“What makes heroin so addictive?”
I hear about heroin all the time where I'm from, and in my small town in the U.S., it's just so bad. I'm 24 years old, and there's already been about 5 deaths of heroin overdoses that involve kids from high school. What makes heroin so addictive?
3 Answers
Heroin is made with an additive, called fentanyl. Fentanyl is very cheap, and highly addictive. The reason why it is so addictive is because it creates a euphoria and a neurologic response in the brain. In addition to the neurologic response, the body becomes chemically dependent on the opioid, due to its affinity for one of the receptors in the brain. without this receptor, being occupied by an opiate, individuals will go through withdrawal.
Opioids such as heroin have always been addictive. The availability and potency has increased over the past couple of decades, though, as well as societal issues that make people in some areas more vulnerable to substance abuse. Heroin is also being laced with fentanyl which is cheaper and stronger.
That's a great question and is more involved than I can answer in a few sentences. But briefly, opiates relieve all kinds of pain - TEMPORARILY - including emotional distress. Troubled teens, who often come from abusive backgrounds, often find opiates relieve their depression and anxiety better than anything else they've ever tried. For 1-2 hours, their emotional pain is completely GONE for the first time in their lives. Wonderful and amazing! They keep using to try to continue experiencing this relief, but it goes away within a few days or weeks. Then they have to keep using just to feel even a little bit normal. The more they use, the more anxious and depressed they become. Many become desperate and keep increasing the dose, but it doesn't work. Despair becomes overwhelming, to the point they don't care if they live or die.
