The Dangers And Risks Of Cocaine - What You Need To Know

by Gabriel Adams

When you take cocaine, your body produces extra amounts of dopamine but is also inhibited from reabsorbing it, causing over-stimulation in the brain. This is what causes its hallucinogenic effects, such as: euphoria, extra alertness, false overconfidence, and hyper-stimulation. Although users report feeling exhilarated while on the drug, the effects will wear off quickly - and withdrawal symptoms begin almost immediately. These include, but are not limited to:

anxiety, insomnia, depression, paranoia, irritability, and in some cases, literal physical pain.

Since coming down from a cocaine high can be painful, users are often led to take more cocaine in an attempt to lessen the symptoms. This quickly leads to addiction and long-term use, which will merely result in more severe withdrawal symptoms when an individual is not high on the drug.

Cocaine gives users a false sense of confidence and security, and for this reason, it is highly dangerous to do things like operate a motor vehicle while on the drug. The stimulants in cocaine also tend to reduce a users judgment for alcohol consumption, leaving the user far more intoxicated than he thought, once the drugs effects wear off. This kind of mixing puts physical strain on ones heart and liver, potentially causing vomiting, respiratory failure, and blackouts.

Long-term users of cocaine risk a number of serious health problems that will eventually become fatal, including: an irregular heartbeat and heart failure, chronic insomnia, psychosis and severe depression, seizures and brain hemorrhaging, and respiratory failure. Regardless of whatever short-term benefits users believe they will get from using cocaine, the addictive properties and fatal results of usage are not worth the risk.

Please visit cocaine addiction recovery and crack cocaine effects.

Cocaine Use by College Students and Celebrities

by Denny Soinski

Cocaine Use Increases

An article entitled "Cocaine Epidemic Feared As Cocaine Deaths Nearly Double In Florida Over Past 5 Years" was featured on the "Medical News Today" website on October 21, 2006.

Not surprisingly, the information contained in this article was quite disconcerting. For instance, one of the key points in the article was that cocaine use is on the rise among college students with disposable income and also among high-profile celebrities. Perhaps of more importance, however, are two facts that are associated with the escalation in cocaine use: the increased cocaine-related emergency room visits and the rising cocaine-related fatalities. In fact, according to Florida drug authorities, cocaine-related deaths in Florida have almost doubled from 2000 to 2005.

Why People Use Cocaine
Why do various individuals use cocaine? Cocaine gives a person a feeling of euphoria, energy, and at times, an unbelievable, almost superhuman sense of control and mastery. For instance, some people who have taken cocaine have been known to leap out of windows or off rooftops, thinking that they could fly or that they could jump dozens of feet without getting injured. There is, however, a physiological reason why people continue to use cocaine after their first encounter. Cocaine exhausts the "feel-good" neurotransmitter dopamine, thus causing a need for even more use. In short, and from a physiological perspective, cocaine use perpetuates more cocaine use.

Fatalities and Cocaine Use
To gain a better understanding of the ultimate danger inherent in cocaine use, namely death, one needs to focus on the timeframe regarding its life-threatening effects. To accomplish this, cocaine use will be compared with prescription drug abuse.

The abuse of prescription drugs such as Oxycontin, Vicodin, and Adderall can trigger abrupt cardiac or respiratory arrest at the time of abuse. Thus the critical and fatal timeframe when abusing prescription drugs is mostly "short-term." Conversely, due to the snowballing effects of cocaine, especially regarding the blood vessel damage that increases the risk of stroke or heart attack as a person ages, users can suddenly die years after their cocaine abuse started. Therefore, the critical and fatal timeframe for cocaine use, unlike the same measure for prescription drug abuse, is typically "long term."

Why the Rise in Cocaine Use?
Why is cocaine use increasing? One of the reasons is that celebrities who are addicted to cocaine have become "walking cocaine advertisements" and, as a result, have been able to adversely influence others, such as students, who have access to relatively large amounts of disposable income.

The Need For Intervention and Education
Florida drug experts stress that additional drug education and intervention need to take place in schools, colleges, and in local communities nationwide to help prevent a full-blown cocaine epidemic. I agree, but to be effective, I assert that the intervention and educational strategy has to include facts that challenge the lifestyles of the cocaine-using celebrities. Let me explain. Students need to be aware that they are observing a "snapshot in time" that does not reveal "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey would say. Stated differently, college students who are impressed by cocaine-using high rollers need to learn how to see through the VIPs facade and realize that they are getting "sold" faulty goods by the cocaine-using rich and famous.

