When most people think of cocaine, they think of the dangers of addiction and abuse and the environmental damage caused by illegal drug manufacturing and sales. But many people don’t realize that cocaine can have some serious psychological effects that you might not expect, especially if you use it regularly over time.
Cocaine can make you anxious, irritated, tired, and even paranoid, with symptoms lasting anywhere from a few days to several weeks after your last use. To help protect yourself from these effects of cocaine, keep reading to learn more about the connection between this substance and anxiety.
How Substance Abuse Is Closely Linked to Anxiety
As defined by the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety is a feeling of worry or fear that’s out of proportion to the actual danger you may face. Anxiety can be a lifelong problem for some people, while for others, it’s just a temporary feeling that comes and goes.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) lists more than 300 symptoms of anxiety disorders, but not every person with an anxiety disorder will have all 300 symptoms. Some people have only one symptom (e.g., frequent worrying), while others might have many (e.g., trouble sleeping).
Anxiety is often tied to substance abuse because it changes your brain chemistry and affects how you think about things in your life.
Signs of Cocaine Use
Cocaine is a powerful stimulant that can be snorted, injected, or smoked. This drug’s effects are felt immediately after use as it enters the brain and binds to dopamine receptors. Cocaine’s effects on the brain can last from 30 to 90 minutes.
Common side effects include chest pain, headaches, high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, an irregular heartbeat (palpitations), convulsions (seizures), insomnia, restlessness, nausea, and vomiting. The commonality of these symptoms is not surprising given that cocaine usage has been linked to various health issues such as damaged blood vessels in the brain (causing strokes) or heart disease caused by long-term usage of this substance.
What Are the Side Effects of Using Cocaine
Cocaine is a highly addictive stimulant drug that affects the central nervous system. It’s typically used as a recreational drug due to its intense euphoric effects, including increased confidence, alertness, energy, mental clarity, and feeling of power.
However, cocaine use can also lead to serious side effects like anxiety. These long-term side effects are attributed to the overstimulation of dopamine receptors in the brain, which causes an increase in the body’s natural dopamine levels.
One effect of this is continuously thinking about using cocaine again to eliminate these feelings. This cycle can lead people who have been addicted for a while back into addiction if they go too long without using it again.
Reasons Why Cocaine Causes Anxiety
If you are struggling with a cocaine addiction, it is important to understand the connection between cocaine and anxiety.
Cocaine addiction can cause significant mental health problems, including anxiety. If you are addicted to cocaine, this drug will affect your brain chemistry over time and change how your body reacts to stress.
For these reasons, people who are addicted to cocaine must seek help for their addiction from a treatment professional to avoid long-term mental health consequences that could lead to other problems such as suicidal thoughts or self-harm behaviors.
Treatment professionals will be able to provide effective tools for managing the addiction that does not involve drugs or alcohol so that you can get back on track with your life without having any regrets later on. Here are some of the issues that link cocaine to anxiety.
Stimulant: Cocaine is a potent stimulant that stimulates the brain. This stimulation causes higher than normal levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin, sometimes leading to heightened anxiety or paranoia.
The anxiety this most common side effect associated with cocaine use is increased feelings of anxiety. Those who suffer from an underlying condition such as generalized anxiety disorder may feel even more anxious when taking coke because similar neurochemical imbalances trigger both mental illnesses.
Withdrawal: When this stimulant wears off, the user will likely experience withdrawal symptoms, including lowered mood and high anxiety due to dwindling amounts of serotonin and dopamine in their system.
Cocaine Behaviors: Many behaviors that people do when taking cocaine can also lead to anxiety. For instance, those who have abused this drug over an extended period might experience severe insomnia, which has been linked to developing anxiety disorders.
Physical Stresses: The brain and body are intricately intertwined. Long-term cocaine use can lead to many physical stresses, such as an irregular heart rate or intense itchiness due to withdrawal symptoms. Physical stress manifests itself in mental stress, which leads to anxiety.
Why Cocaine Causes Anxiety
Cocaine should be avoided. All hard drugs – even those that may provide a temporary escape or sense of euphoria – come with significant risks and can alter one’s life forever. Anxiety isn’t the only potential cause for avoiding cocaine; addiction is another major factor to consider.
It’s also important to note that many people turn to substances such as cocaine because they are suffering from anxiety and self-medicating via substances, which then creates a vicious cycle of addiction that can spiral out of control if it goes unchecked.
This explains why substance abuse needs treatment to break free from its grip once again, but so too does mental illness need treatment, given how closely linked they both seem due to these coincidences across personal cases
Get Some Stress Management Tips
Stress is a normal part of life. However, chronic stress can cause significant problems for your physical health, emotional well-being, and social relationships.
It’s not uncommon for people to use drugs or alcohol to deal with stress when it becomes overwhelming. However, this can lead to addiction or health problems like heart disease if left unchecked.
How to Get Help
If you or someone close to you has a cocaine addiction, there is help. Some simple ways of getting involved in recovery are easy to do. The first step is to stop using cocaine. The second step is to attend an addiction treatment program. These programs use group therapy, individual therapy, and other forms of counseling. They teach people how to handle their cravings and the triggers that cause them.
