What Are the Short- & Long-Term Effects of Drug Abuse?

Drug abuse effects depend largely on the kind of drug being abused --- and what defines "drug abuse" is subjective. The degree of the effect also might vary significantly with the quantity and frequency of the drug being used. But there are some common short- and long-term effects of regular drug use.

Neurochemistry

• Most drugs prone to abuse change the user's neurochemistry; that's the point in taking them. Human bodies are efficient in the short term at cleaning unhealthy substances and returning to a healthy baseline. There is often a short-term bounce or hangover from most mood- or mind-altering drugs. Then the effect tends to dissipate, but it doesn't take long for drugs to have longer-term effects if you use them regularly.

  Regular drug use is essentially putting yourself on a drug regimen. Consider what happens if you go on a regimen of anti-depressants: For better or worse, they will change your neurochemistry and subsequently the way you think and feel. Many drugs that are used with the intention of recreation do the same. With daily use, you have essential created a drug regimen that is likely to change brain chemistry such that it will affect you even when you are not high. These effects are likely to dissipate, but not in a day or two. After a regimen of daily use, it might take months to return to normal brain functioning. And it might not happen at all, especially if the drugs caused psychological damage.

Psychology

• Your psychology is affected by patterns or habits of thinking. That's why sports psychologists exist --- to help change athletes' thinking patterns to make them more successful. Visualization, for example, helps create psychological habits. However, if a drug causes negative psychological effects while on it or rebounding from it, and it is taken regularly, those thinking patterns have the same effect.

  So, if a drug makes you paranoid, you are in essence practicing being paranoid. You are prone to repeat whatever thinking patterns the drug invokes when you are not on the drug. This phenomenon can begin to happen quickly after a drug is habituated. It tends to take longer than changes in neurochemistry, which drugs affect quickly.

Physiology

• The physiological effects very widely from drug to drug. Most drugs are particularly hard on specific organs. The liver, for example, has to metabolize most drugs. To an extent, the body treats drugs as unwanted substances and tries to rid itself of them. The strain can cause everything from fatigue to dehydration to major organ failure and death.

Social

• Very few, if any, people can abuse drugs for any length of time without the drugs affecting their psychology, mood and health. These changes tend to affect their relationships. Damaged relationships can tend to separate drug users from the only positive people in their life and align them with other drug users or individuals who are at high risk for being drug users. People with healthy boundaries for drugs avoid them for good reason.