For the past two decades, there has been an increase in opioid abuse, with over 10 million Americans abusing the opioid medication. However, most of the opioid abuse are medications prescribed by medical experts for relieving pain. Although opioids might be effective in pain management, they can be highly addictive and modify the natural chemical reactions in the brain.
How Does Opioid Addiction affect your Thought Processes?
Heroin is a strong opiate that is an altered form of morphine, a medical drug that is useful in alleviating pain. Many people take opiates for pain-relieving purposes, and they are highly addictive, often causing users to want larger doses in a short time increasingly. Too much consumption can have a long-lasting effect on the human body, particularly mental health. With prolonged opioid use, the mental effects can force the user to search for medical substance abuse treatment to overcome opioid dependency and regain their health.
Long-Term Memory Loss
Extended use of heroin can cause mental repercussions that can severely affect the brain’s memory control bank or hippocampus. The damage opioid causes are so brutal that it can harm the brain the same way physical damages such as trauma and concussions do to the brain. Every use overstimulates the opioid receptors, killing the brain cells in the hippocampus and leading to overdependency. Opioid weakens the brain’s capability to mend the cells, and they start to fade off at a proportion that is too wild for the brain to catch up. Thus, after an extended period of heroin use, the memory effects will become noticeable like loss of long-term memories, challenges in creating new memories, recurrent blackouts and loss of basic personal facts.
Challenges in Decision-Making
Extended use of heroin can harshly affect the brain’s conative and cognitive abilities. Reasoning and learning both fall in the cognitive process realm and involve doing new tasks, knowing new things, and doing common old tasks. Intake of heroin frequently will force the brain to struggle with simple reasoning and logic, leading to unwise resolutions and ideas to simple issues. When attached to the conative area’s degradation, the part of the brain that regulates instincts and tendencies, the unavailability of impulse control can force the brain to spin around opioid use. It is good to note that this type of damage is not reversible after using heroin for many years. Nevertheless, the sooner a patient suffering from opioid dependency seeks treatment, the better the chances of damage reduction.
Issues with Self-Control
Once the body becomes an addict of opioid use, it can quickly result in the loss of self-control both behavior-wise and physically. Most people who suffer from the loss of self-control feel incapable of controlling their behavior because of the drug’s neurological damage. Common thoughts and emotions become challenging to deal with, making the user become distressed. Such users often need instant medical assistance to release the control the element has over their mind and physical body. Other patients lose their self-control capabilities because of the extreme cravings that opioids send to the brain receptors. Although they may control their physical abilities, their need for what they want may be extreme, making them stop thinking clearly.
Mood Disorders
There is a clear and distinct link between anxiety disorders, depression and heroin use. Although sometimes one may abuse heroin due to preexisting mood disorder, the opioid’s impact on the brain cell’s functionality can severely enhance depressive signs. Once the mind and body learn to depend on opioids for help, the impact of withdrawal can be stressful, resulting in high drug usage. This marks the start of the addiction cycle, common with opiates, making users find themselves using the drug regularly. Apart from depression, paranoia and anxiety are also common with prolonged use of heroin and other substances. Anxiety can mainly occur because of the lack of obtaining the required dosage, fear of being caught and financial problems associated with addiction.
Opioid addiction is a serious condition that can greatly impact your body and mind that can have long-lasting effects. However, effective recovery is possible by using therapy, with the assistance of trained medical experts at a treatment center and a strong supporting team. It is good to note that many opioid users have recovered and are now living healthy lives. Contact us today at 833-610-1174 for any assistance. We have a qualified and experienced counseling team that is always available.