Drugs
and Alcohol, and their Effects to Human Body System
Drug refers to any
chemical substance that alters the functioning of the body systems when taken.
Therefore, prescription of drugs should only be recommended by qualified people
who have adequate knowledge about their ingredients and also their effects to the
human body. However, drugs can be abused through being used for other purposes
rather than their medicinal uses. For instance, a person may take an overdose
of a certain drug in order to relieve his or her body from stress. Drug abuse
causes adverse effects to the body which may either be long-term or short-term
effects.
Alcohol is one of the
drugs which are commonly abused because it is legal in many nations. Mainly,
people abuse alcohol either to get relieved from stress or during celebrations.
It results to side effects which include; nausea, loss of memory, blindness,
insomnia and fatigue, sexual impotence among other effects. Most of the drugs
which are common abused are highly addictive hence it becomes very hard for one
to stop taking them. This causes the health of the body to deteriorate which
may lead to death.
Many institutions have
established rehabilitation centers to help drug addicts to stop their bad habits
and participate in development projects within their community. This has also
led to decrease in crime rates in the society since most of the crimes are
committed by drug addicts. It has also led to establishment of development
projects due to the adequate labor provided by the youths who were initially
drug traffickers.
Abuse of drugs is
largely condemned in the society and also seen to be against required the moral
values. Therefore, drug addicts are rejected by the other members of the
society which makes them to feel that they are not important and that the
society does not appreciate their actions.
Effects of Drugs and Alcohol to
Human Body System
Kidney Disease
This is caused by
overworking of the kidney to detoxify the body from the high amount of alcohol
ingested. It results to wearing out of the kidney which leads to failure in its
functions. Therefore, it becomes necessary to have another mechanism which will
help the body in detoxification of harmful substances. At this stage, a
dialysis is done to clean the toxins from the body in order to support life.
Heart Disease
High toxin levels from
drugs affect the heart’s electrical system which hinders it from the normal
pumping of blood. These toxins alter the heart’s normal electrical pattern
hence affecting its muscles which makes it unable to maintain a steady rhythm
during the pumping process. A failure of the heart results to low blood supply
to some parts of the body such as the head which may lead to death of brain
cells due to inadequate supply of oxygen. This situation may cause stroke to
the person or loss of function to some parts of the body if proper treatment is
not given. Other drugs such as cocaine increases the heartbeat beat rate above
the normal range which leads to overworking of the heart hence causing it to
malfunction.
Liver Disease
The liver performs many
functions in the body including detoxification of harmful substances. Therefore,
high intake of drugs increases the toxin levels in the body hence making the
liver to get overworked. This is because of the need to get rid of the toxins
from the body while performing other functions such as regulation of body
temperature and helping in production of blood cells. The liver becomes
unhealthy due to constantly being overworked to protect the body from the
harmful effects caused by these toxins.
Viral Diseases
Many drug addicts
become careless about their health hence they end up contracting infectious
diseases from one another. Some people may share needles with their peers to
inject drugs into to their bloodstreams hence risking contracting diseases. The
highly contracted diseases according to PA DUI Association include; HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis
C, Syphilis, and Malaria. There are also other illnesses which may affect drug
addicts such as Tuberculosis or even pneumonia due to living in unhealthy
conditions. In some cases, drug addicts live together irrespectively of their
gender which may result to unprotected sex hence causing transmission of
Sexually Transmitted Infections.
Brain Damage
Drug
abuse interferes with the chemical composition in the brain hence impairing its
communication with other body systems. The failure of the key organs in the
body such as the heart also results to death of brain cells hence affecting its
functioning. This is seen through signs such as abrupt change of moods,
confusions or paranoia. If the brain is largely affected it may result to
madness or even death of the victim.
Carelessness
of the drugs addicts makes them to ignore advices from other people about the
dangers they are exposed to. This makes them unwilling to visit health centers
for consultation hence their heath continues to deteriorate until they die.
