Cocaine was regarded as a status drug in the year 1970s for the reason that cocaine was pricey. The beginnings of cheap crack increased the convenience of this substance, and crack has become the drug of choice for many drug users, especially for inner-city disadvantaged youth. This has been the beginnings of the growing crack addiction. Crack’s accessibility, ease of concealment, wide availability, and low cost has increased its use. The reality that crack is smoked rather than injected has added to its popularity.

Moreover, drug addiction is not only occurring to people on the streets. It is not new to us that celebrities have their “shining moments” when it comes to substance abuse. They may look pleasant and very much happy in front of cameras, but their deepest secrets are yet to be revealed. A number of celebrities have already been into rehabilitation to fight their crack addiction, heroin, or even alcohol addiction.

Drew Barrymore was one of the very early celebrity known that spearheaded headlines because of her wild child antics. At the age of nine, Drew was already smoking cigarettes. She was an alcoholic at 11, a marijuana smoker by 12, and a cocaine addict by 13. She went to rehab twice and even tried to commit suicide when she was 14. Right now, that is all in the past. Her wild child days behind her, Barrymore has grown into a sober, responsible and productive woman. Aside from starring in a slew of hits, she has also become a producer, forming the production company Flower Films with friend and partner Nancy Juvonen in 1995. Her company is responsible for hits like Charlie’s Angels and 50 First Dates. Quite a turnaround for a woman with a childhood as messed up as hers.

In the controversial Oprah-Winfrey-was-a-drug-addict tale, there are two known sides. On one hand, there’s the remarkable TV moment in the 90s when she tearfully admitted in her own talk show that she had smoked crack cocaine while in her 20s, but never said anything about an addiction to the drug or anything else. On the other hand, there’s the more recent allegation made in a tell-all book by a previous boyfriend that Oprah was actually a habitual cocaine user in the 80s, and was in fact under the influence during her show tapings.

Right now, we can clearly see that Oprah Winfrey has triumphed over the use of cocaine. As of September 2008, Forbes has predicted Oprah as having a fortune worth over $2.7 billion. CNN and Time Magazine dubbed her “arguably the world’s most powerful woman”. She is quite the success story, sordid drug past or not.

Anyone of all walks of life could be a victim of crack addiction. Life is tremendously unpredictable. One time we are laughing with friends living the good life, the next time we know, we are shaking and craving for a drug we never thought we couldn’t seem to live without. People may be aware of the effects of drugs if abused, yet they still give in to curiosity, probably, or to pressure and thus end up living miserably. However, there is always hope for every addict in this world. Life doesn’t end in addiction. Giving up is ends life.

Alcohol is one teratogen that could greatly have an effect on the woman’s pregnancy. People may not know of its danger and still allow a woman to drink alcoholic drinks during her pregnancy, but the result of this would be carried by the baby for the rest of his or her life. Alcohol is one of the known causes of mental and physical birth defects specifically in the United States. Though, this is only a probability, the rate is high.

There is an incident where a pregnant woman consumes alcohol, a disorder called Fetal Alcohol Syndrome would take place in the embryo. Alcohol crosses the placental barrier and can stunt fetal weight, create distinctive facial stigmata, damage neurons and brain structures, and cause other physical, mental, or behavioral problems. The main effect of FAS is stable central nervous system damage, especially to the brain. Developing brain cells and structures are malformed by prenatal alcohol exposure, often creating a collection of primary cognitive and functional disabilities including poor memory, attention deficits, impulsive behavior, and poor cause-effect reasoning, as well as secondary disabilities for example, mental health problems, and drug addiction.

There are different indications that can appear when one is diagnosed to have fetal alcohol syndrome. These indications include low birth mass, small head circumference, developmental delay, organ dysfunction, facial abnormalities, including smaller eye openings, flattened cheekbones, and indistinguishable philtrum (an underdeveloped groove between the nose and the upper lip), epilepsy, poor coordination, poor socialization skills, such as difficulty building and maintaining friendships and relating to groups, lack of imagination, learning difficulties, including poor memory, inability to understand concepts such as time and money, poor language comprehension, poor problem-solving skills, behavioral problems including hyperactivity, inability to concentrate, social withdrawal, stubbornness, impulsiveness, and anxiety.

