Taking the good with the bad is a life lesson that everyone learns at some point. But young people involved in the rave culture are finding that drugs bringing on extremely intense feelings of pleasure have an equally displeasing depressing effect.

The drug, Molly, has a name that sounds innocent enough, but unsuspecting users are devastated by the crash they experience when coming off the high. In some cases, the depressing feelings lead to a near paralyzing state where the user can’t find the mental strength to eat or communicate.

The intense emotional ride and the relatively cheap cost of that ride are helping push the popularity of Molly further every day. The drug is actually the powder or crystal form of MDMA (AKA Ecstasy). The popular drug Ecstasy is actually derived from a variety of drugs, not just MDMA.  Molly is a purer form of Ecstasy and actually gets its name from “molecule,” which is representative of its place as the vital ingredient to MDMA.

The DEA has classified Molly as a Schedule I controlled substance due to its addictive nature and because it has not been embraced by the medical community as having any usable characteristics in health care.

Users who take too much of the drug will have a difficult time with temperature regulation and can actually experience hyperthermia, which can lead to liver, cardiovascular and kidney failure.

The current statistics from emergency rooms across the nation don’t indicate that the use of this drug is widespread yet. But the massive growth in its popularity in such a short time has experts concerned – there was an approximate 125 percent growth in the use of the drug between 2004 and 2009.

Continue reading: Understanding the Effects of Substituted Amphetamines

Huffing. Sniffing. Bagging. No matter what it’s called, inhalant abuse is an ongoing problem in the adolescent population. Unfortunately, increasing evidence shows that adults are latching onto this dangerous form of substance abuse as well. If you suspect an adult you love is abusing inhalants, it’s critical to learn more about this dangerous habit and get him or her into drug rehab treatment.

Adults now make up more than half of the patients being admitted to treatment for inhalant abuse, according to a survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It’s not just young adults either. The survey revealed that 32% of the admitted adults were between the ages of 32 and 44 while 16% were older than 45. Overall, an estimated 1.1 million adults abused inhalants in the last year .

Inhalants are attractive to drug users for several reasons. Because the chemicals are found in household products, they’re easy to find. There’s no need to visit a shady part of town to buy them. Inhalants are also inexpensive, making them an accessible substance for people of any economic status.

Inhalants are Toxic Chemicals

While all abused substances carry potential risks, inhalants are particularly dangerous. Inhalants are breathable chemicals found in many everyday products, from furniture polish to computer cleaner sprays. Other commonly available inhalants include whipped cream aerosol cans, vegetable oil sprays, varnish removers, paint thinners, correction fluids, and felt tip markers. When used as intended, we don’t feel the effects of the chemicals inside the products.

However, when the products are abused, they create a high. Inhalants are usually taken directly into the lungs by breathing in the chemical through the nose or mouth directly from the container or from a bag filled with the chemical. Some users will inhale directly from a cloth soaked in the chemical. The high produces hallucinations and feelings of euphoria. Addicts may also use nitrite-based products, like leather cleaners or room deodorizers, because they believe the chemicals enhance sexual pleasure.

In addition to triggering the high, inhalants also deliver toxic chemicals to the body. The inhalant works by displacing the air inside the lungs, a process called hypoxia. Deeply breathing the vapors delivers chemicals in doses hundreds of times greater than the maximum allowed in industrial settings.

Risks of Inhalant Use

The risks include loss of coordination and inhibition as well as dangerous hallucinations and delusions. Life-threatening risks include suffocation due to the displacement of oxygen in the lungs, to heart failure from the loss of proper heart rhythm. Inhalants have also been linked to liver and kidney damage.

Brain cells are especially vulnerable to the abuse, which is why inhalants have such a profound impact on functions like memory, learning new things, and even carrying on a conversation. Inhalant use may cause permanent brain damage and death—these can happen any time a person huffs, even the first time. Users face the risk of an overdose every time they abuse the substance, making drug rehab that much more critical.

