FAQs: Understanding Heroin Addiction

Heroin is a highly addictive opioid drug with far reaching social consequences. Having a friend or loved one that is addicted to heroin is a painful experience. This is especially true when you do not understand why they are acting differently than the person you know. However, with the use of heroin on the rise, it is important to understand that you are not alone.

What is heroin?

Heroin is an opioid drug derived from morphine, a substance found in some species of the poppy flower. Pure heroin looks like a white powder. But usually it is diluted with another substance such as powdered sugar or milk, starch, or quinine. Black tar heroin has a sticky consistency. The dark color is the result of processing that leaves behind impurities.

How is it used?

Heroin can be smoked, snorted, or injected. Newer users may prefer to smoke or snort pure heroin due to the social stigma associated with intravenous use. Heroin can also be diluted and dissolved with water before being injected with a hypodermic needle.

What are the effects?

The “high” from doing heroin works by activating mu-opioid receptors in the brain. Normally these receptors bind to neurotransmitters to regulate feelings of pain and pleasure. Heroin stimulates a neurotransmitter called dopamine that causes an intense feeling of well-being. In the short term, this “rush” is accompanied by a suppression of pain, slowed breathing and a reduced heartbeat. Users also experience flushed skin, a feeling of heaviness, itching, nausea, and vomiting. Long term heroin abuse may lead to collapsed veins, bacterial infections, abscesses, liver and kidney disease, as well as the increased risk of contracting HIV and Hepatitis C.

How addictive is heroin?

Heroin belongs to a class of drugs called opioids; these are some of the most addictive drugs known to man. In the United States alone, opioid abuse has more than doubled since the year 2002. This may be due to the misconception snorting or smoking pure heroin isn’t as bad as shooting it up, as well as the increased availability of prescription pain relievers in the US.

What are withdrawal symptoms?

Withdrawal symptoms may onset within a few hours of the last use of the drug. These symptoms peak within 24-48 hours of the drug and can last from a week to a month. Heroin withdrawal includes cold flashes and goose bumps, diarrhea, insomnia, muscle and bone pain, restlessness, and vomiting. So before going to a rehab center, addicts will need to be put through a process called detoxification.

How is heroin addiction treated?

Due to the health risks, heroin addiction is best not treated alone. There are many affordable drug rehab centers that specialize in treating the physical and mental symptoms of heroin addiction. Usually this process entails a period of detoxification, followed by in-patient treatment where they develop the skills they need to remain free from drugs. Even after that, months or years of outpatient counseling and sober living will be needed.

Heroin is a highly addictive drug with consequences that span a lifetime. The powerful opioid drug leads to an addiction so powerful that users will do anything to get another dose. This obsession can lead to problems with health, loved ones, and the law. If someone you know is addicted to heroin, low cost drug treatment centers are available.