Reflective Essay: Substance Use And Treatment

Substance Use and Treatment
My use of Ritalin never occurred to me as substance abuse. I had been pretending to be suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) for some time as an excuse for my low grades in school and Ritalin was prescribed to me. I never took the medication since I knew I was not sick so I hid them. Until A friend of mine came visiting and saw them and informed me that, that was what he used to help him study. He told me that the pills helped one stay awake for hours which I needed. The better part of it is that it increased my concentration and focus during those hours and this was just a great idea.
Why not give it a try? I started off by snorting the drug for faster absorption and it worked wonders. However, the following day was a nightmare since I was feeling crashed and fatigued and I was advised that another snort would help raise my energy again which after trying out it did. This became the routine until I suffered its side effects and before I knew it I was addicted to it because I had to have a dose if I was to study even during the day. Its side effects also became evident since I started having terrible headaches and hallucination but it
However, the method is more of discipline and commitment. Also, using replacement therapy is another method of substance abuse treatment. The replacement is used to act on the same neurons that the abused drug acts on therefore reducing the craving for the drug. Although substance treatment is most successful, there is always a risk of a relapse. The relapse is triggered by factors such as re-exposure to individuals or situations previously paired with drug use, drug-related context, cues that signaled the arrival of drugs