The Health Complications of Addiction

Health consequences associated with immediate use are those issues that appear just minutes after taking in a drug of abuse. When asked about immediate risks of drug use, Hoover came up with 28 different types of consequences, ranging from mild (drowsiness, confusion) to severe (loss of consciousness, tremors). She points out that some immediate consequences can lead to other types of consequences in time.

The most serious immediate concern involves overdose, and according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than 20,000 people died in 2013 due to an overdose of prescription drugs. Many more lost their lives to overdoses on other drugs like heroin, cocaine, or barbiturates.

An overdose takes hold when the drug of abuse is stronger than the body’s ability to process that drug. Sometimes, the drugs suppress breathing, so people slide into deep sleeplike states. Sometimes, the drugs boost heart rates, which can tax the heart to such a degree that a heart attack can develop. And sometimes, the drugs produce a profound lack of muscle control, which can lead to a stopped heart.

In addition to these very physical health concerns associated with the immediate use of drugs, people who take in these substances can also experience very strange, altered rates of perception. They might see things others cannot see, or they might hear voices others cannot hear. While under the influence of drugs, these people might run into traffic, attempt to operate machinery, or take on some other task that can lead to an accident. Sometimes, people under the influence commit violent acts, and they face law enforcement action.

These immediate consequences may not be explicitly linked to health, but it is easy to see how they might have an impact on a person’s overall physical condition.

In addition, some drugs cause a rebound hangover, and that can lead to continued drug use. People who feel ill after using may use again, just to make the discomfort stop, and that can set them up for a lifetime of using and abusing drugs.

Immediate health consequences are easy to understand, and they can be very hard to ignore. But some health impacts tied to drugs are not as clear-cut. Specifically, some health issues are tied to continued use of the drug over a period of weeks or months. These short-term health concerns can be quite serious.

For example, some people with long-term drug abuse issues spend a great deal of time getting, taking, and sharing drugs. They may spend an equally long time recovering from the drugs they have tried. All that work can come at the expense of nutrition. People using drugs at this level may not eat nutritious meals on a regular schedule, or they may just eat the foods they can find in fast-food joints and all-night mini-marts. They may lose a great deal of weight, and they may start to experience dental health issues, too.

An infectious disease can develop when drug users share needles with one another. The tiniest drop of blood left inside a needle has the power to infect another person. Infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis are also considered short-term health consequences of drug use. Unfortunately, they are common consequences of continued drug use. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that people who inject drugs make up about 8 percent of the estimated new HIV infections recorded in 2010.

Some people develop HIV and hepatitis as an STD through unsafe sex practices. While under the influence of drugs or alcohol, users can have lower inhibitions, making it easy for people to make poor decisions about their health and their practices. In addition to the risk of acquiring an infectious disease through needle sharing, these same users with lower inhibitions could abandon the use of condoms or other safe sex practices.

STDs and infectious diseases can certainly be part of short-term health consequences associated with drugs, but many can be successfully treated with medications. Unfortunately, addiction can make life so chaotic that sticking to a medication routine can be very difficult for people to accomplish. Some people who have these types of disease blame their symptoms on the drugs they continue to take.

As a result, long-term health consequences associated with drugs can include deaths due to these chronic and acute diseases. In a study of the issue in the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers found that about 27 percent of drug users had died within 20 years of starting regular use of drugs, and only half of those deaths were not tied to HIV in some way. Studies like this show, quite clearly, how drugs can impede overall health and how STDs and other infectious diseases can be incredibly serious.

It’s important to note, too, that the risk of disease is not only associated with needle drugs like heroin. AIDS.gov reports that alcohol, methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and club drugs like ecstasy have all been linked to a boost in STD transmission. That means anyone could have this issue.

Some drug users dabble in the use of more than one drug at the same time. For example, a study in the Journal of American College Health suggests that students using ecstasy were very likely to use other substances, either in conjunction with ecstasy or in solo drug-use sessions. Clearly, some people do not develop an addiction to just one drug. At least some people mix and match substances.

But some people do take just one drug over a long period of time, and these people can face serious health problems as a result.

Drugs like Valium, Xanax, and Haldol are all considered depressant drugs, and all of them can cause what experts at the Department of Labor call mental clouding.

Drugs like PCP and so-called magic mushrooms tinker with brain chemistry, causing a distortion in what people see, feel, and experience. This distortion may seem pleasant to the person choosing to take drugs, especially if the drug use takes place in a safe space. But the National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that some of these drugs cause a rebound sense of hallucination. People who experience this syndrome can be thrust into the middle of a hallucination at completely inopportune times, including when they are working or driving, and they may become so afraid of the next episode that they develop symptoms of an anxiety disorder.

