Different
What are drugs?
Drugs are chemical substances that can change how your body and mind work. They include prescription medicines, over-the-counter medicines, alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs.
What is drug use?Drug use, or misuse, includes:
- Using illegal substances, such as:
- Anabolic steroids
- Club drugs
- Cocaine
- Heroin
- Inhalants
- Marijuana
- Methamphetamines
- Misusing prescription medicines, including opioids. This means taking the medicines in a different way than your health care provider prescribed. This includes
- Taking a medicine that was prescribed for someone else.
- Taking a larger dose than you are supposed to.
- Using the medicine in a different way than you are supposed to. For example, instead of swallowing your tablets, you might crush and then snort or inject them.
- Using the medicine for another purpose, such as getting high.
- Misusing over-the-counter medicines, including using them for another purpose or in a different way than you are supposed to.
Drug use is dangerous. It can harm your brain and body, sometimes permanently. It can hurt the people around you, including friends, families, and kids. If you are pregnant, it can harm your fetus. Drug use can also lead to mild, moderate, or severe substance use disorders. Substance use disorders are sometimes called addiction.
What is drug addiction?Drug addiction is a chronic brain disease. It causes a person to take drugs repeatedly, despite the harm they cause. Repeated drug use can change the brain and lead to addiction.
The brain changes from addiction can be lasting, so drug addiction is considered a "relapsing" disease. This means that people in recovery are at risk for taking drugs again, even after years of not taking them.
Does everyone who takes drugs become addicted?Not everyone who uses drugs becomes addicted. Everyone's bodies and brains are different, so their reactions to drugs can also be different. Some people may become addicted quickly, or it may happen over time. Other people never become addicted. Whether or not someone becomes addicted depends on many factors. They include genetic, environmental, and developmental factors.
Who is at risk for drug addiction?Various risk factors can make you more likely to become addicted to drugs, including:
- Your biology. People can react to drugs differently. Some people like the feeling the first time they try a drug and want more. Others hate how it feels and never try it again.
- Mental health problems. People who have untreated mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to become addicted. This can happen because drug use and mental health problems affect the same parts of the brain. Also, people with these problems may use drugs to try to feel better.
- Trouble at home. If your home is an unhappy place or was when you were growing up, you might be more likely to have a drug problem.
- Trouble in school, at work, or with making friends. You might use drugs to get your mind off these problems.
- Hanging around other people who use drugs. They might encourage you to try drugs.
- Starting drug use when you're young. When kids use drugs, it affects how their bodies and brains finish growing. This increases your chances of becoming addicted when you're an adult.
Signs that someone has a drug problem include:
- Changing friends a lot
- Spending a lot of time alone
- Losing interest in favorite things
- Not taking care of themselves - for example, not taking showers, changing clothes, or brushing their teeth
- Being very energetic, talking fast, or saying things that don't make sense
- Quickly changing between feeling bad and feeling good
- Having different eating or sleeping habits
- Missing important appointments
- Having problems at work or at school
- Having problems in personal or family relationships
Treatments for drug addiction include counseling, medicines, or both. Research shows that combining medicines with counseling gives most people the best chance of success.
The counseling may be individual, family, and/or group therapy. It can help you:
- Understand why the drug addiction began
- See how drugs changed your behavior
- Learn how to manage personal problems
- Learn to avoid places, people, and situations where drugs are accessible
If you stop or cut back on drugs you've used for a while, you may display different symptoms for different drugs. This is called withdrawal. Medicines can help with the symptoms of withdrawal. For addiction to certain drugs, there are also medicines that can help you re-establish normal brain function and decrease your cravings.
If you have a mental disorder along with an addiction, it is known as a dual diagnosis. It is important to treat both problems. This will increase your chance of success.
If you have a severe addiction, you may need hospital-based or residential treatment. Residential treatment programs combine housing and treatment services.
Can drug use and addiction be prevented?Drug use and addiction are preventable. Prevention programs involving families, schools, communities, and the media may prevent or reduce drug use and addiction. These programs include education and outreach to help people understand the risks of drug use.
NIH: National Institute on Drug Abuse
Different FDA Approved Drugs
- Method for treating thyroid carcinoma including differentiated thyroid cancer.
- Treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma.
- Treatment of carcinoma of the thyroid.
- Treatment of unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma, advanced renal cell carcinoma, or differentiated thyroid carcinoma..
- Treatment of unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.
