How Your Medical History Might Be Affecting Your Addiction
There are many social, environmental, and genetic causes of addiction. Any New Jersey resident can develop addiction, but medical history may affect susceptibility to addiction as well as complicate the disease once it has occurred.
A Family History of Drug Abuse Can Affect Susceptibility to Addiction
If addiction has occurred in your close family, you have a greater chance of becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol yourself. Underlying genetic causes can be present, even if a person doesn’t grow up in New Jersey with an addicted relative. There is never a certainty of developing addiction, but it is more probably with a family history of the disease.
Unhealthy Lifestyle Choices Can Increase the Chance of Developing Addiction
Just as a healthy diet and consistent sleep schedule can help prevent addiction, an unhealthy lifestyle with a large consumption of caffeine and nicotine can increase a person’s chances of developing a more serious addiction. A high level of stress combined with unhealthy eating and sleeping habits will eventually take its toll, and a person may find themselves turning to drugs to keep up the pace. While weaker than heroin or cocaine, nicotine works in a similar way, and using large amounts of tobacco changes the brain in the same way harder drugs do.
Serious Illness or Injury Can Increase Odds of Addiction in New Jersey
If you have had a serious injury or illness in the past that caused emotional stress, this can affect your chances of developing addiction. New Jersey residents who may have unintentionally misused painkillers after an injury may develop an addiction at the time or may seek them out recreationally later. When stress and pain due to past medical issues are not dealt with a person may turn to drugs for relief if they don’t know how else to deal. Stress can hasten the onset of health issues such as anxiety or depression that can lead to drug abuse and addiction.
History of Mental Illness or Mood Disorders Often Coincides with Addiction
Addiction often occurs in those with a history of mental illness or mood disorders. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder are difficult to deal with on their own, but these illnesses also have neurological similarities to addiction. There are similarities in the brain of an addict and a brain of someone with schizophrenia. New Jersey residents who deal with neurological disorders have a high chance of developing addiction, often due to self-treatment with drugs or alcohol.
Serious Illness May Increase the Negative Health Consequences of Addiction
People with a genetic predisposition to serious illnesses such as heart disease, epilepsy or stroke may increase their chances of developing these diseases by abusing drugs. Drugs and alcohol can have devastating effects on their own when abused, but when combined with other medical conditions the results can be even worse. Alcoholism can damage a person’s health and eventually cause diabetes or other health consequences. Cocaine increases the risk of heart attack even for healthy people, but those with a risk of heart attack are more susceptible. The physical toll that addiction takes on a person can lower the natural immune system and increase the odds of developing other illnesses.
New Jersey Residents Can Begin Recovery from Addiction Today
Medical history may make addiction worse, but it can still be treated. Call us today at our toll-free 24 hour helpline to find out about treatment options. Begin the recovery process now, we can help you achieve long-term sobriety.
