Many may wonder how addictive is cocaine if they know someone suffering from addiction. Cocaine addiction is a highly prevalent issue across the United States. We often see cocaine use in movies, often shown as a “party drug.” However, while it might be portrayed as fun and relaxing, it’s very dangerous and highly addictive.

How Addictive is Cocaine?

Cocaine is a stimulant, so it stimulates your body, increasing your heart rate, your blood pressure, and body temperature. 

Cocaine interferes with the neurochemistry of your reward system. Under normal circumstances, when you do something positive like eat a healthy meal, exercise, have sex, learn a new hobby, or accomplish something at work, your brain produces dopamine. This dopamine is the reward you get for doing something good.

At first, drug use will feel good; it gives you a small high, so you are inclined to do those same activities repeatedly to get that same feeling.

However, that feeling can’t last forever. When you use cocaine, you get that same type of high dopamine release, but it’s more intense than what you would naturally generate from things like exercise or healthy eating. Instead of reabsorbing after a short while, cocaine prevents it from reabsorbing, so your high or euphoria lasts even longer. 

Once the cocaine wears off, the dopamine gets absorbed, but your brain is too tired to make more. So, without enough dopamine, you get the same problems that you would have if you didn’t exercise or eat healthy: you start to experience symptoms like depression, mood swings, and exhaustion.

To avoid these bad feelings, you start taking more cocaine almost immediately, and this leads to addiction.

What Causes Cocaine Addiction?

Anyone who has asked, how addictive is cocaine should understand the causes behind cocaine addiction. There are a lot of factors that can contribute to cocaine use, like poverty, a lack of parental supervision among children, stress, the existence of mental health disorders, and accessibility. 

Genetics

Many people are genetically predisposed to addiction. Certain genetic differences can make it even easier for your body to become addicted. Whereas one person might not get addicted after using cocaine a single time, other people could very well develop an addiction immediately.

Environment

There are many environmental causes of cocaine addiction. Individuals who live in a house where cocaine use exists are more likely to use cocaine growing up. Individuals who live in an area where people use cocaine might succumb to peer pressure, especially if there’s a lack of parental supervision. Similarly, individuals who have a lot of stress or feelings of loneliness might use it to combat those feelings.

What Are the Signs of Cocaine Abuse?

Knowing answers to questions like how addictive is cocaine or what causes cocaine addiction leads to questions about the signs of addiction. 

Cocaine abuse can manifest in many ways. Physically, the most significant sign of cocaine addiction is when you experience withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms happen as soon as you stop taking cocaine.

These withdrawal symptoms can be not only challenging to overcome, but they drive you to make poor decisions, and these poor decisions represent other signs of cocaine abuse. Things like stealing or financial trouble are common signs of addiction because your withdrawal symptoms are so severe that you steal from loved ones or take money out of the bank account that was intended to pay bills and use that to get more cocaine. 

How to Find Cocaine Rehab Programs in Beverly Hills

If you are looking for help in Beverly Hills, turn to Total RMH. At our facility, we work around your schedule, offering a range of therapies that restore your brain function and bodily health to a good baseline from which you can start your path to recovery. 

Using things like IV NAD therapy in Los Angeles, we can give your body a much-needed boost of nutrients used during your recovery to help quell cravings. With neurofeedback therapy in Beverly Hills, we can restore brain function and help rewrite the connections that otherwise lead to cravings and addiction. 

Our withdrawal management program will give you the tools to identify the causes of cocaine addiction, undergo group and individual therapy to facilitate better observations of your emotions and make positive changes to identify triggers and deal with stress in daily life. 

You deserve to live a happy, healthy life, so don’t let your addiction define you, and don’t avoid help just because it will be hard. We are here to make it a little easier.

Let Total RMH help you get treatment for your cocaine addiction today.