You see the word heroin and likely think the worst. And you’d be right in that reaction because the horror of heroin addiction is one that can wreak havoc on your life as you know it. It’s essential to know what heroin is and how easily it can be for a person to become addicted. Knowing how to treat an addiction like this and to avoid overdosing is critical to saving a person’s life.
What Is Heroin?
Heroin is a very addictive drug that is made from morphine. It has a lot of different street names such as skunk, smack, white horse, and H as a few examples. This drug is a psychoactive substance that has been taken from the resin of a seed pod from that of an opium poppy plant. Depending on the mixture, heroin’s color can usually vary from white, to brown or even black.
This drug falls under a class of drugs called opioids and a lot of these other drugs are usually prescribed to help relieve pain. This is a medication like codeine and hydrocodone.
Heroin Addictions
Heroin is often mixed with water to loosen up the consistency so that it can be injected in with a needle. However, it can also be sniffed, smoked, and snorted. A heroin addiction can lead to serious problems with the user, whether it be health issues or problems that might affect their personal and work lives.
It’s a dangerous drug because it works so quickly. It creates a fast and intense high that used repeatedly will allow the user to become tolerant of the drug itself. That means that the drug addiction forms and escalates as the user needs more and more of it in order to get the same effect as the first time. Eventually, they become so reliant on the drug that they need to use it every day just to help guide a normal behavior.
The difficulty of an addiction is that when addicted to heroin, it can experience a lot of withdrawals. A heroin withdrawal can have symptoms that typically consist of throwing up, muscle and bone pains, trouble sleeping, and a strong craving for the drug to name but a few.
How To Avoid Overdosing
There’s a real danger that many heroin addicts can face when it comes to overdosing. Due to the fact that you need to take more and more to get that same high, it can end up slowing down your breathing as well as causing other health problems. Many people who use heroin, will often combine the drug with other drugs like alcohol or cocaine and that can be particularly dangerous, raising the risk of an overdose.
With that being said, it’s important to try and limit any drug combinations with heroin and if you or a loved one are at that point of reliance where it’s out of control, then help is needed immediately to get off the drug.
Heroin claims the life of many, so make sure you and your loved ones avoid falling into the trap that heroin provides.
