According to the articles by Sara Childress(2016), Maia Szalavitz(2016), and M. Scott Brauer(2017), the authors state that drugs in America are a huge negative impact towards people who are living in the country. The problem with drug addiction has not only lead up to physically affecting somebody negatively, but psychologically as well.

Drug addiction can affect the brain in undesired ways. People get addicted to drugs because it can help them calm their brains, that is why Americans take heroin, or smoke marijuana.Szalavitz(2016), talks about how addiction to drugs is like a disease. But it is not like brain cancer or Alzheimer. It affects your brain differently then if you were to have a mental disorder.Being addicted to drugs can shift your mindset differently. It would make people just think about drugs as their priority and do things they might not want to do.

It is very difficult to overcome an addiction. The hardest part for an addict is actually to recover from their addiction. Within their recovery, addicts tend to face many problems while trying to stop their addiction. For example, in The New York Times article, Szalavitz (2016) affirms that “her brain had been chemically, hijacked by drugs, leaving no control over a chronic, progressive disease” (p.1). The severe pain that drug abusers go through when they aren’t taking any drugs is a struggling process. Another example, is acknowledged in “A Growing Number of Veterans Struggles to Quit Powerful Painkillers” by Lawrence (2014). This author examines different types of pain that veterans were going through, while they were trying to quit their addiction. In the articles “Veterans Face Greater Risks Amid Opioid Crisis” Childress (2016) also implies the many problems that drug users go through. Overcoming addiction comes with more than just quitting; therefore, one must be patient and determine to actually recover from drug abuse.

Dependency on drugs can lead to many consequences. According to Szalavitz (2016) addiction is a learning disorder. She states that “drugs affects the way we process information about motivation, reward, and punishment” (p.2). In other words, being addicted to drugs can take over your body to the point where you feel that the drugs are actually something you need to survive because you have no control over this disease. She informs us in the many problems that she had to face while dealing with heroin. Some of these problems were overdosing, getting arrested, being suspended from school, and having visible scars from the injections of heroin she used, which always reminded her about her addiction. This shows how much of a difficult process it is to overcome an addiction. The lack of having a “normal brain” due to an addiction made her go through things that turned out to distract her “real world” forgetting about her real motivation in life because she was more focused on her pleasure.

To follow up with the fact that recovering from drug addiction is a difficult process, Lawrence (2014) states that a veteran Bryan McDonel during his third and fourth day of not having any pills his back was hurting like hell and he was feeling real sick (para.18). This lead him to think of hurting himself because he couldn’t deal with the physical pain that he had to go through. Bryan’s immune system was so adapted to drugs that the dependency on it hurt him more to stop the use of the drugs than actually consuming it. The withdrawal process is something that he couldn’t deal with, but this is some of the problems that addicts have to face when recovering from drug addiction. Yes, drug addiction comes with many consequences and this is something Bryan learned the hard way.

The struggle for overcoming a drug addiction is something that many people face. Childress (2016) explains how many veterans suffered from depression and chronic pain. She felt that the things drug addicts had to go through had to been dealt with in one way or another. At least in this article, this author speaks on how we should do something to help addicts overcome their addiction in a better way. I agree with this because no one should go through so much pain emotionally, physically, and mentality in order to recover from an addiction. As she states, they should be taught to practice relaxation techniques, mindfulness and physically therapy. I believe this would be very helpful to those that are struggling through their addiction process.

After all, overcoming addiction can be something not many have the patience to do, but it is important to do so. Addicts go through severe pain just to overcome their addiction and this is something we should all become aware of in order to have less drug abusers in this world.

Researchers say that in the past five years opioid drug addictions among Veterans have increased by 55 percent (Childress, 2016, p. 5). There are factors that are influencing this number to grow.  As Lawrence has stated, doctors often prescribe opiates when troops get hurt and are in severe pain (2016, p. 3).  This has become a problem because when troops need a quick fix, they jump to opiates as their first option.  According to Szalavitz, addiction is considered to be a “maladaptive way of coping” (2016, p. 13).  Therefore; as troops gets hurt often, their way of coping with pain are with opioids and that can lead to addiction.  In the United States, Veterans are susceptible to drug addictions because of their vulnerability to physical and mental stress and they have easier access to opioid prescriptions that civilians do.

Doctors are prescribing drugs to veterans without actually diagnosing them. Drug addiction is becoming a common problem with people and veterans, doctors should find some other way to treat their patients. They usually have a hard time trying to quit using drugs.

The drug addiction issue is growing and growing everyday more, not only in veterans but in people too. Lawrence (2014) argues in “A Growing Number Of Veterans Struggles To Quit Powerful Painkillers” that doctors treat soldier’s pain with prescribed opiates. They only give them pills as painkillers and as treatment.

Childress and Lawrence believe that poorly managed opiate usage contributes to the thousands of veterans battling addiction today. This in fact is true because many troops are prescribed medication to manage pain while serving and after serving a war but are never fully evaluated. The need to have veterans in the best shape during their deployments and allow a sufficient recovery after experiencing injuries, encourages the availability of many drugs. As stated by McDougal “He missed some training, but his company needed his expertise with satellites and radios, so they made sure he was classified as “fit to deploy” (as cited in Lawrence, 2014, para.6). ”Bryan McDonel got through his second Iraq deployment popping six Vicodin, the powerful opiate painkiller, per day, as his doctor had prescribed. When he got home, his doctor kept him on opiates, which is not uncommon. The lack of empathetic doctors who do not carefully monitor their patients or evaluate their physical or mental stability after serving in the military are a reason why so many veterans are addicts.

