A health care provider might ask the following questions to assess a person’s symptoms. As a person continues to use drugs, the brain adapts by reducing the ability of cells in the reward circuit to respond to it. This reduces the https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/ptsd-and-alcohol-abuse/ high that the person feels compared to the high they felt when first taking the drug—an effect known as tolerance.
What Increases the Risk for Alcohol Use Disorder?
However, some common characteristics include personality or attitude changes; sudden weight gain or loss; exhibiting anger, irritability, hyperactivity, agitation, or emotional outbursts; and more. Treatment may involve an inpatient or outpatient program depending on each person’s situation. Some drugs like opioids also disrupt other parts of the brain, such as the brain stem, which controls basic functions critical to life, including heart rate, breathing, and sleeping. This interference explains why overdoses can cause depressed breathing and death. Learn up-to-date facts and statistics on alcohol consumption and its impact in the United States and globally. Explore topics related to alcohol misuse and treatment, underage drinking, the effects of alcohol on the human body, and more.
How Do Addictions to Drugs and Alcohol Differ?
- Both disrupt the normal, healthy functioning of an organ in the body, both have serious harmful effects, and both are, in many cases, preventable and treatable.
- As with other diseases and disorders, the likelihood of developing an addiction differs from person to person, and no single factor determines whether a person will become addicted to drugs.
- No one would dare offer me meth or cocaine (well, this is Los Angeles, so maybe cocaine).
- Maintaining sobriety after treatment for substance use is no small undertaking.
- It’s important to teach children, adolescents, and adults about the prevalence and dangers of substance use and help them develop resilience skills to avoid using substances.
Alcohol addiction is simply a form of the larger category of drug addiction, so they each are intertwined together. Many experts will disagree between the similarities and differences between drug and alcohol addictions because both are forms of addiction. Outpatient treatment is a less intensive program that usually involves fewer hours and days per week. This program serves as a follow-up treatment, designed to offer a longer-term structure to those who have completed inpatient or intensive outpatient programs.
Causes and Risk Factors
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Find out how many people have alcohol use disorder in the United States across age groups and demographics. If you or a loved one struggles with polysubstance misuse or addiction, help is available.
Several evidence-based treatment approaches are available alcohol vs drugs for AUD. One size does not fit all and a treatment approach that may work for one person may not work for another. Treatment can be outpatient and/or inpatient and be provided by specialty programs, therapists, and health care providers.
- The analysis doesn’t fully account for a drug’s legality, accessibility, or how widely a drug is used.
- If the person’s healthcare provider determines that their substance use is problematic and they have substance use disorder, they may require treatment.
- Drug experts broadly agree that individuals and society would arguably be better off if marijuana became the most accepted recreational intoxicant of choice instead of alcohol.
- Also, the person will often need to take larger amounts of the drug to produce the familiar high—an effect known as tolerance.