Short and Long-Term Effects of Cocaine

Cocaine hit its heydey in the 1980s and has recently experienced a revival. It’s still a powerfully addictive drug that Men abuse for its pleasurable, energizing high. How you abuse cocaine affects results, with the effects of cocaine leading to short and long-term health problems.

Short-Term Effects of Cocaine

The way you use cocaine affects how the drug is released into your body and brain, as well as how quickly you feel the drug in your system. Users can smoke, inject, or snort cocaine. When the drug enters your brain, it increases dopamine release, leading to increased feelings of pleasure and reward. These feelings are why cocaine is so addictive.

Short-term effects of cocaine include feelings of euphoria, increased energy, inflated self-esteem, and elevated mood. These feelings cause people using the drug to feel powerful, alert, social, and intelligent. They also suppress your appetite, leading some to use cocaine for its weight loss benefits. However, none of these benefits measure up to the tragic consequences of abusing cocaine.

The short-term negative effects of cocaine use include irritability, restlessness, panic, anxiety, paranoia, and inability to sleep. Snorting the drug causes a longer high. However, it delays effects on the body. Smoking or injecting cocaine affects the body faster but reduces the peak high to only five or 10 minutes.

Negative Effects of Cocaine

Regardless of whether you use cocaine once or for a long period of time, the drug produces negative side effects. These effects are sometimes deadly on their own. Cocaine causes heart attacks, even in young, healthy people. Some people become erratic and even violent after using too much cocaine.

Along with overdose, negative effects of cocaine include tremors, muscle twitches, paranoia, vertigo, dilated pupils, and decreased sexual function. Internal effects on your body include rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, high body temperature, and constricted blood vessels. In fact, a cocaine overdose itself can lead to cardiac arrest, stroke, respiratory failure, and sudden death. Combining cocaine with other substances increases these risks.

Long-Term Effects of Using Cocaine

Long term cocaine use increases risk for negative health consequences. Many of these health risks last a lifetime, leading to major impact on your health.

Risks of long-term cocaine use include:

• Extreme chronic fatigue
• Major headaches and nosebleeds
• Abdominal pain and significant weight loss
• Heart attack, arrhythmia, and cardiac arrest
• Ischemic vascular disease, stroke, and seizures
• Respiratory arrest
• Death

Snorting cocaine leads to a lost sense of smell, nasal septum irritation, nosebleeds, sniffling, and hoarseness. Injecting the drug causes puncture marks, collapsed veins, systemic and localized infections and allergic reactions. Long time use of cocaine also causes depression, isolation, psychosis, severe respiratory infections, paranoia, and cocaine addiction.

Addiction Treatment for Men in Southern California

Men from Los Angeles, San Diego, throughout Southern California and elsewhere gain drug and alcohol addiction treatment at Serenity Lodge. Serenity Lodge provides an amenity-rich, serene environment for rehabilitation and lasting recovery from addiction and co-occurring conditions. As part of our residential inpatient treatment program, we offer a broad range of amenities, including:

• 1,500 square foot gym for fitness therapy
• Movie theater
• Swimming pool, and sauna
• Nutritional prepared meals and meditation therapies
• Golf and racquetball
• Professional recording studio

If you or a man you love need treatment for addiction to cocaine, alcohol or other substances, Serenity Lodge provides comprehensive addiction treatment programs for Men. At Serenity Lodge you gain the focus and tranquility you need to achieve lasting recovery. Call Serenity Lodge now at (855) 932-4045 for information about available programs.