There are various reasons why people develop drug addiction whether its psychological or physical pain. In the article ” Veterans Face Greater Risks Amid Opioid Crisis” Childress (2016) affirms  that America’s fastest growing drug crisis continues to spike not only among citizens but veterans as well ( p. 1). Childress notes that during deployment, veterans have unlimited access to painkillers medication in order to reduce chronic pain during war which increases drug addiction within veterans. Therefore, a large amount of veterans develop drug addiction due to their dependency on opioids to reduce pain.  In fact veterans with opioid addiction do not only suffer from chronic pain but other fatal problems such as psychological pain. Drug addiction can be caused by various reasons. such as, social discomfort or sever pain.

Drug addiction is a relief method developed by most users in order to cope with their current situation. such as, life struggles and chronic pain. According to Szalavitz (2016) “heroin provided a sense of comfort, safety and love that I couldn’t get from other people” ( Para. 8). Szalavitz uses her own personal experience to explain the contributing agent for her addiction problem. Szalavitz notes that heroin provided her with “comfort” that allowed her to cope with life. However, her heroin usage allowed her to become dependent on the relief provided by the drug. Szalavitz however, does not show any effort taken to seek an alternative that could provide social comfort without the drug dependency.

Drug addiction has been looked at as both criminal and behavioral problem,but looking at it from a behavioral stand point seems to produce better results.

Reasearchers agree that  approaches such as behavioral therapy produces a better outcome to drug addicts. In an article from the New York times, the author Maia Szalavitz , a former heroin addict,states that her addiction stemmed from a learning disorder. She believes that approaches such as behavioral therapy and motivational enhancement therapy are more effective solutions to overcoming drug addiction. similarly  in an article by PBS Frontline

Veterans in “Veterans Face Greater Risks Amid Opioid Crisis” and “A Growing Number Of Veterans Struggles To Quit Powerful Painkillers” say they use opioid as a way to cope with their chronic pain which in the long run results in addiction. Whereas scientists argue that “addiction is a learning disorder, a difference in the wiring of the brain that affects the way we process information about motivation, reward and punishment. And, as with many learning disorders, addictive behavior is shaped by genetic and environmental influences over the course of development” (SZALAVITZ, 2016, p. 2). Although it may seem impossible to end addiction there are other methods to control it.

Veterans came to fall into addiction due to the excess prescriptions to opiate as “painkillers”. According to Lawrence (2014), during wartime, doctors and medics needed to treat troops for pain, and often used prescription opiates to solve that problem. This caused an abuse of prescribed drugs. Maybe if doctors were to think of other methods of painkillers which were not drugs then the percentage of veterans addicted to these opioids would be much lower.

All human beings are motivated to satisfy their natural instincts in order to feel secure and comfortable.  Most pursue well-established goals, such as relationships, successful careers, having children in order to feel happy and safe in their lives.  However, some people learn different shorter-term ways of coping, such as drug use and other addictions, which leads to their distorted understanding of motivation, reward and punishment. Szalavits (2016) argues in “Can you Get Over an Addiction?” that the traditional views on addiction of either a chronic disease or a moral defect are flawed and that these behaviors are a result of repeatedly reinforcing skewed reward objects.  This view of an addiction as a learning disability has invaluable implications not only for the treatment of drug users, but also for understanding how we as a society play a role in getting people addicted to drugs and other destructive behaviors.  Both Childress (2016) in “Veterans Face Greater Risks Amid Opioid Crisis” and Lawrence (2014) in “A Growing Number of Veterans Struggle to Quit Powerful Painkillers” show how the VA taking shortcuts in the pain management for soldiers is teaching these veterans addiction – an inappropriate coping mechanism.

Different social groups struggle from drug addiction. Childress (2016), addresses the hidden addiction problem that U.S. Army veterans face and cites that nearly seventy thousands veterans suffer from opioid-use disorders.  Childress points out that soldiers are well supplied with opioid medications during and after their military deployments, often with little dosage control. According to Lawrence’s article (2014) “The troops, if they got hurt they’d just shove you a bag of pills.” (para. 13). Thus they return back to their homes addicted and have little options for successful recovery. Lawrence (2014) highlights a specific case of a veteran addicted to painkillers. He confirms that soldiers in pain get unlimited access to high-addictive medications, which has led to an opiate epidemic in our society. Luckily the VA is recently starting to explore other ways to deal with pain management such as yoga and physical therapy instead of relying on pills for everything.  Although this is a positive dynamic it is important to remember that it is our own pills for everything approach that contributed to the veteran addiction problem to begin with.

according to the articles Veterans Face “Greater Risks Amid Opioid Crisis”(2016) and “A Growing Number Of Veterans Struggles To Quit Powerful Painkillers”(2014)  it is argued that there is an opioid epidemic and a lot of the victims are veterans. These articles are saying that veterans have a high chance for addiction to opioids because they are more vulnerable to pain and injury and they usually have to be treat fast so they can get back to the fight. I believe this to be true specially during times of war, doctors want their soldier to quickly go back to the fight and they don’t have time to give full treatments that takes a long time to heal or fix the problem so they instead just give a painkiller and back to the field the soldier go.

The number of veterans that have opioid addiction keep to grow over the years as the war  continued. In the articles by Quil Lawrence(2014) points out “During wartime, doctors and medics need to trear troops for pain, and often use prescription opiates to solve that problem.”

Ps: I put that quote but I haven’t really worked around it.