Drug Use: Witnessing the Adverse Affects

When children are growing up, their grade schools and high schools attempt to deter drug use. The anti-drug committees collaborate, in many schools, to create a presentation outlining the effects of long-term drug use by showing a few intimidating videos of someone overdosing in an attempt scare the urge to try drugs right out of us. Our parents warned against drugs, compelling us to focus on school and disregard invitations for drugs use, as it would inevitably lead us to destroy our plotted futures. On some children, this works. On some children, the urge to experiment with substances has been frightened out of them and they continue their lives on a straight and narrow path. Unfortunately, with skyrocketing statistics reporting drug use in the United States, warnings just aren’t enough for hundreds of thousands of people. The truth is, for those of us who received our thrills by disobeying authority, these talks only intrigued us to explore drugs.

Drugs and Their Appeal

For some of us, when we’re told we can’t, we have to prove we can, even when we’re wrong. For some people, high school will open their eyes to drug use, for some it will be college and for others it may be a certain career path. What starts out as a few experimental nights can quickly turn into a habitual nightly routine. What really strikes you with drug abuse is how quickly you find yourself flocking to the group of friends every weekend who will have whatever drug you’re looking for. Soon enough, a few experimental nights turn into every weekend and some weeknights.

What is never really explained to most generations is why drugs inhibit schoolwork.

It isn’t that you will immediately lose your intelligence and fail out of school like you may imagine. In a night of substance indulgence you will feel euphoric, there is no doubt about that. What isn’t explained thoroughly enough to most people is the incredible and overwhelming bouts of depression that consume your mind the next day. You will hit lows you never fathomed you’d reach. This depression is inevitable. Drugs create a euphoric feeling by confusing chemical signals in your brain. Once the high ends, your brain can’t suddenly regain it’s normal process of functioning and enters repair mode, which deprives you of “happy chemicals” such as serotonin and dopamine. These moods, depending on your mind, can last a day, or they can last a week. After even a few nights of drug use your mind will begin to constantly confuse the signals you are sending it and depression will comfortably begin to snug its way into your life.

When your brain is not able to recapture the euphoric high, you begin to experience irritability. Many people become snappy, driving away friends and colleagues, displaying a visible personality change for the worse. Drugs will shorten your temper, your interest in things will wane, and you will become bored of things very quickly when you aren’t under the influence. This is the point when friends will begin to vanish. Although drug-abusers don’t often notice this, they sometimes even justify that they are the ones who chose to end the friendship. It’s difficult to keep a situation in perspective when you are not in the proper state of mind to do so. The physical affects may be repeated over and over again, but a huge aspect of drug abuse is the impact on social life, the abandoning of friendships.

It’s a slippery slope when you engage in substances, although at first you may feel in control, they have a sneaky way of turning the tables. It’s easy to look at the big picture, the giant warning signs that were handed to us for utilization at such a young age. We need to realize these ominous signs of failing school, loosing friends, and quitting work have precursors. Experimenting with substance abuse doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll immediately see your life slide away from you. Instead, it will subtly churn its way into your mindset. When you begin to question the warnings against drugs you received in childhood, question instead the vindications you provide yourself with. Yes, drug abuse will affect your future but only because it will begin to transform you and your priorities. The main factors you sacrifice with drug use are your social life, your friends and your family.