The Staggering Risk of Heroin Addiction & Why Addicts Can’t Choose Sobriety
Right now, being addicted to heroin is far more dangerous than it ever has been—and it’s always been dangerous. The potency of this drug that is smoked or injected has always varied greatly which has meant that at any moment, it was possible that one’s daily supply of heroin was going to be lethal. But now, there are synthetic opiates on the market with a vastly greater potency than heroin. This means every injection is gambling with your life.
Dealers are buying these cheap drugs from China and mixing them into heroin to give their products a greater apparent potency. But too often, the mix is far too strong. Midwest and Northeast cities and states have struggled with massive increases in overdoses, straining hospitals, emergency medical services and law enforcement resources. The hundreds of recent overdoses prove the off-the-charts danger of being a heroin addict at this time.
Why would anyone continue to risk everything just to get high? Why can’t they stop? To loving family or community members, it makes absolutely no sense. And they are right—it doesn’t make any sense—if you are able to control your thoughts and your life. A person fully addicted to opioids or other drugs can’t. Not any more.
The Complete Compulsion of Addiction
The first time a person reaches for a drug, it’s a choice. There’s some reason it looks like a good idea to them. Maybe there’s a boy or girl they like who says it’s fun. Maybe they’re bored or being abused at home or bullied at school. Maybe they have no self-confidence and think there’s no use in having any dreams or goals. Whatever it is, the joint or beer or pill looks like a better deal than what they have now.
Some people hate the experience and never do it again. But for others, drugs and alcohol provide them with new sensations they like. Problems go away. Mental and physical pain disappears. Boredom is replaced with a cheap and fast euphoria. For those who find their lives lacking, these changes are desirable. These people will probably be willing to reach for those drugs again.
Graduation to Stronger Drugs or Drinks
Unfortunately, it’s not long till many people graduate to strong liquor or stronger, more severely addictive drugs or perhaps greater frequency of use. Pot smokers may try snorting pain medications. Beer drinkers try shots. Weekend drinkers or drug users begin to dig into their stashes during the week, just to “get them through to the weekend.”
Some drugs are so intensely addictive that a first-time use may seal the person’s fate. Heroin, painkillers, crack cocaine, methamphetamine and some synthetics are this way. Once the user gets that sensation, that thrill or change, many know instantly that this is something they are coming back to again and again.
More often, it takes a period of continued use to confirm an addiction. Some people even dabble in heroin use for months or years before they find themselves unable to walk away.
When drug use increases, the risk to a person’s life also increases.
Loss of Ability to Choose
As addiction takes over, the accumulated moral, mental and physical damage of drugs overwhelms a person’s ability to make choices. So he is no longer making decisions based on his own welfare or that of his children, family or community. That ability is gradually (or sometimes, suddenly) stolen by heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine or other drugs. Now, the first thing he thinks of when his eyes open in the morning is where is he going to get the day’s drugs? If it means robbing a home or a store, then that’s what he sets out to do. If he has to stop off at his parents’ home and lift some tools out of the garage, then he just has to do that. Otherwise, he’s going to get dopesick. He’s lost his rationality and personal values to the overwhelming compulsion to use more drugs.
What’s more, he has no hope and little to no sense of self-worth because drugs deaden those senses. He can think no further than the day’s drugs. Many people say that if their next dose of heroin takes them away, that’s okay with them. They’d rather be dead than live this way.
The ones who are lucky have family members who never give up on them, who always have faith that their loved one can come back to them. These are the ones who keep looking for the right kind of help to bring back the light in their loved ones’ eyes and the honesty to their hearts. For more than ten thousand people, Narconon has been that answer. For five decades, Narconon has offered a program that helps a person recover from the trauma and loss and build a new sober life. Call Narconon Ojai when you need help for an addicted loved one.
