The Causes And Effects Of Illegal Street Drugs

Every addiction begins as a personal choice. First one makes the choice to begin

to use the drug and then the choice has to be made to continue using that drug. Once the choice has been made to become an addict, there are other factors that come into play such as the environment in which that person associates themselves with, and a chemical imbalance. In the chapter Rat Park, in the book Opening Skinners Box, the experiment that was conducted showed results that suggest environment is key in the process of becoming an addict, but not the only factor. Illegal street drugs are no longer the number one drugs of choice as more and more people are becoming addicted to prescription pills which can be obtained legally. As a child growing up and as an adult, I have witnessed my mother trade …show more content…
Many people believe addicts are of a certain type or come from a certain background however, I will be sharing my own experiences with addiction as well as my mothers road to addiction showing that addicts come in all different types of people. When I was ten years old my brother was born, and my mother was diagnosed with Post Partum Depression. My mother was put on a prescription to help her deal with her diagnosis. Prior to this diagnosis my mother had no history of drug use. My mother was a normal person with a normal life before this. She had a job, she was a wife, and a loving mother however as she began to rely on the prescription pills she began to show less interest in her responsibilities, especially when it came to parenting. This was the first time my mother made the choice to abuse prescription drugs and to continue the abuse. This was also the first time I was being exposed to what the ugliness of addiction looked like. So what causes addiction? In the article What Causes Addiction, Editor Stephen Luntz writes, “There are a number