Opioid Epidemic

The opioid epidemic has been growing through the years. Each year there are more and more deaths because of opioids overdose. What is the main cause of this and how is it affecting our brain? Opioids are affecting our brain and affecting our behavior, our appetite, our way of being and it’s making us go crazy by every time we take more opioids.

Opioid deaths increase by the year, but we don’t know the reason behind it. Our brains are magnificent machines that help an individual keep their balance, hear, eat, sleep, communicate, run and do all sorts of things. Without our brains we cannot do anything. Opioids are destroying our brains. Our brain has special opioid receptors that stick to our brain when we feel pain. When we take a pill, our brain sending dopamine which makes us not feel pain. Although every time we take an opioid like pain killers or an opioid of any kind our brain starts getting used to us taking something every day. This causes an addiction our opioid receptors start to have trouble because dopamine does make us feel happy anymore.

Our opioid receptors break because of so many opioids that we feel the need to keep taking them every day or increase the doses we take per day. According to Morning Edition (Jan. 11, 2016), “Ultimately, the released dopamine, which causes intense pleasure in a part of the brain that's called the limbic reward system. This is a very ancient part of the human brain that's necessary for survival Savage says that's because in the addicted brain, the limbic reward system - that drive for pleasure - has hijacked other brain systems. SAVAGE: Memory systems, motivational systems, judgment”. Opioids play a big role on our brains that is making us want more and more opioids.

Opioids are doing us no good they’re literally just sending us on a death mission. Without our brain we can’t function. The brain is the most useful and beautiful source we have in our body and we are destroying it and ourselves. As individuals we feel the need to keep taking opioids but that is just our opioid receptors that are telling us to keep taking them. Since the dopamine isn’t released anymore our body keeps craving them because the opioids don’t take the pain away with just one. According to Morning Edition (Jan. 11, 2016), “And detox isn't enough. For people who only detox from opioid dependence, relapse rates can be above 90 percent”. People are becoming more addicted to opioids than any other drug. Teenagers are the group that is most becoming addicted to opioids because they may be going through depression or other issues and maybe they increase the dose to make their pain away but what they don’t know is that they are destroying their brain little by little.

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