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Cocaine Withdrawal

Cocaine withdrawal takes place one a frequent user of cocaine discontinues use. Cocaine produces a sense of extreme joy by causing the brain to release higher than normal amounts of specific biochemicals. However, cocaine's effects on the body can be very serious or even deadly.When cocaine use is stopped or when a user's binge ends, a crash follows almost immediately. This is accompanied by a strong craving for more cocaine, fatigue, lack of pleasure, anxiety, irritability, sleepiness, and sometimes agitation or extreme suspicion. Cocaine withdrawal often has no visible physical symptoms like the vomiting and shaking that accompanies the withdrawal from heroin or alcohol. In the past, people underestimated the addictive properties of cocaine. However, cocaine is addictive when addiction is viewed as a condition involving the desire for more of the drug despite negative consequences. The level of craving, lack of pleasure, and depression produced by cocaine withdrawal rivals or exceeds that felt with other withdrawal symptoms. Regular use of cocaine can lead to strong psychological dependence (addiction). Those who abruptly stop their cocaine use can experience cocaine withdrawal symptoms as they readjust to functioning without the drug. The length of cocaine withdrawal varies from person to person and on the amount and frequency of use.

Cocaine withdrawal symptoms include but are not limited to:

• agitation
• depression
• intense craving for the drug
• extreme fatigue
• anxiety
• angry outbursts
• lack of motivation
• nausea/vomiting
• shaking
• irritability
• muscle pain
• disturbed sleep

If you are already enrolled in a drug rehab it is important to see the program though and not discontinue once cocaine withdrawal symptoms have subsided. Changing your lifestyle can also help you to during cocaine withdrawal. Make the following a regular part of your life:

• Exercise 30 minutes three times a week.
• Participate in relaxing recreation activities at least once or twice a week.
• Do progressive relaxation exercises daily.
• Imagine, or call to mind, your positive life experiences often.
• Eat balanced, nutritious meals.
• Get 6 to 8 hours of rest per night.
• Practice deep breathing exercises during times of high stress.
• Talk with friends and develop other support systems.
• Avoid alcohol and caffeine.
• Listen to music to help you relax.
• Develop and maintain an attitude that things will work out.
• Ask for assistance at home and work when the load is too great to handle.
• Seek professional help to talk through anxiety-producing life events. Ask for help in developing positive coping methods.

Cocaine withdrawal research study

Cocaine appears to damage and perhaps destroy the brain cells associated with the "high" it produces, researchers reported Wednesday.

"For a long time we have known that cocaine causes a pleasure response immediately after it is taken because it increases dopamine levels in the brain," Dr. Karley Little, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, told United Press International. "But now we see that the specific neurons interacting with cocaine are disturbed, damaged and maybe destroyed in the drug-use process."

Dopamine is the brain chemical responsible for causing feelings of pleasure. Along with inducing a cocaine high, its release contributes to pleasurable feelings associated with ordinary human activities such as eating, working and sexual relations.

The researchers examined brain samples removed during autopsies of 35 known cocaine abusers and 35 non-drug users chosen for similar age, sex, race or cause of death. They used three standard molecular measurements to evaluate the condition of dopamine brain cells. They found levels for all three standards were significantly lower for cocaine users than for the control subjects. The levels were lowest among cocaine users who had been diagnosed with depression.

"About a third of cocaine users feel markedly depressed, listless, anxious, and uncomfortable when they stop using cocaine, and this persists in a sizeable number," Little said.

Little, who also is chief of the VAHS Affective Neuropharmacology Laboratory in Ann Arbor, said, "We know that people who have those symptoms are likely to become more dependent on the drug and find it harder to quit. So, cocaine is most addicting to those individuals who experience not only pleasure from its use, but are also punished by its withdrawal. Our results provide a very good biochemical basis for cocaine withdrawal symptoms."

The research results appear in the January issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. They are the latest from brain tissue research begun in 1993 comparing samples from cocaine abusers and control subjects.

"This is a pioneering study," Cindy Miner, chief of science policy at the National Institute of Drug Abuse, told UPI. It raises the possibility that cocaine use causes damage to the brain, which is an unexpected result following prior animal studies that seemed to suggest otherwise. It isn't possible to say yet whether the cellular damage observed by these researchers is temporary or permanent, but at the very least it is a 'first' and intriguing finding that sets a direction for further research."

Little added: "What we need to do now is to count the dopamine neurons and axons in our remaining samples, which is a big undertaking. If we find they are not decreased then it will mean we are dealing with a down-regulation process, a reduction in cellular activity in response to cocaine use. If the numbers are diminished then were are dealing with unprecedented neuronal loss. If the change is permanent it's a serious problem, and if it is reversible then we must find out the mechanism by which it can be reversed."

The research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and by a Veterans Administration Merit Award.