According to NCDAS, the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, 700,000 cases of drug abuse deaths have been recorded since 2000. Especially under the huge impact of COVID-19 this year, drug abuse has also become a serious issue across the nation. Do you know how close addiction is to everyone? Check out this blog for more information about addiction.
What is “addiction”?
Drug addiction is a term that we may only be familiar with on various media channels like movies, TV series, and documentaries. These media channels and platforms often show addiction as something very dangerous and irresistible. Under this circumstance, we may feel far away, both geographically and emotionally, from such an issue and think addiction cannot happen to us, our families, friends, and significant others.
In fact, addiction is more common than you think. It can lurk around and affect us at any time. Therefore, it is extremely vital for us to take deeper insights into addiction and figure out what some pertinent concepts truly are beforehand.
(Information below is adapted from National Institute of Drug Abuse)
How should we define “Addiction”?
According to NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, addiction is “a chronic disease characterized by drug seeking and use that is compulsive, or difficult to control, despite harmful consequences.”
How should we perceive drug addiction as a “relapsing disease”?
The initial decision to take drugs is voluntary for most people, but repeated drug use can lead to brain changes that challenge an addicted person’s self-control and interfere with their ability to resist intense urges to take drugs.
These brain changes can be persistent, which is why drug addiction is considered a "relapsing" disease – people in recovery from drug use disorders are at increased risk for returning to drug use even after years of not taking the drug.
It's common for a person to relapse, but relapse doesn't mean that treatment doesn’t work. As with other chronic health conditions, treatment should be ongoing and should be adjusted based on how the patient responds. Treatment plans need to be reviewed often and modified to fit the patient’s changing needs.
How would a person’s brain be affected by drug addiction?
Most drugs affect the brain's "reward circuit," causing euphoria as well as flooding it with the chemical messenger dopamine. A properly functioning reward system motivates a person to repeat behaviors needed to thrive, such as eating and spending time with loved ones. Surges of dopamine in the reward circuit cause the reinforcement of pleasurable but unhealthy behaviors like taking drugs, leading people to repeat the behavior again and again.
As a person continues to use drugs, the brain adapts by reducing the ability of cells in the reward circuit to respond to it. This reduces the high that the person feels compared to the high they felt when first taking the drug—an effect known as tolerance. They might take more of the drug to try and achieve the same high. These brain adaptations often lead to the person becoming less and less able to derive pleasure from other things they once enjoyed, like food, sex, or social activities.
How would different systems in a person’s body be affected?
Long-term use also causes changes in other brain chemical systems and circuits as well, affecting functions that include:
learning
judgment
decision-making
stress
memory
behavior
Despite being aware of these harmful outcomes, many people who use drugs continue to take them, which is the nature of addiction.
TL;DR: Drug addiction is a chronic disease that causes relapse and requires a person to receive long-term treatments. In addition, the influence of drug addiction is deadly and long-lasting in different systems in a person’s body. For many treated by Phoenix Recovery Solutions, opiates are sometimes unintentional at first but can become an addiction because of overprescription. Addiction is an often overseen issue that we may feel irrelevant to until it is very close to our loved ones and us.
What does COVID-19 have to do with substance use disorder and drug addiction?
COVID-19, or the coronavirus, is influencing the world tremendously every day in different ways, and positive cases have been increasing. One of the most striking changes in our lives is the toll the virus has on our mental health. Fear, depression, anxiety and so many other health problems can sometimes give increase when under stress. According to the CDC, examples include concern about our own health and the health of our loved ones, our financial situation or job, loss of support services we rely on, changes in sleep or eating patterns, and difficulty sleeping or concentrating.
Because of COVID-19’s significant influence on mental stress, there has also been an increase in tobacco use, and/or alcohol and other substances that are main causes of substance abuse, addiction, and potentially drug overdose. Therefore, it is extremely crucial for us to pay attention to people, especially those around us, who may suffer from substance use disorder and addiction.
(Information below is adapted from National Institute of Drug Abuse)
What is substance use disorder?
According to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), substance use disorder refers to recurrent use of alcohol or other drugs that causes clinically and functionally significant impairment, such as health problems, disability, and failure to meet major responsibilities at work, school, or home.
According to DSM-5, the term addiction is synonymous with the classification of severe substance use disorder.
Why do we pay attention to COVID-19’s influence on people with substance use disorders and drug addiction?
Because it attacks the lungs, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could be an especially serious threat to those who smoke tobacco or marijuana or who vape.
