How addiction affects your mental health and how to manage them? | Zyla Health
“Peer pressure, something I am sure you must have fallen a victim to. I did too… When I was 18, my friends would make fun of me if I didn’t have a drink. I just gave in because it was easier to join the crowd.
With time, I used to get worried about my career and drank to escape my problems. The tenser I got, the more I drank, from occasional drinking to drinking daily, it became my addiction soon.
I became violent and out of control. In the years of making my career, I was struggling with my addiction. After years of alcohol abuse, doctors told me there was irreplaceable harm to my health. I was close to destroying my life with everything I was doing.”
This is what one of my friends told me after 7 years of reconnecting with him. I don’t want you to go through the same thing. In order to understand how addiction affects your mental health, it is first important to understand what addiction is…
What is addiction?
Addiction is an urge to do something that is hard to control or stop even though it’s causing psychological or physical harm.
In this blog, we will discuss the different types of addictions like alcohol, smoking, and tobacco, how addiction affects your mental health and how to deal with it.
Addiction and the brain
Drugs, alcohol and smoking change the brain so that you physically feel that you need drugs to function normally. You may even prioritize it above everything else and feel that it is the only way to solve your problems.
Regular consumption of drugs, alcohol or tobacco can lead to mental health changes like depression, anxiety, aggression, hallucinations, paranoia etc.
Let me tell you that with proper guidance it is possible to quit an addiction! At Zyla, we work with a holistic approach to help you beat addiction. Download the Zyla app now!
Let’s dive in and learn about alcohol addiction, how addiction affects your mental health and understand why alcohol is addictive in the first place.
Why is alcohol addictive?
Alcohol disrupts the balance and affects your thoughts, feelings, actions and also your long-term mental health. It impairs memory, and judgement and disturbs sleep patterns.
But still, you get addicted to alcohol because it’s intake causes the release of hormones called endorphin and dopamine. These produce feelings of pleasure, and satisfaction and eventually act as a natural painkiller.
A drink can make some people feel more confident, energetic, and extroverted, as the alcohol begins to suppress the part of the brain associated with stopping you from doing what you really want.
Did you know?
According to the various studies conducted, there is a link between excessive alcohol consumption and impaired function of the brain, which results in conditions like dementia, poor learning ability, blackouts, loss of memory and brain damage.
Do you sometimes feel anxious after a few drinks? Alcohol is linked with anxiety. Let’s find out how exactly….
Alcohol and anxiety
A few drinks of alcohol with your friends and family help you escape the problems and stress for a short while. The so-called ‘relaxed’ feeling after getting drunk is due to the chemical changes alcohol causes in your brain. In fact, you may feel more anxious after the alcohol wears off from your body.
But all these effects are temporary and last just for a few hours. This is a short-term solution to a huge problem which also has several side effects.
Talking about how addiction affects your mental health, alcohol-induced anxiety can last for several hours, or even for a whole day after drinking alcohol. It’s very common for some individuals with a social anxiety disorder to drink alcohol to cope with social gatherings and interactions.
Alcohol anxiety is a vicious cycle, a cycle that might look like
- You drink alcohol to relieve your stress.
- You initially feel relaxed as it changes your brain functioning.
- Sometime after consumption, you feel anxious as a symptom of alcohol withdrawal and a hangover happens after the initial calm feeling fades.
- You may want to drink again to relieve your stress.
This leads to dependency and building up a tolerance to alcohol. Over time, you will be required to drink more alcohol to get the same feeling, which can make anxiety symptoms worse and result in increased levels of anxiety and depression after drinking.
Later, alcohol addiction can also lead to psychological issues linked to aggression and some people report becoming angry, aggressive, anxious, agitated or depressed when they drink.
Did you know?
According to surveys, around 20% of people with social anxiety disorder also suffer from alcohol dependence.
Let’s now talk about another very common addiction, smoking! You know smoking is harmful but let’s learn more about how exactly smoking is addictive.