As said earlier, damage of the central nervous system is the main feature of fetal alcohol syndrome. Central nervous system damage can be evaluated in three areas such as structural, neurological, and functional impairments. Structural deficiencies includes microcephaly (small head size) of two or more standard deviations below the average, or other abnormalities in brain structure. During the first trimester of pregnancy, alcohol impedes with the migration and organization of brain cells, which can make structural deformities within the brain. During the third trimester, damage can be caused to the hippocampus, which plays a role in memory, learning, emotion, and encoding visual and auditory information, all of which can create neurological and functional CNS impairments as well.

The evaluation of neurological deficiencies will take place when structural deficiencies do not exist. Neurological problems are showed as either diagnosable disorders, such as epilepsy or other seizure disorders, or soft signs. Soft signs are broader, nonspecific neurological impairments, such as impaired fine motor skills, neurosensory hearing loss, poor gait, clumsiness, poor eye-hand coordination.

When structural or neurological impairments are not observed, all four diagnostic systems allow CNS damage due to prenatal alcohol exposure to be assessed in terms of functional impairments. Functional impairments are deficits due to prenatal alcohol exposure (rather than hereditary causes or postnatal insults) in observable and measurable domains related to daily functioning, often referred to as developmental disabilities.

No evidence exists that can determine exactly how much alcohol ingestion will produce birth defects. There are differences in the processing’s of alcohol in women. Other factors differ the results, too, such as the age of the mother, the timing and regularity of the alcohol ingestion, and whether the mother has eaten any food while drinking.

Alcohol quickly goes through the placental barrier and the fetus is not at all equipped to eliminate alcohol than its mother, so the fetus tends to receive a high concentration of alcohol, which remains longer than it would in the mother’s system. That explains why the child is the one greatly affected when in fact it is the mother who consumes the alcohol. Unfortunately true.

The sex and love addiction anonymous was founded to cater to those who have been a victim of this addiction to sex and love. This was created by a previous Alcoholics anonymous member. Though, he had been sober, he was unfaithful to his wife for a period of time. He founded sex and love addiction anonymous as an try to stop his compulsive sexual and romantic behavior.

The organization encourages members to identify their own “bottom-line behaviors.” The organization classifies these behaviors as “any sexual or emotional act, not regarding its initial impulse may be, which leads to loss of control over rate, frequency, or duration of its occurrence or recurrence, resulting in spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, and moral damage of oneself and others.”

In addition, the Sex and Love Addiction Anonymous uses the 12-step program and the 12 traditions in helping their members recover from the addiction. The good thing with the organization is that since everyone is a victim, they are empathic about each other’s experiences and feelings. Thus, they claim to understand what the other person is going through and are able to offer support through sharing and meetings. To quote, “we found in each other what we could find nowhere else: people who knew the depth of our pain. Together we found hope and the care of a loving Higher Power. Our commitment is to help others recover from sexual addiction, just as we have been helped.”

The twelve step-Program of Sex and Love Addiction Anonymous states that:

1. We admitted we were powerless over sex and love addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to sex and love addicts, and to practice these principles in all areas of our lives.

Meanwhile, these are their Twelve Traditions:

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon S.L.A.A. unity.

2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as this Power may be expressed through our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3. The only requirement for S.L.A.A. membership is the desire to stop living out a pattern of sex and love addiction. Any two or more persons gathered together for mutual aid in recovering from sex and love addiction may call themselves an S.L.A.A. group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or S.L.A.A. as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the sex and love addict who still suffers.

6. An S.L.A.A. group or S.L.A.A. as a whole ought never to endorse, finance, or lend the S.L.A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, or prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

7. Every S.L.A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. S.L.A.A. should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. S.L.A.A. as such ought never to be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

10. S.L.A.A. has no opinion on outside issues; hence the S.L.A.A. name ought never to be drawn into public controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, film, and other public media. We need guard with special care the anonymity of all fellow S.L.A.A. members.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

In determining the effects of suboxone to it’s users, numerous studies have been made. There were about 575 patients being studied with using suboxone, Subutex tablets in 1834 patients and buprenorphine sublingual solutions in 2470 patients. A total of 1270 females have received buprenorphine in clinical trials. Dosing recommendations are based on facts from one trial of both tablet formulations and two trials of the ethanolic solution. All trials used buprenorphine in combination with psychosocial counseling as element of a complete addiction treatment program. There have been no clinical studies made to assess the effectiveness of buprenorphine as the only component of treatment.

