Substance Abuse And Stress Essay

This study was conducted to see if there really is a link between substance abuse and stress. A lot of people believe these two correlate to one another because of the self- medication theory. This states that “a dually diagnosed person often uses the abused substance to cope with tension associated with life stressors or to relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression resulting from a traumatic event” (Goeders, 2003). So these people tend to turn to drugs and other harmful things in order to deal with what is going on in their lives. This article said that a lot of people see stress as a negative thing that causes heart diseases and other problems but in reality stress is just our bodies reacting to a certain situation and it has to adapt to it. There are two biological systems that are stimulated after your body has been put a stressful situation or going through it. “These are the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)” (Goeders, 2003). These two systems of your body both work together so that it can change all the things required so that it can cope with the situation you’re being put through. The nervous system in your body does many changes as well so that it can be ready for fight or flight. The muscles in your body are increased by the blood flow, and the rate of your heart starts to increase as well.

They could not try and find a link between stress and substance abuse on a person that has had no history with drug abuse. It makes sense because like it said it would out the person in risk to actually become exposed to whatever substance they would use and that could lead to that person potentially being addicted to that substance and abuse it. “Therefore, scientists must rely on retrospective studies, and there is a growing body of clinical studies suggesting a link between stress and addiction” (Goeders,