1.psychological factors:
- Anxiety and depression, whether chronic disorders or acute
issues, greatly increase the risk factors for drug use. Anxiety and
depression both greatly increase the risk factors for starting
drugs, but also influence drug use by making the person more
susceptible to other risk factors. For example, self medication, or
taking drugs to feel better or to ‘forget’ about issues is a common
reason, but these issues also make users more open to peer
pressure, more likely to be taking prescription drugs, and more
likely to feel hopeless.
- If you are lonely you are significantly more likely to use
drugs and alcohol as a solution to feel better. If you have a
strong relationship with family and friends, you are significantly
less likely to use or become addicted to drugs than if you are
lonely, out of touch, or have little to no family support
- It’s a well accepted fact that many persons with existing
disorders are more likely to turn to drugs, alcohol, and
cigarettes
- Many persons who have mental disorders are up to three times as
likely to use drugs or alcohol recreationally.
Drug related factors:
- Prescription drugs present a very high risk factor for drug
addiction, simply because many of them are highly addictive.
Prescription painkillers, sedatives, antidepressants, and many
other types of prescription drugs can easily lead to physical and
mental dependence by flooding the dopamine receptors in the brain.
If not monitored appropriately, prescription drugs could lead to
long-term drug addiction.
- Availability of drugs or accessibility of drugs is one of the
factors contributing to the increasing drug abuse during recent
decades. Easy accessibility of drugs has been one of the current
situations among the youth. Rationally, when accessibility of drugs
is easy, chances of people trying out and consequently being
addicted to drugs is increased. Hence, accessibility of drugs is an
issue requiring immediate attention so that actions could be
carried out to minimize or eliminate possible negative
effects.
2.The difference between physical dependence versus
psychological dependence is physical dependence affects your body
and psychological dependence affects your behavior.Physical
dependence is considered tolerance and withdrawal. Psychological
dependence is the dependence on the drugs or the substance of
choice.
3.Tolerance is a person's diminished response
to a drug, which occurs when the drug is used repeatedly and the
body adapts to the continued presence of the drug.A person may
develop tolerance to a drug when the drug is used repeatedly. For
instance, when morphineor alcohol is used for a long time, larger
and larger doses must be taken to produce the same effect. Usually,
tolerance develops because metabolism of the drug speeds up (often
because the liver enzymes involved in metabolizing drugs become
more active) and because the number of sites (cell receptors) that
the drug attaches to or the strength of the bond (affinity) between
the receptor and drug decreases