Addiction-Related Health Problems

Abstract

Alcoholism, tobacco smoking, and drug abuse/drug dependence are the major social problems throughout the world. Sense of failure in life, problems in personal life, and mental tension drive a person to take shelter under alcohol, smoking, and drugs for relief. Cultural or family pressure and peer influences are other factors that are responsible for addiction. Consumption of alcohol, tobacco smoking, and illegal drugs are deleterious to health and cause adverse effect on health on most societies of the world. Severe alcoholism causes fatty liver followed by cirrhosis. Cirrhosis will result in complete dysfunction of the liver and ultimately will result in hepatic coma followed by death. The adverse ill effects of tobacco smoking on health are horrifying. In addition to many toxic chemicals such as nicotine, CO, and thiocyanate, many chemicals have been identified as carcinogens such as hydrogen cyanide, benzopyrene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, aldehydes, and nicotine-derived nitrosamine ketones. Carcinogens travel throughout the body, causing cancer at various sites of the body due to their mutagenic effects. Euphoria, elevated mood, sedation, etc. are some of the effects of illegal drugs, which tempt an individual to adopt these drugs. The temporary pleasurable experience of drugs is followed by depression, anxiety, personality disorder like paranoid behavior and intense craving of the drug, which creates social problems, including violence. High dose induces convulsion and cardiorespiratory failure.