance. Accepting, I am doing something over and over. That’s harmful to myself, and the people who care about me, but I’ve been denying those consequences. Or maybe I’ve also been denying Todd‘s what I’ve been doing. So openness and honesty on the score is essential. Opening up this way to people who care about you, or even just to yourself, can begin the healing process, and, that’s a good thing!
A common addiction is too food. Most often it to process food whether it’s fast food or food that’s processed in a plastic bag or at the deli section at the grocery store. Our recent found that there were high levels of toxic substances, and processed food that Added to the risk for a person getting addicted to the food or getting depressed.
In food substances, most people are addicted to carbohydrates. This may involve candy or even natural things such as white potatoes, cane, sugar, honey. These are empty calories. These are forms of sugar that when ingested create a wave of sugar in the bloodstream, activating the brains addiction center, the nucleus accumbens.
The same area is activated by binging on other substances, such as alcohol, cocaine, Krystal, methamphetamines, narcotics, marijuana And nicotine.
The impact of binging on alcohol can include liver damage, brain damage, increased risk for dementia, loss of marriage, loss of friends, loss of economic well-being.
Stimulants, such as cocaine and methamphetamines, when overused, can cause, hypertension, heart disease, and these can lead to heart attack stroke, brain damage. Also abuse of these substances leads to erratic and impulsive behavior that can include illegal actions, rude and obnoxious behavior, and depression. There is a high rate of suicide with use of the substances. Even one use of cocaine or amphetamines can lead to cravings That can last all day long, and this can go on for years. The other chemicals in these illicit drugs can cause damage to the G.I. system and brain.
Narcotics are killers. Approximately 80,000 people die every year from narcotic overdose, most of them from illicit narcotics, Such as fentanyl. Even one use of an illicit narcotic can create cravings for it that can last for years. Most sinister, is the fact that the brain gets used to narcotics so you have to use more and more to get the same effect on the brain. At a certain point, and it can be with the first dose, the brains respiration center can simply stop working. This can happen even though a person isn’t even feeling tired or under the effect of the medicine. A person can be walking along and then stop breathing and fall over. A dose of Narcan can save that person‘s life.
Alcohol kills tens of thousands of people every year. People died from falling and hitting their head. Because the liver can be injured with chronic alcohol use, the liver may not be making enough clotting factors, leading that persons blood to be thin. Just one tiny blood vessel, the size of a human hair can break when a person falls and hits their head, and the resulting Bleed over a period of hours can be fatal. Common examples include people falling downstairs, or in winter, going outside and slipping and falling and hitting their head. Balances often impaired because of alcohol use as well as brain damage from the alcohol use.
Tens of thousands of people die from nicotine addiction every year. When people smoke cigarettes, they ingest approximately 5000 other toxic chemicals, and some people claim some of those chemicals are sprayed on the tobacco before making the cigarette. The lungs get overwhelmed with all the ash in the smoke of cigarettes. White blood cells survey, the lining of lung tissue and clean up foreign substances. But sometimes they will attack Ash and release something like peroxide in order to kill it, apparently they think it’s something infectious. But the chronic buildup of ash as well as these immune system attacks, scars, the fragile lining of the lungs, which is just three cells thick. An average person’s lungs Are about the size of a tennis court and three cells thick. When damaged the cells can get thicker. Autopsies of smokers lungs show the lungs, which should be normally white in color, have turned to gray and even have spots of black.
Some smoke nicotine through vape, pens, but vape substances also get in the lungs, and our lungs just are not adapted to deal with all these foreign chemicals. Lung diseases are now being identified among chronic vape smokers. So buyer beware.
Another sinister quality of addictions is that of being overly optimistic. In one survey of smokers, smokers felt that smoking would increase their risk of getting lung cancer. But they thought that they would have a good chance of beating it with a healthy lifestyle. Things such as jogging, eating, healthy, avoiding junk food, would change the outcome for the smoker diagnosed with cancer. The survey also asked non-smokers what they thought smokers’ chances were of surviving lung cancer. They answered, that nothing would probably help them. Even medical care would have limited benefit. So smokers were overly optimistic about their chance of surviving lung cancer, even with traditional medical care, including surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. The truth is, almost all lung cancer comes from smoking. And when a smoker gets lung cancer, 90% will be dead in 15 years from the cancer.
Smoking cigarettes increases the risk for all kinds of cancers as well. Smoking increases the risk of getting cancer of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, colon,liver among other areas. Smoking also radically increases the risk of getting emphysema and COPD. These diseases eventually leave the smoker as a pulmonary cripple, housebound, because even walking a short distance leaves them short of breath.