The stimulant/depressant dichotomy doesn't hold by the way. For instance alcohol's effect on the brain is not only very non-specific but also not very well understood whatsoever (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_(drug)#Pharmacology or the lecture). Or more precisely it (dose-dependently) acts directly or indirectly inhibitory or excitatory simultaneously in various parts of the brain.
And whatever mess mixed intoxication causes in your head...
The most clear indicators of brain damage present in withdrawal are destruction of GABA and dopamine receptors that can result in a variety of behavior problems. The dopamine receptor damage is at least partially resultant from the liver damage.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_liver_disease
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal_syndrome
> Please watch this before making other plainly wrong
Perhaps you should have your facts together before attacking people with divisive bias.
‘Depressant’ addiction occurs because they’re physically and psychologically addictive.
You may want to do 5 minutes of quick research before writing posts about subjects you are unfamiliar with in such an authoritative tone.
Conversely, as a former heroin addict and alcoholic who also used cocaine and amphetamines without developing addictions to either, I wonder how people develop addictions to substances with no physically addictive qualities.
The addictive quality of meth lies in the physical adjustment of neuron pathways in the brain. While the specific gene triggers associated with meth are known and likely specific to this drug the physically addictive pattern is not radically different from other stimulants. Essentially meth stimulates certain specific neuron pathways in the brain. The brain becomes reliant upon the drug for a greater than normal performance in the adjusted neurons. While there are behavioral results from this adjust the changes are to the physiology of the brain. Withdrawal is present when the patient is removed from the drug in a pattern similar to all other stimulants.
Even regular caffeine intake results in physiologic symptoms when consumption is halted.
As for cocaine there are very many reports and research that describe the physiological addition attributed to the drug. This is about as well accepted scientifically as climate change and evolution. There are numerous research examples of red blood cells choosing cocaine attachment over oxygen studied from blood of addicts.
> You may want to do 5 minutes of quick research before writing posts about subjects you are unfamiliar with in such an authoritative tone.
Perhaps instead of attacking people with baseless claims you could point me in the proper direction with research.
I also don't think you'll find everyone is equally at risk from stimulant addiction in the way you describe, or that you can generalise across multiple, vastly different families of drugs like this...
Perhaps for some people that is true. I was given a strong does of opiates for pain at a hospital before and I did not find the experience either pleasant or euphoric. That level of numbness and loss of motor control was actually a dreadful and even fearful experience. It really made me question which was worse between that experience and the pain it relieved.
> I also don't think you'll find everyone is equally at risk from stimulant addiction in the way you describe
Are there exceptions?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "They require a modification to behavior to be addictive". If you take opiates for a while, you're likely to become physically addicted as the receptors in your brain start to regulate differently due to the presence of the drug. If you take crack cocaine for a while, you'll likely become physically addicted (or at least dependent) in a very similar way (though with very different withdrawal effects).
You mention cocaine versus opiates. A major difference there is that cocaine doesn't require repeated use to be addictive. It is immediately addictive and may result in drug addiction even many years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_dependence#Risk
Opiates are not immediately physically addictive. It takes repeated dosage for addiction to set in. Typically this is a result of pathological changes resulting in a combination of modified neuron-physiology and adjusted behavior. For depressants to be addictive it seems there must be some manner of behavioral persistence that drives the user to continue consumption in addition to physiological adjustments. If the drug is not immediately addictive the user must then use it repeatedly to build addiction.
There has been research that indicates this is the pattern of addiction for cigarette use even though the primary drug present is nicotine, which is a physically addictive stimulant. While nicotine is physically addictive not everybody who smokes cigarettes becomes a dedicated smoker. It takes more than the physical addiction to nicotine. This has been identified by research as well, and much of that research indicates it is a combination of certain demographics and personality profiles that most likely triggers cigarette addiction. This research indicates these individuals are identifiable and their degree of addiction prevalence is predictable.
While cigarettes are not depressants the point illustrates the difference between a purely physically addictive quality and actual addiction in practice.
Further, you've contradicted your own point in your spiel about nicotine.
I really don't think your ideas are supportable.
(edit: in fact you can find figures for the percentage of people who, having tried heroin once, go on to develop dependency - it's around 23%, far higher than for cocaine.)
