Here’s something that many of us forget about drug use and how it begins: No one sets out to become a drug addict, and because when it finally comes time to seek treatment, we often forget how this all started and can’t believe the situation we’re in now. Often drug use starts in the teens and early 20s. It’s a fun thing to do at parties, and people (particularly young people) believe that because they are doing drugs socially and only on weekends, that they genuinely have it under control. This however, is far from the truth. Even in the infancy of drug abuse, the drugs that young people are taking are already beginning to change brain chemistry and alter the way the brain ultimately functions. Again, no teen sets out seeking an addiction. It boils down to wanting to fit in, or perhaps as an escape from the social nightmare that many young people believe they exist in. The drugs that teens and young adults most often use are cocaine, ecstasy, heroin and marijuana, but because of their inexperience with drugs they do not understand the powerful addictive properties these substances possess. Nor do they know they will soon be developing an addiction due to the potency of what they are ingesting. The only people who know that are drug dealers, and their goal is to get you hooked as quickly as possible in order for the addict to become a profitable customer, and to keep them coming back for more when the addict’s brain decides to release less and less dopamine. A process that requires more and more of a certain drug to be produced to have that magical high that started out as something so easy to attain.
Some people in the beginning use drugs just on the weekends hanging out with friends. They think this occasional drug use keeps them from becoming addicted but they soon find out differently when they try to stop or their weekend supply runs out. During the early stages of drug use, the user does not always see the changes taking place in their behaviour, especially with their moods. People close to them do but the drug user does not. In a short period of time, tolerance to the drugs is taken over and occasional use becomes more frequent. Your brain and body becomes dependent on the drug in order to get through the day.
It isn’t always young people who follow this pattern and path to addiction. Many adults experiment and casually do drugs just as their kids do, and if a family member of friend notices their loved one has begun to experiment it is crucial that they assist them as best they can by reminding them that their casual drug use may lead to a full-blown addiction that can be difficult to treat, even with excellent health care and rehabilitation centers. This infancy period in drug use is perhaps the best time to help someone kick the habit. They aren’t as dependent on the drugs as they will be if they carry on, thus making the pre-addiction period a great time to stamp the problem out before it turns into a very serious problem.