Felter's Materia Medica on Different
The dried flowering tops of the female plant of Cannabis sativa, Linné, or the variety indica, Lamarck (Nat. Ord. Cannabinaceae). Asia, East... / ... laughing with great glee over his capers. Therapy.The therapeutic effects of cannabis vary under different conditions. It stimulates in depression and sedates when there is irritation. It lessens p... / ...of the urino-genital tract and relieves pain. For the first condition it is invaluable in more or less painful conditions in which opium see1
The rhizome and roots of Caulophyllum thalictroides (Linné, Michaux (Nat. Ord. Berberidaceae). In rich woods in the eastern half of... / ... United States. Common Names: Blue Cohosh, Squaw-root, Pappoose-root. Principal Constituents.An indifferent alkaloid caulophylline (not to be confused with the resinoid "caulophyllin,") and an activ... / ...of strength and rapid involution of the womb following labor. The dose of the syrup is from 2 fluidrachms to 1/2 fluidounce, 2 or 3 times a day.1
The rhizome of Dioscorea villosa, Linné (Nat. Ord. Dioscoreaceae). A vine found throughout the United States. Dose, 5 to 60 grains. Common Names:... / ...robably because so many impossible claims have been made for it. Hepatic colic depends upon so many different conditions that it may help some cases quickly while others are unaffected by it. When lar... / ...does not dissolve calculi. Usually, while there is much tenderness in cases requiring dioscorea, the distress is gradually relieved by pressure.1
The plant Frankenia salina, Chamisso and Schlectendal (Nat. Ord. Frankeniaceae) Native of California and sandy soils of adjacent Pacific Coast. Common Name: Yerba... / ...r discharges from the mucous membranes, diarrhea, vaginal leucorrhea, gonorrhea, and gleet, and the different types of catarrh. It is little used.1
... ignatia is atony and nervous debility. From the views of those who believe it superior to and even different in action from nux vomica we have outlined the following conditions in which it is said to......ssion with pain. Though the composition of ignatia is similar to that of nux vomica, there may be a different molecular constitution in the two drugs, accounting for the varying shades of therapeutic...1
The rhizome and roots of Iris versicolor, Linné (Nat. Ord. Iridaceae). Common in wet places in the United States. Dose, 5 to 20 grains. Common... / ...o salivates, but without injury to the gums and teeth. Salivation from vegetable sialagogues may be differentiated from that caused by mercury by the absence of mercurial fetor and lack of sponginess ...1
The rhizome and rootlets of Cimicifuga racemosa (Linné), Nuttall (Nat. Ord. Ranunculaceae). A conspicuously handsome perennial widely found in... / ...riginal indication as enunciated by Scudder is heavy, tensive, aching pain. This is essentially different from the exquisitely sensitive and acute pain of acute articular rheumatism. It is not to ...1
The recently dried root and fruit of Phytolacca americana, Linné (Nat. Ord. Phytolaccaceae). North America, along roadsides and fences, and in... / ...bling saponin, and the alkaloid phytolaccine. Berries: A purplish-red powder (the coloring body), indifferent phytolaccin, and phytolaccic acid. Preparations.1. Specific Medicine Phytolacca. (Prepar...1
The fresh leaves of Toxicodendron radicans (L.) Kuntze (Rhus radicans, Linné, Rhus Toxicodendron, Linné) (Nat. Ord. Anacardiaceae) A common... / ...nal symptoms. Locally, rhus is a powerful irritant poison. The toxic manifestations produced by the different species are of precisely the same nature, differing only in degree of intensity. Rhus Toxi... / ...dried wood is said to retain it. It has been named toxicodendrol, and is asserted to be in reality the only tangible substance found thus 1
The dried leaves of Datura Stramonium, Linné, or of Datura Tatula, Linné (Nat. Ord. Solanaceae). A common weed everywhere in the United States,... / ...epends. It is quite remarkable that a plant so closely allied to belladonna chemically should be so different in some of its therapeutical effects, and particularly in regard to alleviating pain. Thus... / ...when associated with nervous erethism and unsteadiness. Like hyoscyamus, stramonium meets two classes of nervous and mental disordersthe ment1
The rhizome and roots of Veratrum album, Linné (Nat. Ord. Liliaceae). Europe, especially in the Alpine and Pyrenean districts. Common Names:... / ...and Therapy.Though closely resembling Veratrum viride in effects, this agent is used for entirely different purposes, based upon Homeopathic usage. These are choleraic diarrhea, cholera morbus, chol...1
Physician's Materia Medica on Different
The inspissated juice of leaves of different species of ALOE. Laxa tive or cathartic according to the dose. It acts especially on the lower bowel, and is particularly serviceable in chronic constipation. Dose as a laxative 0.06 to 0.3 Grm. (1 to 5 grs.).2
Alkaloid obtained from HYOSCYAMUS NIGER, Lin. Identified by some with Scopolamine, cbtained from Scopola atropoides, which is at least isomeric with it. and is now almost universally substituted for it as it is in the following preparations. Mydriatic like atropine, but quite different in its medicinal action, which is that of a sedative and hypnotic. Dose, 0.00015 to 0.0012 (1-400 to 1-50 gr.).2
References
2) Nelson, Baker & Co., 1904, Physician's Handy Book of Materia Medica and Therapeustics, Detroit, Michigan.