How so? I stated that it isn't the nicotine or its addictive effects that make cigarettes addictive even though research indicates nicotine is universally addictive. A cigarette is not nicotine.
> I really don't think your ideas are supportable.
There is sufficient medical research to dictate whether or not these ideas are valid. The question I am trying to raise is to what degree behavioral medicine is more a factor in this than physical medicine, but I honestly feel you are deliberately ignoring this to prove some point.
> The question I am trying to raise is to what degree behavioral medicine is more a factor in this than physical medicine,
Well that didn't come across at all in your earlier posts, and I think you probably have a lot more reading to do.
I very clearly did not say that and expounded on it in pretty good detail. Again, cigarettes are not nicotine.
But that is the main addictive chemical within them, and you tried to make some sort of distinction that it was unusual that addiction was dependent on circumstance for cigarettes and nicotine as compared to other things you consider, wrongly, to be immediately addictive. You also said this -
> it isn't the nicotine or its addictive effects that make cigarettes addictive
Which is just bollocks.
I'm not disputing that there are behavioural and personal differences in drug response, that much is immediately obvious in that some people get addicted while others don't, and that people have preferences for different drugs.
It's your wide categorising and weird ideas about addiction that are unsupported.
Honestly I think I'm done here. You've got some very strange views which really aren't valid.
In science nothing is obvious and everything is open to scrutiny. Obvious is synonymous with oblivious or foolishness.
> Which is just bollocks.
Why? Blaming only the stimulus and simultaneously ignoring identified behaviors is not scientific. There is more to addiction than that. It also suggests the addict isn't not an important part of addressing or curing addiction.
> It's your wide categorising and weird ideas about addiction that are unsupported.
Everything you have said to me hinges on your claims of "obviousness" and emotional distress at broad categorization. Unfortunately, you don't describe either in any meaningful way.
Nobody's doing that. Nobody is ignoring that behavioural factors contribute to addiction.
But you are making weird unscientific claims and spouting utter nonsense like "it isn't the nicotine or its addictive effects that make cigarettes addictive"
I mean seriously, that's utter, utter nonsense that can't be dressed up scientifically in any way at all. Nicotine is highly addictive. Nicotine is addictive in cigarettes, in e-cigs, in snuss, chewing tobacco, gum, inhalers, patches, all forms that people take it. Yes, addiction to any of these has a social and psychological aspect as well as a variable physiological aspect depending on the individual.
But to claim that nicotine isn't what makes cigarettes addictive is so insanely far wrong that, really, it's just stupid and goes against the evidence on this subject.
> Everything you have said to me hinges on your claims of "obviousness" and emotional distress at broad categorization.
This is also wrong. I've pointed out that you are factually wrong in your categorisation of drugs into two groups, factually wrong in declaring that one group is magically instantly addictive and one not, I've explained to you that your ideas on cocaine were not only wrong but weren't supported by your source material.
The vast majority of what you have said has been just plain incorrect. This is not emotional distress - you just haven't got a clue, and you can't back up your weird assertions and distinctions with evidence.
What it seems like is that you empathise with addiction to stimulants, possibly having had experiences and addiction issues with them yourself. But you don't empathise with people who use what you call depressants. You're taking subjective judgements and unscientific ideas and trying to dress them up or justify them as scientific.
Stimulants are physically addictive. They modify signals in your physiology to increase signal performance, in some way, and the body reacts to the temporary performance boost. There is a craving for the stimulant the body has becoming reliant upon and a withdrawal in the absence of that chemical. This manner of physical addiction isn't a choice and everybody is roughly equally at risk. Even laxatives are equally physically addictive in this manner even though there is absolutely no modification to behavior from laxative consumption.
Pain killers, and other depressants, on the other hand, don't work this way. With a very narrow exception to extreme alcohol consumption depressants are not immediately physically addictive. They require a modification to behavior to be addictive. In this way marijuana, which has no known physically addictive properties, has shown to be addictive to a small segment of users.
I have always wondered how depressant addiction occurs. Unlike with stimulants we are not all created equal. Some people are more prone to addiction from depressants than others. Some few people do not find depressants at all addicting and even detest their use. It makes me wonder what is the primary behavioral switch that enables this manner of addiction.