Chemical Dependency and Physical Health
This one’s a no-brainer. We’ve all seen or heard the terrible stories of addiction wreaking havoc on one’s body. Meth addicts loose teeth, hair and nails, developing sores, burns and abcesses as a result of their use. These are just the problems on the surface. Cocaine and crack addiction leads to heart attacks, and it seems like every week we hear of some celebrity dying far before his time from a drug-induced heart attack. Heroin addiction causes the deterioration of the liver and cardiovascular system.
All of these drugs can be administered with needles, which lead to a whole host of infections, blood-borne diseases and amputations. Even innocent, legal alcohol destroys proper functioning of almost every system in your body, causing cirrhosis of the liver, impotence and heart attacks. Death from accidents involving these substances are increasingly common as well, and accidental death is the number one cause of death in people under the age of forty.
What’s scariest is that addiction changes the inner machinery of a body’s cells, causing the tolerance, withdrawal and craving effects. Your body is a very adaptable machine: when you ingest chemicals over and over your body adapts to their presence. So, when an addict or alcoholic says they “need” their drug of choice, in biological terms their not lying.