Impaired Judgment
This is the inability
of a person to make sound decisions due to influence of drugs and alcohol. It
becomes hard for one to think about the consequences which may result due some
decisions he or she makes. For instance, a drug addict may choose to steal in
order to get money for buying drugs without considering the possible dangers
such as mob justice or being arrested by the law enforcers. Drugs also make one
unable to know the exact shape, size or color of objects hence he or she is
prone to mistakes while handling them. It also becomes hard for people, under
the influence of drugs, to see far objects or even determine correctly the
distance of various objects from them. This may lead to accidents when driving
while drunk or even when crossing busy roads. A drunkard will face difficulties
in knowing the approximate distance between his or her vehicle and the other
vehicles on the same lane hence may end up causing accidents.
Some drugs affect the
communication of the brain and other body systems by changing their electrical
pattern. This causes uncoordinated contractions of muscles of the body which
makes the victim to become unstable. Therefore, accidents are likely to occur
when handling sharp objects.
Schizophrenia
Though there are other
causes of schizophrenia, drug abuse is a major cause of the disease.
Schizophrenia is a disorder which makes the victims unable to distinguish
between real and imagined experiences. It is characterized by symptoms such as
bad behavior and social crimes. The victim is likely to have hallucinations,
delusions, confusion while giving speech, catatonia, and also bad behavior. People
with this disorder become threats to the society since they have to be
monitored keenly to make sure that they do not harm other people or even
themselves. This disorder may cause other mental complications hence making the
health of the victim to be worse. During diagnosis of the disorder,
professionals examine the patient fully to make sure that there is no other
mental illness which might have resulted due to the disease. Since it may be
caused by psychological factors or environmental factors, doctors gather
important information from the parents and peers of the patients to determine
the possible cause.
Neurotoxicity
This is the impairment
of the nervous system due to exposure of the body to toxic chemicals. Drug
addicts are prone to this disorder because of the toxins contained in the drugs
they abuse, and also due to unhealthy living conditions. For instance, many drug
addicts lack permanent houses due to fear of being arrested by the law
enforcers hence they end up sleeping in the streets. Therefore, they are
exposed to many pollutants which increase the toxin levels in their nervous
systems.
High toxin levels in
the brain causes memory loss, loss of balance and circulation constraints. On
the peripheral nervous systems, symptoms such as numbness, loss of sensation,
and tingling are experienced. The toxin levels accumulate in high amounts hence
making the body organs unable to detoxify it fully. This leads to damage of the
nervous system.
Uncontrolled Body Weight
Alcoholism causes
difficulties in ensuring a healthy body weight due to the high amount of
calories contained in alcoholic drinks. Since it is addictive, more calories
are added in to the body hence exceeding the rate at which the body burns them.
Therefore, this causes continuous weight gain hence making the body unhealthy.
However, this problem is mainly experienced by the wealthy people. The poor
drug addicts on the other hand may have excessive weight loss. This is because
most of them participate in hard manual work whereby they burn a lot of
calories during their daily activities. The main problem which they face is
loss of appetite (Parab, 2012). They do
not have the required resources to enable them to enjoy the recommended foods
in order to improve their appetite. When they report back to their daily
activities, a lot of energy is required in order to perform their hard tasks
which make them to rely on the calories obtained from alcohol only. Their
health continues to deteriorate due to excessive loss of weight.
High Blood Pressure
Hypertension can be
caused by many other factors though drug abuse is a major factor. It results
due to direct pouring of adrenaline or drugs into the chambers of the heart. It
results to rapid pumping of the heart hence causing blood in the veins and
arteries to flow at relatively higher pressure than the normal range. There are
many effects which may result due to high blood pressure including overworking
of the heart. The cardiac muscles may also grow unpropotionally due to
straining in some parts which have been greatly affected by the drugs. Some
veins in the body are not able to sustain blood under high pressure hence they
may burst.
