Cocaine Addiction

Cocaine addiction is due to a psychological dependency on the regular consumption on cocaine. It is an addiction with severe effects like depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, lethargy and some physiological effects. The addiction if not treated can lead to irreparable damage.

Cocaine addiction is a huge societal concern because of the ease with which one can get addicted. The cause of the easy addiction is mainly attributed to the short high that cocaine provides. The short high, usually about an hour long, leads the victim in need of another dose, and another and so on.

The short high provided by cocaine is actually more complicated than explained above. After the high the victim may fall into what is known as a crash. This crash may be put off by another dose or a quick sleep. Sedatives may also be used for dealing with the crashing effects. Usually after the sleep, there is a craving that needs to be attended to.

Because of the strong association of the crash and the need to sleep, cocaine addicts are also very likely to abuse sleep medications. In some cases, regular consumption of alcohol may be used to deal with the crash.

Regular cocaine use is a habit that is hard to kick. This is mainly due to the positive re-enforcement effects of cocaine. That is, it makes one associate all the good feelings with the drug. This may lead to cocaine serving as an "anti-depressant" of sorts, much to the detriment of the taker.

The social impact of addiction to cocaine is severe and described as undiscriminating. It equally affects the rich and famous as it does the poor. The psychological nature of the addiction is such that addicts take it in groups to share the high. However this does not mean one will always seek out a partner(s) when they get a craving.

The nature of ingestion of the drug may also secondary health effects. Due to the group consumption desire, groups using needles as the method of ingestion can have infections spread amongst them. And, because these are convenience groups, they are short-lived. Hence groups form so fast and break up easily which leads to very high chances of infections. These infections like hepatitis and HIV affect the poor users more than the richer ones.

Perhaps the greatest concern for addicts is the likelihood of a fatal overdose. No matter the level of addiction, for example daily or weekly users, overdosing carries no prediction rate. It is sudden. This mean that cocaine addiction awareness should be a strong social concern because the ultimate effect may befall anybody before those around them even noticed that they consumed the drug.