Many celebrities are at or approaching middle age. As a result, most, if not all, of the high-profile chronic cocaine have learned first-hand about the consequences of their drug-related lifestyles. On the other hand, most "traditional" college students are either teenagers or very young adults. Due to the cumulative effects of cocaine use, however, college students who continue to use cocaine are essentially playing Russian roulette with their near and long-term future.

The Rest of the Story
College students must be made aware of the fact that the cocaine-using celebrities that they are impressed with are really loose cannons that may explode into oblivion at any time because of their drug-related lifestyles. This "ultimate" and fatal consequence, however, does not tell the whole story. Indeed, the "rest of the story" also focuses on both the short-term and the long-term health consequences of cocaine use.

Short and Long-Term Effects of Cocaine Use
What the impressionable students have not seen are the friends of celebrities who have died from cocaine-related cardiac arrest, seizures, strokes, and respiratory failure. In addition, the vulnerable students have not been told about the "coke crash" that certainly has left some of the rich and famous depressed, irritable, and fatigued.

Not only this, but the easily influenced students have not been informed about the loss of smell, problems with swallowing, and the nosebleeds experienced by some of the rich and famous who got their cocaine "buzz" via snorting. Moreover, the "receptive" students have not been notified about the bizarre, unpredictable, and at times violent behavior of many high rollers who took increasingly larger doses of cocaine in order to experience the desired high.

Additionally, the suggestible students were not informed about the abdominal pain and nausea experienced by some of the cocaine-using celebrities. In a similar manner, the impressionable students were not told about the paranoid psychosis and auditory hallucinations experienced by various VIPs who experimented with binge cocaine use, i.e., taking more frequent AND higher doses of the drug at the same time.
Moreover, the vulnerable students were not told about the fever, convulsions, blurred vision, muscle spasms, and comas experienced by some of the cocaine-using VIPs or by some of their friends who "party" with them. Similarly, the impressionable students were not told about the major weight loss, malnourishment, and loss of appetite experienced by numerous celebrities who have been chronic cocaine users. And finally, the susceptible students were not informed about the severe chest pains, coughing, shortness of breath, and bleeding in the lungs experienced by some of the celebrities who got their cocaine "buzz" via smoking.
Conclusion
College students need to become knowledgeable of the immediate and the long-term health problems that virtually all chronic cocaine users, even celebrities, eventually experience. In addition, they need to become aware of their vulnerability to cocaine use due to the fact that, statistically speaking, the 18 to 25-year-old age group currently has the highest rate of cocaine use compared to other age groups. Until college students can "see" the contradictions and damaging effects inherent in the questionable lifestyles of cocaine-using VIPs, however, some of them will continue to follow the destructive paths of the high-profile cocaine-using celebrities.

Copyright 2007 - Denny Soinski.
All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way, and give the author credit.

Denny Soinski, Ph.D, writes about alcohol and problem drinking, alcohol addiction, AA info, alcoholic behaviors, alcoholism, alcohol recovery, alcohol treatment, and alcohol rehab. For more info, please visit addiction and health concerns right away!

Affects Of Cocaine

Affects Of cociane

Throughout the years there have been many special effects of cocaine obsession; it is important to know that this illegal substance holds one of the most essentially influential central nervous system stimulants found among the world today. The coca plant that many times grows in warmer climates such as the highlands in South America resembles white, crystalline powder. Although the coca leaves serve as a therapeutic aid in the Andes many years and years ago, it has now transformed into a chemical mad horse that is distributed on the street corners and is one of the most notoriously addicting drugs on the market today.

The drug acts as a quick pick me up for the central nervous system. Once the drug is brought into the human body the heart rate starts to beat at a fast, rapid pace. Blood vessels begin to tighten, which creates a mass amount stream of blood into the body. Due to the blood vessels tapering, the raised volume of blood is incapable to move, which raises the possibility for a host of serious medical issues to occur. At the start, the drug diminishes the addict’s appetite and at the same time raises one’s alertness, energy level, and self-confidence. This drug has proven to be very, very powerful.

The much longer cocaine is used by an addict, the more the human body becomes reliant on the drug, creating an amplified quantity of negative side effects. Delusions fear, and even the threat of keen toxic psychosis can come with the use of high doses. Heart attacks and strokes can more likely occur when the blood pressure levels rises. In such situations, the consequences can cause sudden death. Depression may start to take effect, causing the addict to feel nervous, anxious, and exhausted once the drug ultimately wears off.

Once the user has become more and more active using cocaine, the body begins the break down process. This usually means the user is now addicted and reliant on the drug these would be the signs of the effects being ignored. In some cases, it will take a support team of family members, friends, employers, and most frequently the law to get involved and support the user to seek out help for their drug addiction. Long term and extreme cocaine use will lead to neurological conditions, such as; fungal brain infections, seizures and hemorrhaging around the nearby brain tissue. If the user has asthma, they will have a terrible time trying to keep a handle on it. This is due to the lungs filling with fluid; respiratory failure could also follow and become an issue.