In a double blind placebo and active controlled study, 326 heroin-addicted subjects were by chance given to either Suboxone 16 mg per day, 16 mg Subutex per day or placebo tablets. The main study comparison was to test the efficacy of Subutex and Suboxone individually against placebo. The percentage of thrice-weekly urine samples that were negative for non-study opioids was statistically higher for both Subutex and Suboxone, than for placebo.

Since suboxone is a combination of two currently marketed medications, buprenorphine and naloxone, it supplies a combination of a weak narcotic (buprenorphine) and a narcotic antagonist (naloxone). The latter is supplemented to put off addicts from injecting the tablets intravenously, as has happened with tablets only containing buprenorphine; because it has naloxone, Suboxone is extremely likely to generate intense withdrawal symptoms if misused intravenously by opioid-addicted individuals. Buprenorphine is a partial agonist at the mu-opioid receptor and an antagonist at the kappaopioid receptor. Naloxone is an antagonist at the mu-opioid receptor.

Like most addictions, suboxone or subutex addiction is quite unavoidable. The drug is not supposed to be used occasionally. It should be used as a continuous treatment method and thus, may become harmful if usage is stopped too quickly. Like heroin, suboxone could result to a “euphoric” feeling. It cannot be denied that the person who is continuously taking the drug has a very intense risk of becoming dependent and addicted to the drug. It has a system that copies the actions of unsurprisingly occurring pain-reducing chemicals called endorphins. Endorphins are found in the brain and spinal cord and lessen pain by combining with opioid receptors. However, opioids also act in the brain to cause feelings of euphoria and hallucinations. This greatly explains their addictive tendencies among people who are taking them in a long-term basis.

Moreover, in using suboxone, one should be very cautious. As much as possible this should be taken with great administration by a medical expert. This medicine may cause sleepiness. If affected, do not drive or operate machinery. Drowsiness will be made worse by alcohol, tranquilizers, sedatives and sleeping tablets such as benzodiazepines. Taking these in combination with buprenorphine can also cause potentially dangerous problems with breathing and so should be avoided while taking this medicine. The liver function should be frequently monitored while receiving treatment with this medicine.

Drugs like these are very useful and helpful in battling with drug addiction. However, there has never been a substance that has been found to be an effective medication for addiction that is at the same time non-addictive. Science may have been in the route of trying to find the perfect drug that would provide us with the two benefits.

Substances, therefore, must be taken with care and proper supervision from medical professionals. In addition, it is the responsibility of the individual himself to look after his in-take of a drug. He should be the first to control the substance, not the substance controlling him.

Life Threatening Risk: Cocaine Laced with Levamisole

** ALERT **

We always do our best to provide information and help to all of our readers from an unbiased and non judgmental standpoint. In that spirit, we want to make sure that if you or someone you care about is using Cocaine or using Crack that they be aware of the following information and they should seek professional medical help immediately.

Alcohol and other drug programs across California should be on the lookout for a dangerous substance levamisole that is showing up with increasing frequency in illicit cocaine powder and crack cocaine, most recently in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Levamisole is a veterinary anti-parasitic drug and it severely reduces the number of white blood cells in humans leading to an acute condition called agranulocytosis that should be treated at a hospital. Ingesting cocaine mixed with levamisole suppresses immune function and the body’s ability to fight off even minor infections. People who snort, smoke, or inject crack or powder cocaine contaminated by levamisole can experience overwhelming, rapidly-developing, life threatening infections.

Agranulocytosis manifests the following symptoms:

• high fever, chills, or weakness
• swollen glands
• painful sores (mouth and anal)

infections that won’t go away or get worse very fast, including sore throat or mouth sores; skin infections; abscesses; thrush (white coating of the mouth, tongue or throat); pneumonia (fever, cough, shortness of breath)

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) began alerting medical professionals, substance abuse treatment centers, and other public health authorities in September about the risks.