Signs of Inhalant Abuse in Adults

• Chemical odors on breath or clothing
• Hidden containers of inhalant products
• Slurred speech
• Fatigue
• Weight loss
• Hostility
• Paranoia
• Poor concentration
• Confusion
• Poor hygiene

Inhalant Abuse Treatment

This is a serious problem that requires immediate and professional treatment. Because of the risk of devastating and life-threatening consequences, there is no time to wait to see if the person will stop on his or her own. Consider using a professional interventionist to get the addict into treatment as soon as possible.

Not every drug rehab treatment center has the resources to treat inhalant abuse, so it may take several tries to find a qualified facility. To be effective, treatment must be within an inpatient setting. Detoxification is necessary, and, because the chemicals are so pervasive, that process will take several weeks. Withdrawal symptoms are common and may include hallucinations, nervousness, muscle pain, psychosis, insomnia, seizures and aggression. A medical staff will monitor the addict and provide medications to relieve symptoms and address complications.

Long-term success requires a detailed treatment strategy that addresses the addict’s entire well-being: physical, emotional and intellectual. After detox, addiction specialists will assess the addict for cognitive and physical damage caused by the inhalant. This testing provides a foundation for building a rehab plan that address all of his or her needs.

One of the challenges in treating this type of substance abuse is its effect on cognition, or thinking ability. For example, the inability to concentrate may require shorter individual treatment sessions, sometimes as brief as 15 or 20 minutes, especially at the onset of drug rehab treatment. Sessions may also be informal to accommodate an addict’s reduced ability to think and reason.

Intensive aftercare will be crucial for long-term recovery. An addict may require a sober living facility where he or she can start to live a normal life without the stresses and pressures that spur relapse. Recovery may also require career counseling and life skills training. Addicts with lasting physical side effects may need therapy to improve hand-eye coordination and other skills.

It’s likely that living accommodations will need to be made after inpatient or sober living concludes. For instance, it might be necessary to eliminate inhalable substances from work or living areas. If the recovering addict lives with others, like family or roommates, they’ll need to be aware of the problem so they can avoid inadvertently tempting the addict by, for example, keeping computer cleaning sprays in the home.

Many inhalants are highly addictive, so it’s unlikely that abusers can “will” themselves into a sober life. Recovery from inhalant abuse will not be easy. It will require medically monitored detox, inpatient treatment and long-term aftercare. The alternative, however, is devastating. Left untreated, inhalant abuse can cause serious, lasting health consequences.  In some cases, it leads to permanent brain damage or death.

If someone you love is abusing inhalants, talk to them about getting treatment now–before it’s too late. A drug rehab center experienced in treating this type of substance abuse will have the resources needed to help your loved one overcome this potentially devastating addiction.

Enlarged heart is a term that doctors use to describe a heart muscle that grows beyond its expected size, either on the whole or in part. Some forms of heart enlargement, such as those frequently found in habitual exercisers, can support improved cardiac health. However, other forms of heart enlargement make the heart increasingly dysfunctional and set the stage for life-threatening problems such as a heart attack and cardiac arrest. Cocaine use can lead to a form of heart enlargement that seriously increases risks for cardiac arrest and sudden, unpredictable death.

Background

The muscle content of the heart, called the myocardium or myocardial tissue, gives the organ the power it needs to contract and pump blood. The primary pumping chamber—known as the left ventricle—forms the lower left segment of the heart, while the secondary pumping chamber, known as the right ventricle, forms the lower right segment of the organ. The left ventricle moves oxygen-rich blood to the body’s arteries; the right ventricle moves oxygen-depleted blood to the lungs, where new supplies of oxygen enter the bloodstream. The upper left chamber of the heart—known as the left atrium—carries oxygen-rich blood to the heart from the lungs, while the upper right chamber, known as the right atrium, carries oxygen-depleted blood to the heart from the rest of the body.

