Friday, March 21, 2014



The Latest News. Celebrity Addiction

What is addiction? Drug addiction refers to the development of tolerance to drugs as an antecedent to physical and psychological dependence. Drugs addiction is a chronic disease of the brain, and manifests as follow: inability to abstain from the use of drugs, and induced emotional dysfunction (ASAM, 2014). 

Former Star Athlete Tells 'Oprah Prime' About Her Descent Into Heroin Addiction (VIDEO)


Some of my favorite quotes from Inaba & Cohen (2000) come from real experiences of drug addicts. I will be sharing them with you.

34 years old recovering cocaine addict:
“There was this little nail hole in the door and he swore up and down that someone was looking at us through them. I put my feet down and just doing something like this and he would slap the shit out of me ‘Bitch who you signaling?’ he would get on his knees and look under the bed” (p.92).

32 year old recovering cocaine addict:
“I found that using cocaine, mainlining it straight to the nervous system, it’s like I want to kill people. It is a very unhealthy state of my mind…It is like spinning out of control and all the thoughts are centered around, ‘Where should I hit them first?’ Damn, I want to hurt people, you know. It is just psychotic thinking” (p.93).

36 year old cocaine addict:
“I almost did too much and I felt after I did it, I felt my knees buckle and I fell on the toilet stool, you know. And I was just shaking, like in a convulsion, you know. And if my buddy wasn’t there to grab me and put me in the shower, I don’t know what would would’ve happened” (p.95)

38 year old recovering amphetamine user:
“I liked to do little intricate drawings. I would draw for hours, anything small with a lot of detail. I would clean my apartment from top to bottom, even doing my floor with Brillo pads-my wooden floor –vacuuming my ceilings. If I ran out of stuff to do I would dump out everything in the vacuum cleaner and vacuum it back up. I didn’t like to be outside because I would get paranoid” (p.106).

17 year old recovering meth abuser:
“I just got sick of it, you know, just being high so long. It just messes up your mind. I once stayed up for 23 days with no sleep- not 1 hour of sleep, not one wink of sleep. When you stay up for so long, you’re just like a pile of mush. Your brain’s just nothing, you know. You can’t even talk. And it just doesn’t even feel good. I don’t want that feeling anymore” (p.107).

References:
Addiction (2011). America Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). Retrieved from http://www.asam.org/for-the-public/definition-of-addiction

Inaba & Cohen (2000). Uppers Downers. All Arounders. Fifth Edition. CNS Publication.



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