Used in veterinary medicine, levamisole is currently approved for use in cattle, sheep and swine as an anti-parasitic agent. Formerly used in human medicine for treating autoimmune diseases and cancer, it is no longer approved for human use.

SAMHSA is working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and other federal and international organizations, as well as state agencies to monitor the levamisole issue. CDC will publish a case report analysis in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and will work with state health departments to systematically collect information on cocaine-associated agranulocytosis cases. Information from this effort will be used to guide treatment and prevention initiatives to address the public health concern.

According to the DEA and state testing laboratories, the percentage of cocaine specimens containing levamisole has increased steadily since 2002, with levamisole now found in more than 70 percent of the illicit cocaine analyzed last July. In addition, a recent analysis in Seattle, Washington, found that almost 80 percent of individuals who test positive for cocaine also test positive for levamisole.

ADP is asking all providers to report suspected and confirmed cases of agranulocytosis associated with cocaine abuse to their local health departments. Cases can also be reported to local Poison Control Centers (1-800-222-1222), which may assist in clinical management and additional reporting. For further medical/technical information, contact Nicholas Reuter, SAMHSA Nicholas.reuter@samhsa.hhs.gov

This Cocaine Related Health Alert was sent to us to help keep you informed. The SAMHSA stands for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). If you or a loved one need help with cocaine addiction or abuse please call the number on this site, or if you require medical attention contact a medical professional right away.

Everyone has their abnormal persona. We all have that craziness within us. It is just a matter of how we handle our differences and extremities that we are able to handle our craziness. Moreover, many ask if mental illnesses really do exist. The English-speaking world has not always used medical language to explain the behavior we now label as symptomatic of mental illness. Illlustrations were sometimes framed in quite different terms, such as possession. What we now call mental illness was not always treated as a medical problem. Non-English-speaking nations in the West have had changes in their linguistic usage and their treatment of the mentally ill roughly parallel to Anglophone countries. Anthropological work in non-Western cultures suggests that there are many cases of behavior that psychiatry would organize as symptomatic of mental disorder, which are not seen within their own cultures as signs of mental illness.

However, nowadays, it has been discussed that mental disorders are really existing mental conditions that may be a reason of trouble in a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life.

Mental illness does not choose an individual to carry the burdens of the disorder. Mental illnesses are not the outcome of personal weakness, lack of character or poor upbringing. Mental illnesses are curable. Most people diagnosed with a serious mental illness can experience relief from their symptoms by actively joining in an individual treatment plan. In addition to medication treatment, psychosocial treatment such as cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, peer support groups and other community services can also be components of a treatment plan and that assist with recovery. The availability of transportation, diet, exercise, sleep, friends and meaningful paid or volunteer activities contribute to overall health and wellness, including mental illness recovery.

Unfortunately, society may be responsible for one’s failure in recovering form a mental illness. When the person is cured inside a medical institution, he or she is given sufficient treatment and is treated as if they are normal. They are given proper care and attention so as to promote recovery. However, when they go out into the real world after some time, society, upon knowing their past, would most likely mock them and treat them differently. Society would look at them as someone who still has the mental disorder and consequently, it would make them feel worse and thus, could trigger an occurrence of the mental illness once again.

A person afflicted with a mental illness would feel less of himself. He would think that he I not worthy to live in this world given that he could not act properly anymore. However, support from family and friends would be a great help for the patient to view life differently and positively. Thus it is the role of the family to provide the patient with love and care so as to sustain his recovery.

However, sometimes, there are people who are not able to adjust to certain events in their lives and are unable to control their emotions and deal with what they are feeling. An emotional problem is not just a simple problem. One is not able to function well due to the disruption of its emotions. Usually, people would use defense mechanisms as to cover up their emotional problems. However, this would in turn cause some trouble in their daily lives. And, moreover, it could affect the people around them. Moreover, emotional problems could be caused by alcoholism or any addiction problems. When one is addicted, the person does not only become physically attached to the object of addiction, but also he or she becomes emotionally attached to the object of addiction.

