How Drug Abuse Puts Your Entire Body at Risk

If you suffer from substance abuse such as alcohol or drugs, you may think it impacts only your personal life. If that's what you think, you're wrong! It will adversely affect so many aspects of your body, for example, your brain, organs, and nerves. This blog post emphasizes how drug abuse impacts your whole body, health, and well-being.

The impact of substance abuse is so adverse that many governments have illegalized specific drugs. That's why the Albany police recently arrested 18 to investigate the drugs and guns. Similarly, many employers also perform pre-employment drug screening to prevent the consequences.

If you are someone from Albany who has consumed drugs previously and wants to check yourself before the police do or want to do a pre-check before going for an interview, you can have a blood test in Albany, NY, to check for drug presence in your blood.

Addiction Can Be Hard to Control on Your Own

You need help from others and the support of a program that is tailored to your specific needs. The treatment program should offer you tools for coping with cravings and strategies for dealing with stressors in your life that may trigger substance use. You should also have access to medical care if you need it, including medications that prevent withdrawal symptoms, block the effects of drugs or alcohol, stabilize mood swings or reduce anxiety. These medications can help protect against relapse when combined with therapy and other therapies during recovery (such as yoga).

In addition to medication-assisted treatment (MAT), there are many other types of rehab programs available, including intensive outpatient programs (IOP), which require patients to attend daily sessions at a hospital; non-residential programs where people go home after their treatment but still check in with counselors regularly; residential facilities where individuals live 24 hours a day under supervision by staff members; sober living homes where former addicts live together without being monitored by counselors; halfway houses between rehabilitation centers and independent living quarters owned by individuals who chose not attend rehab but do want some guidance following recovery from addiction.

Cutting Back or Stopping Drug Use on Your Own Is Dangerous

Cutting back or stopping drug use on your own is difficult. Addiction is a complex condition, and you can't control your drug use independently. You need to talk to a professional who can help you understand why you use drugs and find strategies for coping with these cravings.

A therapist will also make sure that any other issues in your life are dealt with so they don't add fuel to the fire—like problems at work or school, relationships with family members or friends, personal trauma like abuse in the past, etc.—and lead back down that destructive path again.

Drug Abuse Affects Your Brain

• Drug abuse can cause brain damage. The brain is an organ that needs to be in good condition to function correctly, and drugs can negatively impact the brain's health over time.
• Drug abuse can lead to memory loss. Long-term drug abuse—especially heavy alcohol use—can result in several mental disorders, including Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome and Alzheimer's disease.
• Drug abuse causes mood swings, depression, anxiety, and more! Mood swings are common among those who suffer from addiction because their brains become dependent on the drug's effects on their neurotransmitters (chemical messengers). In addition to these mental issues, drug use has been shown to cause acne breakouts too!

Your Body’s Immune System Is Affected by Drug Abuse

The immune system is the body's defense against foreign invaders. This includes bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. Drug abuse affects the immune system in many ways:

• It damages the thymus gland and spleen, part of your lymphatic system. These organs help fight diseases by producing antibodies and T cells to protect you from infections.
• Drug abuse can suppress your body's ability to fight off infections for up to six months after you stop using the substance.
• People who use drugs tend to have a weakened immune system that makes them more susceptible to serious health problems like pneumonia or tuberculosis.

If you're concerned about how drug use affects your health, talk with someone who can help you get treatment before it's too late!

You May Have a Low White Blood Cell Count

The immune system is the body's defense against illness. When it's weakened, you're at greater risk of catching colds, flu, and other diseases that can lead to severe complications like pneumonia or death.

If you have a low white blood cell count when you're abusing drugs, your body has fewer cells that fight off bacteria and viruses. On top of being less able to fight off infections, your body may not be able to repair damage as well, either. For example, if your skin gets cut while using drugs (even accidentally), it could take longer for the wound to heal than it would in someone who isn't abusing drugs.

Your Liver Will Suffer From Drug Abuse

Your liver is a blood-filtering organ, essential to your body's metabolism. It also helps regulate blood pressure, produces bile and other fluids, cleanses your blood of harmful substances, and keeps your immune system strong.

You can damage your liver by using a variety of drugs over time—from marijuana to heroin to alcohol—and the effects are profound:

• Cirrhosis: It is scarring of the liver caused by repeated injury from alcohol or other substances, causing it to lose its ability to function correctly. It can lead to death if left untreated (or even if treated).
• Hepatitis C: This viral infection can cause inflammation in the liver, leading to cirrhosis or cancerous tumors. The virus can be transmitted through shared needles during drug use or sexual intercourse; if you have HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, both conditions will progress faster than usual due to their combined effects on the immune system.
• Liver failure: This happens when one half of each cell becomes damaged beyond repair and dies off; this process causes pain in the abdomen area around where our kidneys are located (on either side of our spine), nausea/vomiting symptoms with dark urine coloration--but there's no way yet known how long we might live after being diagnosed with this illness since there's no cure yet except having surgery done right away before too many cells die off completely!

Drug Abuse May Lead to a Stroke or Heart Attack

Drug abuse can affect your heart. If you take drugs regularly, they build up in your system and stay there for a long time, causing damage on their way through. Drugs can cause an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia), which can be fatal if not treated quickly. They also increase blood pressure and make it more difficult for the heart to pump blood around the body properly, leading to further problems with your circulatory system and organs like the kidneys and liver.

In some cases, drug use causes left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), which is when the walls of the left ventricle thicken with muscle cells instead of growing more robust over time as they should during adulthood. The condition makes it harder for oxygenated blood to be pumped around by the left ventricle into other areas of our bodies.

Drug Abuse Increases Your Risk of a Fatal Accident

Driving under the influence of drugs is incredibly dangerous. In fact, it's the most common cause of fatal accidents in the United States—more than alcohol-related accidents. When you're under the influence of drugs, your reaction time and judgment are impaired, making you more likely to get into an accident. This is especially true if you're driving a car or other vehicle that can hurt or kill others in an accident.

Conclusion

Addiction is dangerous, and it's not uncommon to hear about someone else overdosing on a drug or medication. Unfortunately, there's a lot of misunderstanding surrounding addiction, and so many people think that an overdose can't happen to them. But addiction can happen to anyone; you just have to be careless. Avoid the dangers of drug abuse by understanding how drugs impact your body to make safer decisions.