Phobias, paranoia, depression, anxiety disorders, in addition to hysterics of delusion the user may suffer from. The user also increases their likelihood of suffering from outrageous injury that can be caused from accidents, aggressive behavior, or criminal mischief. Additional negative possessions linked with cocaine abuse include; sleeplessness, sexual dysfunction, unplanned abortion, early labor, babies born at a much lower birth weight, vomiting, and headaches.

Cocaine Help

Cocaine help

With millions and millions of people every single year becoming addicted to Cocaine makes that many more people are at risk for serious problems. So of them being the most obvious such as the common health problems and side affects - runny nose/red and itchy nostrils, loss of apatite resulting in under-nutrition that can lead to more serious issues.

Whether you or there is some one you know someone that needs help, Pease seek it!
Cocaine is one of the most highly addictive drugs on the street market. With Cocaine being so addictive and being able to overpower someone’s life, drain their money, suck their life, and could ultimately have a chance to turn on anyone near and this would be a good enough reason in itself to seek help.

There are many programs that are available that are completely confidential and many group sessions that discuss the affects and positive things that can be done to over come this demon.
First a person must come to terms and realize they have a problem and need to be helped.
If there is an indicial who does not think they have a problem will make it all that much harder to help. It must come from within however; you should never give up on a person who is addicted. The most important thing a person can do is be there and support an addict emotionally and morally.
There is a time a person who is addicted has an inner problem with themselves and using drugs is a cry for help.
Some reasons why a person would try cocaine: weight loss, many times a person will think that cocaine will be the answer to all the weight problems however this lead to poor nutrition and can lead to more severe problems

The saying, “I will only try just once” many times then not a person who tries just one time is 8 times out of 10 more likely to use again. It is these individuals who become addicted being there system craves for that unachievable first high they will never have again. It’ like they are chasing a dream that will never come true.

The great news is there is help and you or someone who uses is not alone and can be treated.
With many different forms of help from group sessions/rehabilitation centers/family support/change in lifestyle/friends/professional help is available.

There is no one right way or best solution to overcome a drug addiction however, there are many sources you can look at and an individual must realize their problem and seek help on their own terms with the help of family/friends. It is best to use multi streams of addiction help when making strives to overcome addiction.

Cociane Addiction

Cocaine Addiction

Cocaine addiction lets go over and discuss this very powerful highly addictive drug that is more commonly known as “Coke”. Cocaine is a very additive stimulant which almost instantly affects that brain as soon as contact meets the human body. Some of these effects can be things such as a great state of “EUPHRIA” much like caffeine only much stronger effects. It can make an addict or user feel much awake and alert. Very highly energized and give a feeling of being invincible. The ultimate effect is the sense of having “POWER”. It can give the feeling that one person does not need sleep and can go on for miles.

However, once this “high” wears off the user will feel the (crash) and become sad almost to the feeling of being depressed. Many times when this happens the user will get the great urge and craving for another (HIT).
It has been stated that cocaine addiction can be one of the hardest drugs to break away from juts because of such the strong effect it has over its users and the ultimate feeling of invincibility it gives. Users and addicts will go through great lengths to get their hands on the drug and will even let it effect their workplace and personal life, and if uncontrolled can take over their life in a very negative way. One will do what ever they can to satisfy their cravings and addiction. Cocaine effects the user as well as anyone or thing around them.

Here I will go through some of the basic effects and common signs of a person who might be addicted to this powerful drug.
1. Loss in appetite
2. Change in sleep patterns and lifestyle
3. Mood changes from high to low
4. Running nose or cold like symptoms/red itchy nose
These are just a few of the most common signs of one who is using cocaine.

A few of the long term effects of cocaine can be constant irritability, sleeplessness and nervousness.
This should not go untreated and one should do every thing in their power to help an individual addicted to cocaine.

Treatments, there are treatments all over the world. If you are planning on helping some one with a problem you must first determine the severity of the addiction and match up their rehabilitation with their needs. Each and every user is different. The first step would be to realize and admit the problem. Once a person has does this they are open to such treatments as group sessions to ease off the drug however, if there is a case where a addict cannot admit their problem this would call for such more powerful measures things like a rehabilitation center secluded away fro population, friends family and other uses for a duration of time felt necessary to overcome the addiction.
Overall, it is far more important then any thing else to have the group love and moral support of friends, family and all those who care.