There are also short-term risks associated with hallucinogens, Hoover says.

Many of the health concerns associated with opiates are immediate, as this class of drugs is closely associated with overdoses. But an overdose is not the only risk associated with opiate abuse. The National Institute on Drug Abuse suggests that long-term use of opiates can lead to a form of brain damage.

People who take these drugs may experience many episodes of slow, low breathing, and each of these episodes could cause damage to brain cells. In time, people may have lasting damage that could impair decision-making abilities.

Opiates can also impact cells in the digestive tract. Typically, drug doses make food and water move incredibly slowly through the digestive tract, and that slow movement can lead to constipation. After years of constipation, some people may develop pockets of disease in the bowels. Some people may find that they can no longer have bowel movements unless they use laxatives.

People who abuse stimulants like cocaine or Ritalin may not be at risk of sedation and brain tissue death due to that sedation, but they can put their hearts through repeated episodes of strain and stress as their addictions grind on. This longstanding abuse can lead to tissue death, deep inside the heart, and that can lead to heart attack or stroke.

In addition, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, long-term use of stimulants can change brain cell activity. Some people who keep taking these drugs can develop symptoms of psychosis or paranoia due to that brain tissue damage.

Eating drugs in pill or powder form means putting volatile substances in contact with the sensitive tissues of the mouth and digestive tract. Some drugs, like painkillers, are made to go through the body in this way, but other drugs are simply not designed to work with these sensitive digestive tissues. Sometimes, putting these tissues in contact with drugs leads to serious health consequences.

Cocaine, for example, constricts blood vessels on contact. People who routinely swallow cocaine may kill off tissues in the digestive tract, which can lead to bowel obstructions and/or bowel blockages.

Some people choose to ignite their drugs and breathe in the vapors, rather than dealing with the digestive system. Unfortunately, many drugs are simply impure, and when they are ignited, their vapors contain substances that are toxic to the human body. Drugs like crack cocaine are terribly harmful to the mouth and lungs, while some types of marijuana also produce toxic smoke.

That toxicity can lead to cancerous changes in the mouth, tongue, throat, or lungs. And the website run by the Wales Drug and Alcohol Hotline suggests that other health conditions like bronchitis and emphysema can also come from smoking drugs.

People who choose to smoke drugs may be using their own bodies to answer that question, and the results of their experiments could be life-threatening.

Taking in drugs through nasal passages is another semi-popular method, as it puts intoxicating substances into the bloodstream almost immediately. But the tissues inside the nose and throat can take the brunt of each hit, and sometimes, they can collapse and/or die off due to constant use of drugs. People who use cocaine through their noses may, for example, experience a collapse of the bones that hold the nose in place, as those tissues may be starved for blood and nutrition due to the constant presence of drugs.

In addition, people who snort drugs may share their sniffing tools. According to the Trip Project in Canada, sharing tools can lead to cross-contamination of blood products, and that could lead to the spread of diseases like hepatitis and HIV. Every time a person shares tools, this risk can go up. Without proper treatment, some of these diseases can be life-threatening.

Some drugs, including heroin and crack cocaine, can be melted or manipulated into a liquid state, and that liquid can be popped into a needle and shot into a person’s veins. This is one of the most dangerous ways to take drugs, as each and every prick of the needle can do damage to sensitive cells. Some people develop scarring in veins and arteries due to long-term needle use. Those scars can lead to heart attacks or strokes, and some people develop infections near the sites they inject drugs.

Injecting drugs can also lead to body-wide infections, as many people who inject drugs share equipment. The people they share with may have AIDS, hepatitis, or another form of blood-borne illness.

That is a consequence that might befall someone who chooses to crush a painkiller pill, like Vicodin, and inject that pill when it is mixed with liquid. The ingredients in these pills are not made for blood vessels, and exposing them to blood vessels can lead to all sorts of terrible consequences.

In addition to smoking, snorting, and shooting drugs, some people choose to take in drugs through the skin, through a method called adsorption. They may use drugs specifically made for this purpose, or they may make up a paste of another type of drug and slather that on the skin. This may seem safe, but a study in the Indian Journal of Dermatology suggests that it can be difficult to measure how much of a drug gets into the body with this method of administration. Some parts of skin are thinner, so they are more permeable to drugs. And other parts of skin may be fragile or broken, allowing drugs to move right in through the blood. Some people overdose because of these issues.

Some people can also develop skin irritations due to the substances they put on their skin cells.