Welcome back!
Researchers have generally known that people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are more likely than others to smoke cigarettes and abuse alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and other street drugs.
A study led by Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, documented decreased dopamine activity in the brains of a group of adults with ADHD. Dopamine is associated with feeling good.
The researchers compared brain scans on 19 adults with ADHD — average age 32 — who had never received medication for the condition to brain scans of 24 healthy adults of a similar age without ADHD.
If you abuse drugs, whether it’s alcohol or street drugs, what you’re going to be doing is temporarily increasing the concentration of dopamine in the brain so you feel better.
So basically, what abusers are doing is “self medicating”.
More information about the scientific study is available at the Archives of General Psychiatry: http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org
If you feel you or someone you know is self medicating with drugs, I encourage you to seek help. Get a lab test at HealthSolutionCenter.com and get your body and brain chemicals balanced to help solve your problem.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Jill Turner // Mar 4, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I have also read studies that show children with ADD - ADHD who go untreated grow up to abuse drugs the same as this article states children who are treated with Ritalin do. Very conflicting information.
2 Howard Jamison // Mar 6, 2009 at 12:24 am
Children should be extensively lab tested and then treated with nutraceuticals to address the real cause of the symptoms. Most of the time children are self-medicating to try and balance out their brain and body. Drugs such as Ritalin should be used as a last resort.
3 Adam Walker // Mar 21, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Other research has shown evidence that because children prescribed with stimulant medication are more informed about doses and dangers, they are less likely, than uneducated peers, to become dependent on illegal drugs.
However, the reasons why illegal drugs might be abused (or used to “self-medicate”) include a huge combination of psychosocial factors and so can rarely be simply the fault of prescription medication.
Not that I advocate psychopharmacological interventions unless as a last resort.
Leave a Comment