Addiction withdrawal

When a person becomes addicted to a drug, including alcohol, there are addiction withdrawal symptoms when the person stops using the drug. Withdrawal can be physical or emotional/psychological. Physical withdrawal is usually associated with alcohol, opiates and benzo (benzodiazepines) type drugs. Pot withdrawal is mainly emotional/psychological, as is cocaine, although there are also physical components.

Cocaine, for instance, interferes with the functioning of brain chemicals, so when cocaine is removed there can be a period of depression where everything seems blah and grey because the brain is deplete of the chemical that creates the good feeling, thus causing the person to take cocaine again to feel better. It takes a while for the brain chemicals to adjust, so the that time period is painful for the cocaine addict. This is both psychological and physical. Pot withdrawal is mostly psychological, but when a person is dependent on the effects of a drug like marijuana, they can feel very uncomfortable without the drug. The feeling of discomfort can be called emotional, but it has a physical effect. A person can become anxious, confused or depressed without the drug to which they’ve become dependent.

Physical dependence on a drug like alcohol creates a dangerous situation if the withdrawal isn’t medically managed, so you could say that alcohol withdrawal is more medically serious that marijuana, but this is misleading, because the psychological dependence, which can last long after the drug is removed from the body, is just as powerful whether it’s alcohol, cocaine, pot or cocaine. In treatment, once the medial management of withdrawal is over, the biggest hurdle then is emotional/psychological dependence. It’s the psychological dependence which makes treatment so necessary. Unless someone has been addicted and has recovered from the mental craving for a drug, they can’t understand the power of psychological dependence — it’s very powerful, and, thus, the problem with addiction. If it were as simple as removing the drug from the body and giving someone a lecture to never do it again, addiction wouldn’t be the societal problem it is and has been since drugs were first discovered.