Enlarged Heart Basics

The medical term for heart enlargement is cardiac hypertrophy. This phenomenon occurs when the muscular walls of the heart (i.e., the myocardium) grow unusually thick. When unusual thickness appears in either of the ventricles, the affected individual has a condition called ventricular hypertrophy; when unusual thickness appears in either of the atria (plural of atrium), the affected individual has a condition called atrial hypertrophy. As noted previously, some forms of hypertrophy can make the heart work better. For instance, athletes and regular exercisers can develop a form of ventricular hypertrophy that makes it easier for the heart to pump blood to the lungs or other parts of the body. However, as also noted previously, some forms of hypertrophy reduce the heart’s effectiveness. This typically occurs when enlargement scars and stiffens the walls of the ventricles, and thereby decreases their ability to contract and pump blood.

Damaging forms of heart enlargement are known collectively as pathological cardiac hypertrophy. Apart from cocaine use, potential underlying causes of damaging enlargement include chronic high blood pressure, a heart attack, disease in any of the valves that sit between the heart’s chambers, and heart failure. Typically, unhealthy heart enlargement develops gradually over time; however, in certain circumstances, it can also develop relatively rapidly. In many cases, dangerous cardiac hypertrophy produces no symptoms until its effects are relatively advanced. For this reason, people with the condition can die suddenly from a heart attack or from an abrupt stoppage of heart.

The Role of Cocaine

Cocaine use causes heart enlargement through a unique series of health changes, according to the results of a study published in 2006 in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology. First, the presence of the drug in the bloodstream activates a specialized type of protein (enzyme) called CaMK; in turn, activation of this enzyme encourages an abnormal buildup of the mineral calcium in the heart’s tissues. When calcium builds up in the heart, it promotes the accumulation of other proteins that normally only appear in the hearts of developing fetuses. When they first appear, these immature proteins increase the size of individual cells inside the myocardium. Eventually, enlargement spreads to larger areas of tissue and triggers the onset of cardiac hypertrophy. Typically, this process occurs in the heart’s primary pumping chamber, the left ventricle.

People who habitually use cocaine can develop degrees of hypertrophy that enlarge their left ventricles by up to 70 percent, the authors of a study published in 2003 in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics report. The amount of enlargement associated with long-term cocaine use can weaken the left ventricle to the point where this chamber can no longer meet the strict timing requirements necessary to coordinate heart activity and efficiently pump blood. In turn, lack of proper heart beat timing can lead to serious forms of a condition called a heartbeat irregularity, or arrhythmia.

The degree of arrhythmia associated with long-term cocaine use can lead to unsustainable changes in heart rhythm and the unpredictable, frequently fatal appearance of cardiac arrest. Unlike people with chronic heart disease, cocaine users can easily develop enlargement-related cardiac arrest without developing symptoms—such as high blood pressure or an increase in resting heart rate—that cue doctors to the possible presence of dangerous changes in normal heart function. According to the authors of the study published in 2006 in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology, as many as half of all habitual cocaine users with normal blood pressure may have some degree of heart enlargement.

Encephalopathy is a term that doctors and researchers use to describe various types of brain damage, malfunction, or disease that trigger some form of mental impairment. Some people develop relatively mild forms of encephalopathy, such as slight deficits in memory or thought processing, while others develop severe or catastrophic problems that can lead to such outcomes as dementia or death. A number of different legal and illegal drugs can trigger the onset of mild or severe brain impairments when abused. In some cases, the effects of drug abuse-related encephalopathy can be at least partially reversed; in other cases they produce permanent brain deficits.

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Alcoholism is the classic term for patterns of alcohol abuse that result from a chemical dependence on alcohol’s presence in the body. Along with other abusive patterns of alcohol use, it belongs to a group of conditions known as alcohol use disorders (AUDs). Both men and women can develop a number of serious short- and long-term health complications as a consequence of alcoholism. However, while men become alcoholics more frequently than women, women alcoholics have higher risks than men for developing certain alcoholism-related health problems. In addition, female alcoholics die prematurely much more frequently than male alcoholics.

The Basics

For any given level of intake, women have a greater sensitivity to alcohol’s effects than men. Three physical factors help explain this phenomenon. First, relative to overall size and weight, women’s bodies contain less water than men’s bodies. This is relevant because water dilutes alcohol; therefore, in an environment that contains relatively little water, alcohol remain relatively undiluted and produces intensified effects. Second, compared to men’s bodies, women’s bodies apparently have less active forms of an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase, which plays a key role in breaking alcohol down and rendering it harmless; in real-world terms, reduced alcohol dehydrogenase activity translates into higher levels of alcohol lingering in the bloodstream. In addition, some women may be more susceptible to alcohol’s effects during certain phases of their menstrual cycles.

