Drug Addiction Causes And Phases

Have you lost control of your drug consumption due to drug addiction? Is one of your loved ones ruining your life? If you are frightened by what is happening to your body and your sense of reality, the only option is drug therapy.  Professional drug rehab teaches you to live without psychoactive substances.

Find out what drug addiction is, what are the causes and symptoms, what is the effect of drugs on the body, what is drug detox and addiction treatment and what addiction treatment looks like. Find out how to help a drug addict offered by a drug addiction treatment centre and get information that will allow you and your loved ones to regain their lives.

What is drug addiction?

Drug addiction is a progressive and potentially fatal disease that causes severe physical and psychological consequences and ruins the social life of the patient and his relatives. The term comes from the Greek words “drug” (intoxication) and “mania” (madness). The central symptom of addiction is drug craving  – an unrestrained, independent will to consume the drug. Untreated its addiction leads to death.

Addiction is an incurable disease in the sense that you remain addicted for the rest of your life. Professional treatment of drug addicts allows them, however, to learn to better control their emotions and the reflex to reach for drugs. Drug therapy is the only effective treatment for addiction, and the safest place to conduct it is in a specialist drug addiction treatment centre.

Drug addiction – causes

It has many causes. They mainly include:

• willingness to impress or catch up with peers or older colleagues, fear of being rejected by the environment,

• a desire to escape from everyday external and internal problems (frustration, low self-esteem, strong failure),

• inability to deal with own emotions and conflicts

• the desire to experience something new and unusual,

• The tendency to experiment,

• the desire to increase their performance in study or work.

• The causes of addiction vary depending on the age group or social status of a person, among other things.

Addiction phases

Addiction to drugs develops gradually, which is why it is so difficult for a drug addict to capture the moment when his consumption gets out of control. There are  4 phases of drug addiction :

Initiation phase 

begins with trying any of the drugs;

Experimental phase 

it consists of testing the effects and sensations that arise after consuming (often different types) psychoactive substances. The person does not feel a drug craving yet, is not addicted yet, although the effect of drugs on the body is clearly felt. The effects of drug consumption are also visible;

the phase of substance use and abuse  – a dangerous moment in which the consumption of drugs often begins to get out of control, the person loses control over the amount of the taken substance, the body’s tolerance to the drug increases, and sometimes even overdoses. The patient begins to treat the drug as a priority in his life and as a remedy for everyday difficulties. To get a dose, drug addicts frequently borrow or steal money. He also loses interest in his surroundings, isolates himself from others, neglects his hygiene and relationships, shows aggression, especially when trying to make him aware of the problem;

Addiction phase

the person begins to experience drug craving and other withdrawal symptoms. He consumes drugs continuously, which leads to the development of increasingly deeper physical (chronic runny nose, cough), mental (decreased self-esteem, aggression, paranoia, apathy, hyperactivity), and social effects (breaking the law, lying). At this stage, drug addicts are no longer able to control their developing addiction on their own. Detox and drug therapy are necessary.

The first or subsequent consumption does not necessarily lead to the final phase of addiction. Experimenting with drugs may end in the first or second stage. But very often it is not, as addiction develops gradually, making it difficult to pinpoint a critical moment.

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