We talk a lot about the negative effects of drug and alcohol use. Addiction definitely impacts your life and your relationships. But repeated drug use can also have a number of negative physical effects on the body.
Mood Swings
Drugs flood your brain with a variety of chemicals. These chemicals can drastically affect your mood, which is why using many types of drugs result in a euphoric high that leaves you craving more. The more you use drugs, however, the more the drugs affect your brain chemistry and hinder the production of the necessary hormones and chemicals that regulate your moods.
Those who repeatedly use drugs will most likely experience drastic mood swings.
Illegal drugs can also have negative effects on those who are dealing with mental illness. Because these drugs affect the brain chemistry, they can make already unbalanced levels even worse.
Heart Irregularities
According to the American Heart Association, most illegal drugs can have adverse effects on the cardiovascular system, ranging from abnormal heart rates to heart attacks. Using drugs can cause high blood pressure, which then leads to more heart issues. Intravenous drug use can also cause collapsed veins and infections in the vessels and heart valves.
Organ Damage
Besides damage to the heart, repeated drug use can also damage many other important organs. Drugs will damage your liver and kidneys. They can also cause a number of issues for the digestive tract, causing diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, vomiting, and more.
Brain Damage
A devastating effect of repeated drug use is brain damage. Consistently using illegal drugs drastically increases your chance of having strokes, having seizures, and introducing toxic elements into your brain cells. Addiction can also change the brain’s pleasure and reward processes, impulse control, memory, and more.
