Opioid dependence is a disease that affects nearly 2.5 million individuals of age 12 or older in the United States as stated by a nation-wide study performed in 2006. These people often begin using opioids to reduce pain, whether it be physical or psychological. It can be concluded, due to a number of interviews conducted in scientific studies, that these people firmly believe that they are better functioning individuals in society while high on opioid drugs than in their sober state. Most opioid addicts self-medicate to eradicate feelings of depression, anxiety, or hopelessness. That said, they often wind up producing a problem much greater than the one they used drugs to mask initially.
Addiction commonly starts with a psychological irregularity in the brain, also known as a chemical imbalance. Individuals who suffer from such brain dysfunctions often self-medicate to try to fix this inadequate balance of neurotransmitters and chemicals. Alas, the chemicals these people most often rely on because of the instant relief they offer are but a transient fix and an eventual physical or psychological dependence in the brain usually follows.
Dependence, a condition whereby an individual must continuously ingest an external substance in order to avoid painful withdrawal symptoms, is quite distinguishable from addiction. While both conditions include the compulsive intake of a drug to avoid an abstinence syndrome (withdrawal), addiction has the added characteristic of continued behavior despite negative consequences. Hence it can be assumed that those who become habituated to opiate pain killers aren’t addicted to them until their lives begin to decline as a consequence of their drug abuse. For instance, suffering relationships with loved ones, job loss, extreme financial distress, or criminal activity such as theft or even burglary are all indicators of addiction.
Recently, science has found evidence supporting the possibility that individuals who become opioid dependent often have insufficient endorphin production in their brain, a disorder now called “Endorphin Deficiency Syndrome” or “EDS”. Whether or not these individuals were genetically prone to this condition or whether or not it was developed through environmental causes is irrelevant. It remains clear that scientific data and evidence now points to the fact that opiate addicts often acquire their addiction as a result of this sort of brain dysfunction.
This is how it works. When a person begins taking opioid drugs of any kind, be it street heroin or prescription painkillers, he or she may find its effects pleasant and euphoric. People who are endorphin deficient are much more likely to enjoy the effects of opioid drugs than people who are not endorphin deficient. This is due to the fact that, in the individual with “EDS”, the opioid drug is already acting like a substitute medication by replacing the natural production of endorphins with opioids, which act very similarly and bind to the same receptors. The individual may admit to finally experiencing true peace, and like he or she finally has the motivation to accomplish what were previously deemed (by the individual) to be monotonous tasks or chores. This is due to the fact that endorphins, as well as their external relatives, opioids, activate areas of the brain that mediate feelings of pleasure, pain and motivation levels, in addition to many other brain functions.
The individual now knows how to achieve these pleasant effects and continues to ingest opioids in order to feel this euphoria (which to many others may simply feel like being “normal”). The brain now recognizes that an exogenous chemical which binds to its opioid receptor sites is consistently on-board. Thus, it begins to slow its production of natural endorphins, in whatever amount the individual’s brain produced before. This is because it now realizes that the person no longer requires production of the endogenous chemical, in the amount synthesized prior to repeated intake of the opioid drug, in order to perform the mechanisms endorphins normally regulate. The greater the opioid habit, regardless of the method of ingestion, the more supressed the endorphin synthesis will be in the brain until it stops completely. It could be assumed that the individual is now dependent on the drug since he or she will continue to require its presence to function normally.
When an opioid dependent individual abruptly stops his or her intake of opioid drugs for a certain length of time, the abstinence syndrome, commonly called withdrawal, sets in. Since the individual’s brain no longer synthesizes endorphins in sufficient quantity, he or she suffers from improperly regulated mechanisms normally controlled by endorphin production, but which have now been controlled by exogenous opioids, which are also no longer present. It takes time for the brain to heal enough so that it can produce endorphins in sufficent amounts. During this time period, the dependent person undergoes painful withdrawal symptoms including, but not limited to, yawning, watery eyes, sneezing, dilated pupils, exhaustion, restlessness, alternating chills and hot flashes, sweating, diarrhea, nausea, a gag reflex and/or vomiting, all of which are properly regulated by endorphins in non-opioid dependent people.
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