People with opioid use disorder (OUD) and methamphetamine use disorder may also be vulnerable due to those drugs’ effects on respiratory and pulmonary health.
Additionally, individuals with a substance use disorder are more likely to experience homelessness or incarceration than those in the general population, and these circumstances pose unique challenges regarding transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Why are people who suffer from substance use disorders and drug addiction more vulnerable to COVID-19?
Thus far, deaths and serious illness from COVID-19 seem concentrated among those who are older and who have underlying health issues, such as diabetes, cancer, and respiratory conditions. It is therefore reasonable to be concerned that compromised lung function or lung disease related to smoking history, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), could put people at risk for serious complications of COVID-19.
For example, a history of methamphetamine use may also put people at risk. Methamphetamine constricts the blood vessels, which is one of the properties that contributes to pulmonary damage and pulmonary hypertension in people who use it. Clinicians should be prepared to monitor the possible adverse effects of methamphetamine use, the prevalence of which is increasing in our country, when treating those with COVID-19.
TL;DR: As COVID-19 continues to impact our community more negatively, people who had different types of substance use disorders in the past should pay more attention to their own health because they may start using drugs again due to mental stress. It is imperative for us to avoid downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19, particularly for those who had lung diseases in the past or are battling substance use disorder now. Therefore, look out for one another and wear a mask!
How close are addiction and drug abuse to us in Indiana?
Although addiction may seem like an exaggerating issue due to stigmas around it, we should not underrate the impact of it on people who are particularly vulnerable to it. According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, In 2018, 31.9 million, or 11.7% of the population over age 12 in the US were current illegal drug users.
Apart from learning about the overall situation at a national level, we may want to get a deeper insight into addiction in the state we are living in, Indiana, and also addiction’s impact on children, who are particularly vulnerable to drug abuse. Check out the following information to know how close addiction and drug abuse are to us.
How severe drug addiction is in Indiana?
(Information below is adapted from National Institute of Drug Abuse)
In Indiana, 1,104 drug overdose deaths involved opioids in 2018 - a rate of 17.5.
Prescription opioid-involved deaths decreased from 425 in 2017 to 370 in 2018 (from a rate of 6.6 to 5.6, respectively).
Deaths involving synthetic opioids (other than methadone) or heroin remained stable with 713 (a rate of 11.5) and 311 (a rate of 5.0) respective deaths.
In 2018, Indiana providers wrote 65.8 opioid prescriptions for every 100 persons compared to the average U.S. rate of 51.4 prescriptions.
(Information below is adapted from Indiana University)
Drug overdoses in Indiana have nearly doubled since 2010, growing from 923 to 1,809 in 2017.
Approximately 4,000 Hoosiers (residents of Indiana) have died from opioids in the last decade.
Indiana’s drug-induced mortality rate quadrupled between 2000 and 2014.
More Hoosiers now die from drug overdoses than car crashes.
Between 2012 and 2016, deaths related to synthetic opioids in Indiana increased over 600 percent.
How can addiction affect children?
The addiction crisis is not only killing Hoosiers and costing the state billions, but also damaging future generations of Hoosiers. Almost one in 10 young people 18-25 years old reported nonmedical use of prescription pain medication in the past year. One in 20 adolescents, ages 12-17 years, reported misuse of prescription pain medication in the past year as well.
Indiana also has one of the nation’s largest increases in children being removed from their homes due to family drug use. In 2016, more than 50 percent of cases of children removed from their homes by the Indiana Department of Child Services were due to drug or alcohol use by a parent—a rate that rose more than 50 percent since 2013. Children with an addicted family member are four times more likely to misuse drugs or alcohol.
Hoosier children are becoming more at risk for developing addictions at a younger age. Researchers recently reported that the rates for neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), which occurs in newborns exposed to opioids while in the womb, and maternal opioid use have increased nearly five-fold in the United States between 2000 and 2012, with disproportionately larger increases in rural areas. More and more babies are being born with illnesses that will impact them far into the future.
TL;DR: Drug overdoses have been a severe issue not only at a national level but also at a local level. The mortality rate tells us it is time to prevent our loved ones and ourselves from drug overdose and addiction. Most importantly, our future generations have become a potential target of drug addiction. With so many cases of children being removed from their homes due to family drug use, we need to understand the seriousness of drug overdose and protect our new generations from the harm of it.
[Jun Gao] (Class of ‘21 at Purdue University). Please reach out with any questions.