Emotions Anonymous is a twelve-step organization, similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. It provides to people whose emotions are causing difficulties in their lives. Emotions such as depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, anger, compulsion, and obsessions are the most common in which the members had to deal with. Emotions Anonymous was started on July 6, 1971. Emotions Anonymous meetings are self-supporting by intentional contributions of its members. Emotions Anonymous is not tied up with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, nor does it endorse or oppose any causes. The primary purpose of Emotions Anonymous is to show its members how to stay well emotionally and how to help others to become emotionally well.

Here is the 12-step program used by Emotional Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our emotions — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

With emotions anonymous, people in all walks of life are able to seek help from others and may find comfort and guidance from those who have been there and had done that, or even share sympathy with people are experiencing the same thing. Indeed, social support is very important and could be a cure to emotional illness.

Subutex binds so tightly to the opiate receptors, that taking heroin or methadone will have little or no effect. This substance is generally used in narcotic drug treatment programs, and prescribed in varying doses. The effects of subutex are less definite than those of other opiates, giving the individual the feeling of being somewhat “normal” once more. Buprenorphine is an opioid that is used to wean people off their addiction to stronger opioids such as morphine, diamorphine (heroin) and methadone. It is prescribed as a substitute for such drugs. By acting on the identical opioid receptors as other opioids, buprenorphine prevents the physical withdrawal symptoms that happen when these drugs are blocked. This prevents physical cravings. Over time, the dosage of buprenorhpine is gradually lessen until it can be discontinued completely. Moreover, buprenorphine replacement therapy for opioid addiction must be used together with other medical, social and psychological treatment.

We must also take into account that addiction would not leave an individual right after medication. The body would eventually adjust to the effects of subutex and thus would probably become reliant to it. Meaning to say, the person may be free from heroin addiction but in turn, become a subutex addict. Science has found a drug that could counterfeit the effects of certain drugs such as heroin and methadone, to prevent withdrawal syndrome. However, just like any other drugs, subutex still has a negative effect on the body.

Some side effects of the drug are as follows: Drowsiness; dizziness; weakness; constipation; headache; nausea or vomiting; slow, shallow breathing; mental changes; mood changes (depression); stomach or abdominal pain; liver problems; dark urine; yellowing eyes; skin changes; vision changes; and death due to overdose). These effects could be qualified upon taking subutex. Moreover, it could worsen if the drug is taken together with other substances such as alcohol.

Subutex (buprenorphine) can cause drug addiction. If the use of subutex is suddenly stopped, the person may experience withdrawal symptoms and/or the want to relapse and consume the addictive drug once more. When mixed with other drugs (antidepressants, alcohol, sleeping medicine, etc.), subutex may boost their effects and cause serious health hazards. Subutex can cause death from overdose if injected with a tranquilizer.

It’s easy access and less expensive price contribute to the increase in the number of subutex addiction cases. The fact that buprenorphine costs less than heroin and is more accessible has hastened the development of illegal markets in various countries. Buprenorphine manufactured in India, for example, is smuggled into Nepal and Sri Lanka, as well as Bangladesh, where it is used by 90 percent of the country’s intravenous drug users, according to a UN Drug and Crime report last year.

It is quite alarming to believe that no single drug is free from becoming an object of addiction. People have to be watchful in taking both prescribed and non-prescribed drugs. These definite drugs could somehow be thought of as a traitor. At first they act as if they are giving you upbeat effects. Then later on, you become addicted to the drug and take the drug

despite the depressing it is eliciting. It’s like the devil that tempted you to eat the apple from the forbidden tree and then left you when everything else went wrong.

Then, he seeks for help from hi loved ones. He seeks for professional help to intoxicate him from the drug. Rehabilitation centers provide help to those who have substance use problems. They provide medical help as well as psychological and social aid. However, rehabilitation may not be adequate for the full recovery of the person. The patient should be prepared with the right values and skills in facing the real world after rehabilitation.

Different groups that caters to different kinds of people that needs help offers spiritual enhancement and life skills program to people who wants to receive them. Anyone who is willing to modify and turn away from such addictions or someone who merely wants to help victims recover form the darkness they were in is very welcome to join the fellowship. Here, people help each other in recovering from their problems. The fellowship believes that the best people who could understand addicts are those who have been addicts themselves. Sympathy and compassion will never be enough. Someone who has experienced any kind of addiction would really understand the feeling of an addict and thus, would be able to offer the right comfort and support.