Excessive
weight gain also increases the resting heartbeat rate hence resulting to high
blood pressure. In other cases, whereby drug addiction leaves no time for doing
body exercises, it may also result to high blood pressure because of accumulation
of a lot of fat in the body. Some of the fat particles may constrict blood
vessels hence decreasing their diameter for passage of blood. This causes the
blood to flow at high pressure.
Low
Blood Pressure
Hypotension may
be caused by dilation of blood vessels which makes the blood to flow at a lower
pressure than the normal range. Some drugs have great impact on the blood
vessels when abused, by increasing their diameter. This makes blood flow in
some parts of the body to be inadequate hence leading to suffocation of body
cells. The body becomes weak due to reduced supply of oxygen and other
essential nutrients. The removal of metabolic waste also slows down hence
leading to accumulation of toxins in the body. This poisons body cells thus
causing many of them to die. Under serious conditions, death may occur since
the body will be lacking enough energy to support its crucial processes.
Respiratory
failure
It
is mainly caused by abuse of drug through smoking or inhalation of fumes. Some
drugs such marijuana can be taken through smoking which affects the lungs of
the victim. Unfortunately, more danger is posed to the passive smokers than the
active ones. A research conducted by the PA DUI Association shows that the
active smokers inhale only a small percentage, 20%, of the harmful contents of
the drugs while the passive smokers inhale 80% of the fumes. Smoking causes
many dangers to the body including lung cancer.
The
smokers are also likely to experience breathing problems due to coating of the
respiratory organs by smoke particles. Other drugs such as heroine, whereby the
addicts inhale the fumes produced after heating them, may cause inflammation to
the respiratory organs. Drug addicts should be advised on the dangers of
abusing these drugs since most of them cause permanent deformation to body
organs which lead to failure in their functions (Parab,
2012). Moreover, once addicted, it becomes almost impossible to stop
using these drugs since the body loses its natural ability to support various
processes in providing adequate energy.
Conclusion
Drug abuse is caused by
many factors which include; peer pressure, desperation, family problems, or
even poverty levels. People start abusing them in order to stop thinking about
the challenges the face in life. Other people are forced to become drug
traffickers in order to earn a living.
Proper guidance should
be given to such people in order to help them to focus on other beneficial
activities in the society. In most cases, the youth are lured by wealthy people
into the habit, whereby the influence their peers, hence ending up having a
gang of drug addicts. Harsh disciplinary measures should be taken to such
people and rehabilitation centers established to help those addicted to resume
their normal life.
The reckless behavior
of the drug addicts poses danger not only to their lives but also to the whole
society at large since they cause insecurity by increasing the crime rates.
This becomes a setback to the development of the society since the youths who
should be relied upon for labor, get involved in abuse of drugs.
Drug traffickers do not
spend time in consulting medical doctors about their health status hence
becoming a threat in contracting diseases to other people around them.
Therefore, people should be advised to seek medical assistance frequently in
order to ensure diagnosis of any disease they might have contracted while in
its early stages. Alternative ways of earning a living should also be
introduced to the youths in order to help them to improve their living
standards, and avoid drug trafficking.
Annotated Bibliography
This information is derived from a
web article prepared by The PA DUI Association about the effects of drugs and
alcohol to human body system. This article was written to address DUI problems
in every stage including; prevention, adjudiction and also rehabilitation of
the ones affected. The facts in this article have been supported by other scholarly
articles such such the one written by UNC School of Medicine in their official
website www.med.unc.edu. It shows many effects caused by drugs and alcohol to the
human body and how the can be rehabilitated.
Parab, P. (2012, Semptember 12). Alcohol and Weight Gain.
Retrieved July 30, 2013, from Medimanage: www.medimanage.com
This article is written on the basis of facts after
a research that was conducted by an Indian researcher on the effects of alcohol
to the body weight. This research was triggered by the increased consciousness
of the Indians on their body weight in the 21st century. The
researcher aimed at establishing the facts about alcohol drinking and its
effects to the body. He analyzed the contents of different alcohol brands and
showed how the body reacted to them. The article has been supported by other
facts from other scholars in the medical sector such as those from The Harvard
School of Medicine.