Why is smoking addictive?
According to the 2014 Surgeon General’s Report (SGR), nearly 9 out of 10 adults who smoke started before the age of 18, and nearly all started by age of 26. The report estimates that about 3 out of 4 high school students who smoke will become adults who smoke — even if they intend to quit in a few years.
When you smoke nicotine, it reaches the brain within ten seconds, making it easier to become dependent. Nicotine is a highly addictive chemical compound present in a tobacco plant.
Nicotine activates dopamine (happy hormone) signals that result in a pleasant sensation in your brain. With the passage of time and more consumption of nicotine, tolerance is created in the brain.
The brain ends up craving nicotine. As nicotine works like dopamine which is a feel-good factor, your brain starts associating smoking with feeling good. The nicotine in cigarettes and tobacco changes your brain and you end up suffering from withdrawal symptoms when you try to quit.
You may start feeling anxious, irritable, and frustrated as your body is addicted to nicotine. As a result, most people end up reaching for another cigarette, and then another and are unable to quit.
If you are facing difficulty in quitting but want to, Zyla is the right place for you. We have a de-addiction program designed to help with these withdrawal symptoms and help you quit. Why wait? Download the Zyla app now.
Smoking has harmful effects on your body, but let’s learn how addiction affects your mental health.
Smoking and stress
You might smoke thinking it’s ‘self-medication’ as you might believe it calms you down. However, research has shown that while smoking may make you think you feel calmer, it actually increases the level of stress and anxiety.
Initially, it relaxes muscles and improves mood. This feeling is temporary and soon you will feel worse than before. While regular consumption of nicotine leads to changes in the brain, causing cravings for more of it.
It doesn’t deal with the reasons for the stress you feel. Smoking ultimately causes more stress than before. It affects your respiratory system and contributes to serious diseases that may increase your feeling of stress.
There are multiple physical and psychological reasons to quit smoking, but the main reason why you should quit is that consuming cigarettes or tobacco has been shown to shorten life expectancy. To know how smoke affects you physically, read our blog, “Don’t smoke your life away”.
Did you know?
Smoking not only affects you, but it affects your loved ones? The negative health effects of passive smoking have killed about 2.5 million people who do not smoke since 1964.
I am sure by now you must have the urge to quit these harmful addictions, after all they only give temporary pleasure and harm you in the long run, let me share some simple tips and tricks that can help you quit!
How to quit?
There is no “right or best” way to quit, it can take multiple attempts to quit completely. Try with small achievable and realistic goals:
- Setting a quit date.
- Buying only one pack of cigarettes at a time so you run out on your quit date.
- Throwing away ashtrays and lighters and cleaning your car’s interior.
- Identifying what triggers your urge to smoke and deal with it.
- Finding ways to distract, like chewing bubble gum or going for a walk.
- Eat and exercise away the urge to drink!
- Telling someone you’re going to quit so they can help you stay accountable
I know it is easier said than done, there will be days when you feel like grabbing that glass of whiskey or taking a quick smoke. However, there are incredible ways that you can beat this urge, let’s learn about them…
Ways to deal with addiction
- Prepare for change
- Practice deep breathing and meditation
- Exercise regularly
- Take time-outs
- Talk to someone you trust
- Take care of yourself
- Find other ways to cope with stress
- Take therapies
- Avoid triggers linked to smoking or alcohol
- Ask for support
- Don’t give up if you relapse
If you plan ahead, have support and choose the right time to try, you will be successful! If you are still trying, you haven’t failed.
Zyla can help you with our de-addiction program! We have a team of nutritionists, physical therapists, psychologists and Doctors that can guide you on how addiction affects your mental health and help you along the way by being with you at every step in your journey to quit.
Don’t wait! Download the Zyla app or visit our website Zyla.in to have a friend along this journey.
Stay strong! Stay healthy!
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