Because of their relative susceptibility to alcohol’s effects, women have a lower recommended maximum daily/weekly alcohol intake than men, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism explains. On any given day, the average woman can safely drink as much as a single drink of beer, wine, or hard liquor (the specific size of a standard drink varies according to the type of alcohol under consideration). In any given week, the average woman can safely consume as many as seven total drinks. By comparison, the average man under the age of 65 can safely consume two drinks a day and 14 drinks per week. For a variety of reasons not directly related to alcoholism, men over the age of 65 need to follow the same alcohol consumption guidelines as women.

The Consequences of Alcoholism

As indicated previously, women abuse alcohol and/or develop alcoholism less frequently than men. In fact, women account for only roughly one-third of all of the alcoholics in the United States. However, female alcoholics sometimes experience more severely negative health outcomes than male alcoholics. For instance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alcoholic women have higher chances of developing cirrhosis (scarring of the liver) and other alcohol-related liver disorders than their male counterparts. Compared to alcoholic men, alcoholic women also have higher risks for the onset of damage in the tissues that form the heart muscle; these heightened risks extend to women who abuse alcohol but don’t have all of the hallmarks of alcoholism. In addition, current research suggests that women alcoholics have relatively high chances of developing alcohol-related memory problems and physical shrinkage of their overall brain size. Women also apparently develop these problems more quickly than men.

In comparison to other women, women alcoholics have relatively high chances of developing certain forms of cancer, including cancers of the breast, colon, throat, liver, mouth, and esophagus. In the case of breast cancer, alcoholic women’s risks go up as their rate of alcohol consumption increases. Apart from disease-related risks, alcoholic women have increased risks for exposure to rape and other forms of sexual assault. These assault-related risks extend to women who participate in a form of alcohol abuse called binge drinking, which involves consuming enough alcohol within a two-hour timeframe to become legally intoxicated; most women reach a legally intoxicated state (marked by a blood alcohol content equal to or in excess of 0.08 percent) when they consume four or more drinks within this span of time.

Fatal Consequences

When considered together, men and women alcoholics between the ages of 18 and 64 die an average of 20 years sooner than people without alcohol dependencies, according to the result of a 14-year study published in published in 2012 in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. However, when the two genders are considered separately, women alcoholics in this age range die twice as often as alcoholic men. Compared to the general population, alcoholic women between the ages of 18 and 64 die more than four times as frequently. The authors of the study note that their results may somewhat overestimate women alcoholics’ risks for fatal outcomes, but believe any overestimation (if it exists) is in terms of specific percentages rather than the basic results of their research.

Anabolic steroids are a group of synthetic substances that closely mimic the chemical structure of testosterone, the hormone produced in the bodies of both males and females after puberty. In legitimate medical settings, doctors use these substances to correct the effects of unusually low natural testosterone production, as well as the effects of aplastic anemia and other related ailments that reduce the oxygen content in blood. Professional and recreational athletes also sometimes abuse anabolic steroids in an attempt to improve their athletic performances or hasten their recovery from various injuries or routine exertion. Anabolic steroid abuse is both illegal and potentially addictive. In addition, steroid abusers can develop a number of serious side effects, or even die as a result of their steroid use.

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The recent decriminalization of marijuana in Washington state and Colorado has drawn attention to the power of the young voter. Young voters are deeply concerned with personal freedoms. It may be important, however, to spend some time educating younger voters about the inherent dangers of some freedoms – recreational drug use being one of them. Contrary to what many young people may imagine, using some drugs even just occasionally for recreational purposes can pose an immediate threat to the health and life of a person.

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The conversations surrounding safety on the road tend to focus on alcohol consumption and texting. Considerable resources have been poured into educational efforts to keep individuals safe, yet risks associated with less popular substances still exist.

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