Stupid Question

Can anyone explain how opiates are so addictive, and why do you feel like your dying with zero energy, shortness of breath, the whole ball of wax? I'm looking for the short answer. I've been pretty on top of my heath over the years. Always could stop doing ANY drug or booze when i wanted to. But I still have not found a good explanation as to the W/D symptoms when you stop C/T.
Thank You.
C.

[Regretful239]

Because opiates bind to your "feel good" and pain receptors, once you've taken them for awhile your brain has to start producing its own chemicals that the opiates were producing again. So we feel a lot of pain and a lot of us are really depressed until our brain can start working normally again

[badshadow]

It's a Brain Receptor issue.  Your brain has receptor sites for "feel good" neurotransmitters called endorphins.  Other "Chemicals" like Opiates can fit in these receptor sites also.

When the receptors sites are constantly being "filled" with Opiates, which are "addictive" they get used to being "filled."

When they are no longer filled artificially, they put out other neurotransmitter chemicals which cause pain and discomfort to the body.  It is their way of getting "attention," saying "hey, I'm empty, I need to be filled again."

Eventually, if they are not refilled with Opiates they normalize and stop sending out the message that they need to be filled.

After awhile, your "Brain" relearns how to produce it's own "endorphins" which fill the receptor sites naturally, and do not cause addiction.

Exercise is one example of how to get your Brain to produce "endorphins."  When you exercise at a certain intensity, your brain releases endorphins and you feel a "natural high."

[NikkiCC]

I hope to explain why opiates are addictive in a short version but its more involved. So in your brain you have receptors. So when your happy or get feelings of happiness your receptors double, triple to "make" you happy. So when you take an opiates that literally "puts" these receptors in your brain. So when you do opiates for so long your brain eventually stops making these receptors. So you can't be happy unless you have the pills.

W/d symp's are just because your body gets used to having the drug and depends on it. When you don't have it your body withdrawals. Many people even if they get over the physical sympt's wont feel happiness for a long, long time. Hope this helps!

[pattifan]

A very simple way of looking at it, is that with any addictive substance, your brain gets used to it.

When you stop taking that substance, the brain tries to compensate but over-reacts.

Therefore instead of being relaxed you feel anxious. Instead of feeling happy you feel depressed. Instead of being constipated you have diarrhoea and instead of being numb you feel pain.

It gets itself back to normal  in time of course.

Best wishes.

[anonymous9264]

It almost seems like you can never permanently alter your level of happiness. We're all trying to be happier but our brain is going to get used to anything. Is there any amount of joy or suffering that we can't just adjust to?

[chloe33]

So it is safe to say an addict can never ever take their drug of choice again if they kick the addiction?

[worried878]

I would say that is safe to say...t is a dangerous thing to use ur DOC again..risky business
Addction is a very mental thing but was reading the statements above on the chemical/NTs effect on addiction
The body is a finely tuned mechanism...and when it senses an outside source of sumpin, it slows down on producing it to get back into balance..so when u feed ur brain drugs, the endorphins/ often dopamine /the brain quits producing as much to maintain balance.
When u bombard ur brain with addict anounts which r usually well over the recommended dose, the brain will actually build new receptors to handle this load.  This is why chewing, snorting and shooting up r harder to stop as a rule than swallowing pills whole.  Also the reason why somone who takes 10 pills a day but only 2 pills 5 x a day, would possibly have an easier time that someone who popped 5 pills twice a day.

These new receptors do not go away when we stop the drugs.  SAD but true.  When u take away the endorphin source, the brain has to have time to kick in and start producing..takes a bit of time..plus now there are new receptor sites crying to be fed.  The extra receptors will "go to sleep" and stop crying to be fed (craving, depression etc) with time. These extra receptors is what causes Tolerance, the ability to take more and more and feel less and less.
These receptors do not go away unfortunately, so if someone relapses, these receptors wake up again and Tolerence is right where it was before very shortly after starting to use again.  Even if a person stops for yrs...it does not take long after relapse to get back to the old dose cos the receptors r still there....waiting to wake up

I found the same thing goes for nicotine.  I stopped smoking 11 yrs ago and relapsed on smoking last yr for about 5 mths and have quit again march 1st (YEHA)....anyway, in less than a week, I was right back up to 1.5 packs a day..just like i was 11 yrs ago

[worried878]

Sorry for the long answer..but I remember when I learned how the brain adjusts to addiction and I never forgot it.  It helped me understand tho..and move forward

[anonymous9264]

The opioid and nicotinic receptors in your brain eventually DO down regulate it just takes a lot longer than the physical withdrawal symptoms. It's like what you said though once the new receptors are there they never physically go away but in effect your brain functioning returns to normal. If a neuron has say 5 receptors for nicotine on it and it's threshold for firing is three receptors filled then it will fire when 3 nicotine molecules come along. If another neuron has 8 receptors on it and its threshold to fire is three nicotine molecules it will also of course fire when three nicotine molecules are present. The threshold is what recovers with time, but the total number of receptors never go away. So when you relapse your brain is "spongier" because each neuron picks up more of the drug, but a neuron can only really fire or not fire, so you won't experience the high differently than somebody who has never used other than that it will wear off more quickly because you've "soaked up all the opiate." The thing that's really always with us when we relapse is the psychological addiction that pulls us right back into the habit.

The bottom line I guess is that we can (neurochemically at least) experience sobriety the same way as a person who has never used, we can heal so to speak, but we can't experience drugs the same way as somebody who has never used. We can only experience them as addicts