Understanding addiction and substance abuse
Contrary to popular beliefs, addiction is not a bad habit but a mental health disorder which requires help.
What is substance use disorder?
According to Mayo Clinic, drug addiction, also called substance use disorder, is a disease that affects a person’s brain and behavior and leads to an inability to control the use of a legal or illegal drug or medication.
Substance abuse and addiction is looked at with a lot of shame and judgement.
Very often, people look at addicts with the perspective that they have a choice. In reality it is a chronic compulsive disorder which causes changes in brain anatomy and our behaviour.
It also affects one’s interpersonal relationships, career and physical health. Consequently even the person’s family can often see effects on their mental health, when dealing with their loved ones who are addicts.
An addict is a patient, who needs professional help to recover.
Very often, especially in India, addicts are looked at with shame, disgust or judgement and made to suffer or ostracized due the shame they might bring to one’s family, making it difficult for them to seek help. The most serious, unattended cases often lead to death by suicide.
Most individuals, without help, find it difficult to control their actions and impulses because excessive substance use leaves long term effects on one’s brain neuro-biology and psychology.
So, how does it affect the brain?
Most often, the substances provide pleasures like momentary euphoria, increased socialilbility, increased sex drive and even increased confidence in some people.
This state of euphoria and reward is often what the mind craves irrespective of the detrimental consequences.
But over use of these substances has effects at a neurobiological level, bringing changes in the function of multiple brain circuits that control pleasure and reward, stress, decision-making, impulse control, learning and memory, and other functions.
These changes make it harder for those with an addiction to experience pleasure in response to natural rewards—such as food, sex, or positive social interactions—or to manage their stress, control their impulses, and make the healthy choice to stop drug seeking and use.
What leads to addiction ?
There can be various reasons one can start using substance and get addicted to it.
Broadly, they can be termed under both environmental and genetic factors.
Most commonly observed risk factors are:
- Peer pressure
- Unstable environment at home
- Neglect or lack of support from parents
- Low self esteem issues
- Lack of awareness of the ill effects of the drug
- Genetic
- Early use of substance
- Existing mental health issues
An important theme observed in many cases is low self esteem and a lack of support from loved ones which tends to make an individual feel a void in them, which they in turn try to fill with the momentary euphoria they receive from the substance, again and again.
Substance use disorder in India
Drug addiction is widespread across India, and it runs especially deep in Punjab. The state was once just a transit point on the drug route from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it has grown a large consumer base.
The all India number is 250 per 100,000 (as of 2012), according to The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. Even the figure of 250 drug abusers per 100,000 is very high when compared to other countries.
According to the National Survey on Extent and Pattern of Substance Use in India in 2019, about 2.1% of the country’s population (2.26 crore individuals) uses opioids which include opium (or its variants like poppy husk known as doda/phukki), heroin, and pharmaceutical opioids.
This National Survey of 2019 also showed that about 2.8% of Indians aged 10-75 years (3.1 crore individuals) were using cannabis as bhang, ganja and charas and 72 lakh (0.66%) people have an addiction to cannabis.
But what is most alarming is that the number of suicides due to drug abuse and alcohol addiction has more than doubled in the last decade. In the year 2010, 3,343 cases of suicides were reported, and the number increased to 7,860 suicides in 2019.
These statistics show the much need of spreading awareness about substance use.
Drug education should ideally be introduced from a very young age–that means in schools and colleges. Awareness and education is the first primordial prevention which needs to be provided to both students and parents, as the deep rooted cause is often emotional pain. If these issues are dealt with in the early stage, we can lead to a healthier world.
Additionally, awareness on how addiction can be treated with professional care is much needed in our country. It is an illness just like any other that can be treated.
It is unfortunate how many have lost their lives without even having the opportunity to seek help.The fact that there are specific centres made for individuals seeking help to recover from substance use disorder is still not well known in most parts of the country.
The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare operates a Drug De-Addiction Programme (DDAP) under which there are various Drug De-addiction treatment centres and clinics all over the nation. They have specific plans and professionals who have their expertise in treating addicts, which can help individuals to recover with proper intervention.
Ofcourse, the current available resources are not proportionate to our population. But if we really start looking at addiction as an illness and start taking the right steps, there are chances to improve the cycle.
So please gain awareness, educate and speak up.
If you come across anyone with addiction, try guiding them towards seeking the right help.
An addict is a patient , it’s time we normalize that.