The Short-Term Effects Of Oxycontin, Xanax, Co

As their stories unfold, viewers are able to observe how these women self-medicate with OxyContin, Heroin, Xanax, Cocaine, among other things instead of dealing with their emotions in healthy ways. Aubry describes struggling through the loss of friends and loved ones, compensating feeling of grief and depression with feeling of “high” given by taking OxyContin pills. As she crushes a pill to snort, she explains why abusers of these drugs crush them to feel the addictive rush of the high almost instantaneously. She talks about her depression and her desperate desire to take OxyContin to push her feelings away, to reduce her inhibitions, stating how she “wanted to feel no pain,” “to not feel anything”. Aubry describes her self-medicating with …show more content…
Short-term effects of OxyContin are described by Suzanne Slade in her book OxyContin Abuse as becoming easily disoriented, cloudy thinking, drowsiness, sudden loss of consciousness, and possible frightening hallucinations. Short-term withdrawal symptoms may include mood changes, feelings of nausea, sweating, cold and clammy skin, chills, runny nose, fatigue, dry mouth, flushing, loss of appetite, and weakness. Long-term effects may include a tolerance to the abused drug, as the users body adapts to presences of drugs in the body, requiring addicts to need to take higher doses of the drug to achieve the same initial “high”, chronic continued use of opioids may also lead to addiction where user become physically reliant on OxyContin. In some cases harshness of voice, infertility and decreased testosterone levels are a result of long-term continued abuse. With the reduction in amounts of opioids taken or discontinuation of use, addicts will in-turn feel extreme withdrawals symptoms such as intense cravings for more of the “fix”, difficulty focusing, chills, sweating, increased heart rate, intense muscle pain and spasms, vomiting, diarrhea, rapid breathing, weight loss, migraines, and mood changes (Slade, 2007,