Moreover, the fellowship uses the twelve-step program in helping the patients recover. This twelve-step program was first made by the alcoholics anonymous. This consists of twelve steps on how to deal with the addiction, emphasizing acceptance, surrender, and self-awareness. The twelve step program tries to impart that there is one very potent being above us all, and that we should surrender all our flaws to Him and al will be well. Of course, man should do his best to become a better person and God will then do the rest.

Here is an example of the famous twelve-step program from Overeaters Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our emotions — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

With the twelve-step program, people who have become victims of addiction are given optimism that it is not too late – that life does not end in addiction. In fact, it even opens a new entry, a new part in our lives in which we should live meaningfully.

Everything only exists in the mind. Indeed, the ways we are influenced and behaved is normally called the system. It starts with cognition, then it’s put to action. But, what happens when the mind goes awry? This can mean that our behavior will function abnormally. The mind is a very powerful part of us that somehow, whatever it thinks becomes seemingly genuine for the person when actually it is not. When this happens, our whole personality is affected and could have an impact in our lives as well as affect the people around us.

Psychiatric Diseases are mental health disorder. It is a clinically significant pattern that occurs in an individual that is associated with present distress such as a painful symptom, disability, or a significantly increased risk of death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom. Furthermore, this pattern must not be merely an expected and culturally sanctioned response to a particular event. For example, the loss of a loved one. Schizophrenia and major depressive disorder are some examples of mental illnesses. A person is diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder when one experiences the following symptoms: confusion; erratic behavior; hearing voices; hallucinations; headaches; depression; anxiety; fatigue; weight loss; anorexia. If a person has three or more of these symptoms, then he/she might have a psychiatric disorder.

Disorders of the mind do not show specific causes. However, a mixture of biological, psychological, and environmental factors would supply to the acquirement of certain mental disorders. A number of biological factors consist of genetics, prenatal damage, and substance abuse. Exploitation of substance could affect the chemical balance in the brain which can lead to it’s dysfunction. Psychiatric disorders can also be hereditary. Example, a person with schizophrenia is said to have a relative also having schizophrenia. Psychological and environmental factors may include abuse. These experiences could have an impact on the person’s well being and thus if emotional wounds are not immediately mend, these could lead to mental disorders.

Psychiatric disorders are treated with therapy- behaviors or cognitive, and medications. Antidepressants are used for individuals who are clinicall depressed and anxious. Anxiolytics are used for anxiety disorders and other related disorders such as insomnia. Anxiolytics stabilizes moods for bipolar disorders and antipsychotic for psychotic disorders. In addition, electroconvulsive therapy is sometimes used in severe cases when other interventions for depression have been unsuccessful. Creative therapies such as music, art, and drama therapy are also being used. Also, in line with the cognitive-behavioral therapy, lifestyle adjustments and supportive measures are used such as support groups.

Some disorders are transient and some may last a lifetime. In some way, the medication is just there to lessen the symptoms allowing the patient to live a seemingly normal life. Some disorders may be very limited in their parctiacl effects, while others may involve substantial disability and support needs.

There is no choosing on who can be affected with psychiatric disorders. Based on varying personalities, one could possibly develop a mental disorder depending on how he/she react to stimulus around his or her environment such as stressful events in one’s life. For example, a loss of a loved one is a traumatic yet natural phase in a person’s life. Everyone in this lifetime will really experience loss. Grieving, getting angry, and feeling pain are natural reactions to loss. But everything has its limits. Thus, the negative feeling soon subsides and is replaced with hope and strength so as the person tries to recover from the loss. On the other hand, when one’s negative emotion such as sadness does not subside, the diagnosis is different. When an emotion goes ahead to the dysfunction of the life of an individual, the individual is sure to need professional help. We can say that this individual has acquired a mental disorder due to not recovering from the loss.

Our own minds will always serve us our prison cells.Anyone can always say that being happy is a state of mind yet we must also take into account that being sad is also a state of mind.