Popular myths among drug users are prevalent, and perhaps none of those myths are as well-established because the misconception that it is not possible to become dependent on hallucinogens. While physical dependence and addiction to hallucinogens does not occur as rapidly as addiction to opiates, barbiturates, benzodiazepines or alcohol, it does happen and may have severe results. Because people who use hallucinogens experience significant distortions in what they see, hear and feel, chronic use of these substances can lead to a host of psychological and physiological problems, including addiction syndrome.
Hallucinogens are an arduous class of drug to define but generally include any drugs that cause prominent altered states of perception that greatly distort a user’s capability to differentiate between what is a hallucination and what is reality. The most frequent and well known hallucinogen is LSD or Lysergic Acid Diethylamide – a robust hallucinogen synthesized from spurned wheat or corn ergot. Other hallucinogens include Ecstasy, PCP, Psilocybin, Mescaline, Ketamine and Dextromethorphan. And while some people might argue that not most of these drugs are true hallucinogens, all of them cause addiction.
Generally speaking LSD, ecstasy, psilocybin and mescaline are believed true hallucinogens and work by disrupting the brain’s ability to produce and utilize serotonin. Serotonin helps you to regulate sleeping patterns, mood and sexual desire, among other things. Other drugs that aren’t true hallucinogens – like Ketamine, PCP and Dextromethorphan – block the neurotransmitter glutamate, which can be in charge of controlling cognitive functions like learning and memory.
Whether true hallucinogen or not, most of these drugs cause major disruptions in the senses and deprive mental performance of its ability to work normally. In response your body will make changes in the central nervous system to adapt to and mitigate the consequences of those drugs. As time passes and with continued use these changes be much more permanent, culminating at a spot where your body only functions “normally” once the drug is in the system. This is known as physical dependency. While not the same as addiction, many people consider physical dependency and addiction to be synonymous with each other.
However, while addiction is a medical, neurological disease psychedelic mushroom chocolate bars for sale California, it is most often classified by several behaviors rather than physical signs or symptoms. This is because hallucinogens cause the pleasure and reward center in mental performance to be stimulated. Once mental performance associates a drug with a sense of “reward,” it will continue to work to recreate that feeling whenever possible. Therefore, the longer a person uses a hallucinogen like LSD or ecstasy, the more associations are built in mental performance that not only “remembers” the pleasurable feeling of hallucinating, but also the environments in that your use took place.
This entire associative process builds neurological pathways in mental performance to service them. Because these pathways have a primary purpose to recreate the pleasurable event, they cause severe and uncontrollable cravings in an individual to have at the top of the drug again and again, and true addiction is born.
Addiction to hallucinogens is equally as real and life threatening as addictions to drugs like heroin and cocaine. And because ab muscles nature of addiction does not allow most sufferers to find help independently, it’s up to you to have help if someone you adore is fighting an addiction to hallucinogens.