Addiction: From coffee and tea to drugs of abuse

7th entry - Addiction: From coffee and tea to drugs of abuse

 I’m not very familiar with drugs more serious than alcohol or cigarettes, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know people who have tried them.

I’m not a supporter of the idea that people who has tried drugs is the typical stereotyped young people, with a rastafari look, because it’s not true. A few of my school friends have tried a widely range of drugs, because they think there’s nothing wrong in experimenting, if they are responsible about that.

I tried once LSD to know how it was, because the experience was appealing to me and LSD isn’t addictive, and it’s not like everyone thinks. It’s not about seeing crazy stuff, like flying dragons, pink elephants or whatever. It’s more like your senses are more developed. You see everything like “high-definition” (more colorful, with more contrast, like the camera options) and you find mandala-like patterns in everything. The touch and the hearing are deeper too. But for the other people, you look exactly the same as always, but your pupils are dilated and you become a little bit philosopher.

This is how people usually think it is...

...and this is how it REALLY is (or at least, the closer I could think of).

Aside from the medicament drugs benefits, I can’t recall another benefit to the other kind of drugs, like ecstasy, methamphetamine, cocaine… To my appreciation, drugs are a way to “escape” from reality, and often the people who consume them are unable to be responsible about it (not always, as I said before). Then, they develop long-term symptoms like forgetfulness, fatigue…

The people who usually consumed the higher-addiction drugs get withdrawal symptoms because their “emotional” bond with them and the dependence created because of the alteration of the normal behavior of the nervous system. The symptoms vary about the drug consumed, usually being the counter-part of their effects.

I know a few friends who are “addicted” to cigarettes, and they all say the same: it’s an expensive, unhealthy addiction and they want to quit it.

This is how smoking affect our lungs.