How Cocaine Affects Relationships with Family and Friends. Cocaine stimulates the body and mind while flooding the brain with dopamine. This rush can give you a sense of power, confidence and possibility, but you will need more to feel the same euphoria the next time.
What the Craving Does to Relationships
If you have a spouse or a family member with whom you share finances and a physical space, cocaine can quickly kill the relationship. Your need to feel as good as the last rush from cocaine will create a craving that will be nearly impossible to fight. According to Aion Health, “Users can quickly find themselves craving cocaine and requiring more to maintain high levels of dopamine and a state of euphoria. This is called “chasing the high” and a common characteristic of cocaine addiction.”
Should you need money for cocaine, you might start to rely on your partner to support your drug habit. You might steal from your partner, turning them into an unwilling donor to your need for the drug. If you’re met with resistance, you may turn to abusive behavior to get what you need.
The Need is Real
Of the cocaine addiction symptoms that can cause so much damage, the euphoric rush of dopamine and what it does for and to your self-confidence is among the most destructive. Your need for the drug isn’t just in your mind; it’s in your central nervous system and may ultimately be related to your confidence and your sense of self-worth.
A big jolt of dopamine plus an elevated heart rate can lead to a heady rush of power and self-worth. If you struggle with self-confidence or have to fight to be seen, feel proud of yourself or be taken seriously, the dopamine rush of cocaine can be extremely addictive. Being without it can make you feel terrible. Your loved ones want you to be happy, which could put them at risk as your addiction deepens.
From Need to Nasty
Addictive substances are sometimes referred to as a poison butterfly. It’s beautiful and it makes you need to chase it, but every time you catch it, you just get sicker and then you have to chase it again for the next rush.
This is particularly true in the case of cocaine. Because it’s tied directly to a release of dopamine, which is the chemical in your brain related to reward, it’s easy to get your brain in a space where it’s perfectly acceptable to do bad things because your brain is making you feel bad.
Slippery Slope
For example, you might steal from your family. How? It may simply start with spending time with folks who have cocaine, which could put you in danger. Then you may start bringing those folks and their cocaine into your home, which could put your family at risk of legal trouble. Then you could take money or possessions from family members to buy more cocaine, which would leave them without the money they’ve earned and the possessions they treasure.
Worst of all, with each act of taking from your family, you build up a tolerance for the product, which means the next dose will need to be higher for the same rush.
Cocaine isn’t recreational. The chemical design of the product triggers dopamine, which makes you feel wonderful, even as your life turns into something unrecognizable.
