A tragic story this Christmas about a young brother who died after eating cocaine prompts a warning about the dangers of cocaine overdose. Unlike overdose with sedative drugs, that cause respiratory depression, slow down the heart rate, cocaine is a stimulant drug.
Overdosing with cocaine can cause a major heart attack, increased blood pressure can cause a stroke. Cocaine can trigger muscle spasms, convulsions, problems with breathing, feelings of panic and acute anxiety.
Cocaine is the drug most commonly reported in drug-related emergency department admissions according to SAMHSA statistics from 2009. Most accidental overdose situations with fatal outcomes involve the use of more than one drug – alcohol use with cocaine is a frequent cause of drug overdose death.
Statistics also show that deaths from drug overdose are not confined to young and inexperienced users. General health, quality of drug, and recent drug taking history can all have an impact on whether or not overdose will occur.
Any drug related death is avoidable, if people start to understand that drug use is not a random disease over which you have no control – it is in fact a means that you use to make you feel better about being depressed, and unhappy – something that makes you feel in control.
No matter how dependent you feel, no matter how long you have used cocaine for – recovery can be achieved if you make up your mind, make a decision not to use it any more.
Times like Christmas, that are meant to be a time of much joy and celebration can intensify feelings of depression in people who feel that everything in their life is negative, with everything always going wrong, or feelings that you are endlessly stuck in a rut of boredom.
Most cocaine users are like Mark Twain, who said he was an expert on giving up tobacco smoking – he did it all the time. When addiction is properly understood as a means that we use to avoid feelings of negativity and emotional stress, it is easy to see why in moments when we feel more confident and happy about our life – we genuinely feel that we don’t “need” cocaine – that we could easily give it up. In that moment it is true. The problem is that life events are always changing – such happy moments do not last.
It should carry no feelings of shame or guilt, an attribution of dishonesty if sudden gloom, anxiety or depression comes up again – and has you reaching for more coke.
However, addiction is no more than a choice to keep on repeating a behavior because it gives you some temporary satisfaction. Finding ways to do life better, do without your drugs, is not something that will come easy. When you have found that drugs such as cocaine or meth make you feel powerfully in control, give you respite from feelings of stress and unhappiness – why would you want to give it up.
Drugs are a perfectly logical solution to feeling better when nothing else that we do ever seems to bring any great joy or satisfaction. When we feel under pressure, have self doubts, feel that we are a failure – need something extra to perk up our performance – it is easy to think that using some drug is the answer.
With drug use, being drug savvy brings its own feelings of power and achievement. Using drugs can make you feel like you are part of an elite, one of the initiated. Knowing the rituals, being able to score, being in control of when and how you will use, having access to a dealer – all of these aspects of drug use support our need to feel potent, and in control.
The problem always with giving up drugs is what do we put in its place. There will be feelings of loss and grief about giving up our habit – the issues that we will need to face are the very same issues in our lives that we have avoided by using drugs.
We therefore must expect feelings of anger, depression and hopelessness following a decision to give up our drugs. We must expect to feel lost, abandoned, alone, impotent – feelngs that we might replace with anger, aggression or self pity.
We can expect some reaction from our body to a sudden withdrawal from drugs – withdrawal can be so painful that people feel that it is easier if they simply went back to their drugs.
Left alone, without support it is too easy to give up and go back to using drugs. With proper support and encouragement – you can turn your life around – become more confident and outgoing – people don’t need to use drugs when they feel confident and in control of their lives.
Using a comprehensive program to overcome cocaine abuse enables you to recover your self respect and begin to lead a constructive, meaningful life.