Drug Addiction - Cause Paper Sample

Introduction

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Russell Brand once said, ‘The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help, they have no hope.’ This highlights the effects of drug addiction in the society and the effects of the same on the welfare of the society. There is a need for society to take a concerted effort in tackling the problem of drug addiction with the view of rehabilitating the slaves of drugs to help in improving the health of the society and especially that of drug addicts (Wise and George 256). In this relation, this paper seeks to evaluate the causes of drug addiction with supporting evidence with the view of enlightening the society on how to get relief from drug addiction. Drug addiction is a common problem in the society and most people usually focus on the solution to the problem without understanding the causes of the same (Everitt and Trevor 30). Some of the main causes of drug addiction are environmental, genetic and psychological. It is of great importance to understand such causes of drug addiction as it helps in seeking long-term solution to the problem.

The environment of a person greatly affects the probability of a person becoming a drug addict; this is because it is more common for drug addiction to be witnessed in the areas where drug abuse is common or in the areas where the use of drugs is permissible (Nestler 262). It is common to see children that have lived with drug addicts to become addicts later in their lives. Researchers prove that the use of drugs usually start in the adolescent stage of drug users and the adolescents that have abusive, inattentive and neglectful parents have a high probability of becoming drug addicts (Ersche 601). Another environmental cause of drug addiction could be the combination of experimentation with drugs and lack of parental oversight. Moreover, other environmental causes of drug addiction include living with people of lower socioeconomic status, peer group that promotes or uses drugs and participating in sports that encourage the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Secondly, the genes of a person also lead to the increased probability of the use of drugs and drug addiction; this proves that there are some families in whom drug addiction run thereby justifying the fact that genetics play a crucial role in drug addiction in individuals (Wise and George 258). Studies prove that when twins are studied, results show that half of the risk of a person becoming a drug addict is genetic. In this relation, the genetic causes of addiction in individual relate to multiple genes sequences although research has not conclusively identified the genes involved in drug addiction. There are however some genes that highly increase the probability of drug use and drug addiction are those involved brain receptors of nicotine (Everitt and Trevor 33). Finally, the gender, ethnicity and the presence of mental conditions lead to the increased risk of drug addiction in the society.

The final cause of drug addiction is the psychological factors and researchers posit that this causes the bulk of causes of drug addiction. One of the prudent psychological factors that lead to the increased risk of drug addiction is trauma when the drug addict is in his young ages (Nestler 266). Additionally, physical and sexual abuse, neglect of the children, chaos at home are related to great psychological stress and this makes people to attempt to medicate themselves thereby resulting to the use of drugs (Ersche 603). In this manner, people who are in great psychological stress often attempt to decrease the pain caused by stress through the use of drugs hence leading to drug addiction. Some of the psychological causes of drug addiction are such as mental illnesses such as depression, dismal performance in school or at work, poor skills in coping with the environment, and lack of ability of coping with others and lack of friends.

Conclusion

By understanding how environmental, psychological and genetic factors leads to the increased risk of drug addiction, the society can understand the relationship between the different factors and drug addiction. This would help the society to formulate ways of reducing the threats of the said factors to drug addiction thereby improving the health conditions of the society.

A new medical treatment

Pain that is persistent and lasts for more than few months is considered to be chronic pain (Serna et al., 388). Some of such pains cannot be cured but there are treatments that can help the patients to find relief from the pains. There have been identified new forms of treatments to chronic pain and these help in improving the health conditions of the society. Pain relief drugs depends on various conditions among them being the duration of the pain, the degree of the pain, the cause of the pain and the location of the pain (Poon, Robert and Dhiraj 773). The new treatment for pain relief is radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and this targets the nerves that send signals to the brain (Serna et al., 389). This form of treatment is very simple as the doctor uses a needle with a tip which heats up. The needle is then place at a close range with the nerve; this makes the heat to zap the nerve to prevent it from sending the pain signal to the brain.

The types of pains that are suitable to this new form of treatment are such as arthritis and neuropathy. Research also proves that this form of treatment can help in eliminating hip and lower back pains and the pains in the knee and neck (Poon, Robert and Dhiraj 774). Radiofrequency ablation can help in relieving pain for eight months and after that duration, the treatment can be tried again on the patient.

Works Cited

Ersche, Karen D., et al. "Abnormal brain structure implicated in stimulant drug addiction." Science 335.6068 (2012): 601-604.

Everitt, Barry J., and Trevor W. Robbins. "Drug addiction: updating actions to habits to compulsions ten years on." Annual Review of Psychology 67 (2016): 23-50.

Nestler, Eric J. "Epigenetic mechanisms of drug addiction." Neuropharmacology 76 (2014): 259-268.

Poon, Shi Sum, Robert M. Cooper, and Dhiraj Gupta. "Endocardial radiofrequency septal ablation—A new option for non-surgical septal reduction in patients with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM)?: A systematic review of clinical studies." International Journal of Cardiology 222 (2016): 772-774.

Serna, Sofía, et al. "Results of laparoscopic radiofrequency ablation for HCC. Could the location of the tumour influence a complete response to treatment? A single European centre experience." HPB 17.5 (2015): 387-393.

Wise, Roy A., and George F. Koob. "The development and maintenance of drug addiction." Neuropsychopharmacology 39.2 (2014): 254-262.