One of the highly addictive substances known is the white powder extracted from the coca plant popularly known as cocaine. There are different ways on how to use cocaine in order for its effects to be felt quickly. This includes snorting the powder and dissolving the powder in water then injecting it intravenously. During the 1970s, users developed a method for separating the most potent chemicals in cocaine by heating it with ether which paved its way for the appearance of freebase cocaine. This freebase cocaine is more potent. It is often smoked in a water pipe or is combined in a tobacco or marijuana cigarette. A form of free-base cocaine that is boiled down into tiny chunks, or rocks, which are usually smoked is known as crack.
The nucleus accumbens and the ventral tegmental area are the parts of the brain being activated by cocaine. These parts of the brain are known to register the feelings of pleasure and reward. The releasing of dopamine into the synapses in these areas of the brain and then binds to receptors on neighboring synapses happen when a pleasurable event happens. A pleasurable feeling is maintained when the dopamine is accumulated in the synapse when cocaine is taken in because cocaine blocks the reuptake of dopamine into the transmitting neuron .
Initially, cocaine produces a sudden rush of intense euphoria, followed by great self-esteem, alertness, energy, and a general feeling of competence, creativity, and social acceptability. The feeling of being drugged is not often felt. A feeling of becoming the person they always wanted to be happens instead. When taken at high doses or chronically, however, cocaine leads to grandiosity, impulsiveness, hypersexuality, compulsive behavior, agitation, and anxiety, reaching the point of panic and paranoia. After stopping the use of the substance, users may feel exhausted and depressed and may sleep a great deal. With the person’s physiological and its psychological dependence, users feel an intense craving for the substance.
Many cocaine abusers and dependents started with heavy alcohol or marijuana use and then graduated to harder substances, including cocaine. The unusually rapid and strong effects of cocaine on the brain’s reward centers, however, seem to formulate this substance more likely than most illicit substances to result in patterns of abuse and dependence, even among people who have never been heavy users of any other substances.
The continued rising of different crimes has been often blamed on the using of cocaine. One of the best ways to get rid of the problems brought by cocaine addicted is through letting the cocaine addict to go through a drug rehab. As cocaine addiction is on the rise, different drug rehab centers have been sprouting in order to help the cocaine problem. Victims of cocaine dependency and addiction is being helped by several established treatment and drug rehab programs. Medical treatment and cognitive-behavioral therapies are being provided to these patients. However, the elimination of the taking in of drugs is not the only problem of cocaine addiction and dependency. It goes as far as teaching the patient a life free from drugs. Opening how the addiction came about are also being tackled as part of other treatment programs all for the abolishing of cocaine addiction. This is attributed to the fact that there are cases where in physical and sexual abuse have been associated to drug dependency. When people couldn’t seem to handle such stressful events, they tend to resort to certain behaviors that may allow them to escape the mere thought of the undesirable experience, which is craving for the euphoric feeling given by drugs.
Cocaine addiction has been blamed for the rising crimes in the society that one of the effective ways to solve them is by letting a cocaine addictive person to go through a drug rehab.