What are psychoactive drugs? These types of drugs keeps popping up in news stories, but few people know which drugs fall into the psychoactive category. You may feel surprised that drugs you or someone you love use provide psychoactivity.
What Are Psychoactive Drugs?
Psychoactive drugs affect your central nervous system by altering your behavior and thinking. These drugs absorb into your fat cells, also allowing them to cross into your blood and brain quickly. When they enter your system, they alter the signals your brain sends, changing your awareness, thoughts, moods, perceptions, and consciousness. They also directly affect your health and well-being, with many of these drugs being potentially deadly.
Medical professionals group these drugs according to how they affect your body and mind. Generally, the four most commonly used groups include:
- Sedatives and hypnotic drugs
- Stimulants
- Opiates
- Hallucinogens and psychedelics
Sedatives
Sedatives and hypnotics depress your brain activity. This means they slow down your brain and also your body responses. They make you drowsy, sleepy, relaxed, and uninhibited. They also lower your inhibitions and enable you to take risks you typically would not consider. These addictive drugs include benzodiazepines, barbiturates, sedatives, and alcohol.
Stimulant Drugs
Stimulants speed up your central nervous system, making you more alert and active. Generally, these include amphetamines, cocaine, antidepressants, caffeine, tobacco, and diet pills. Although some of these drugs are sold legally, it doesn’t make them any less dangerous.
Opiates and Opioids
Painkillers make up the opiate and opioid drug group. These legal and also illegal drugs include morphine, opium, heroin, oxycodone, fentanyl, hydrocodone, methadone, and codeine. Also called narcotics, these drugs act on your brain’s opiate receptors. They cause euphoria, pain relief, and increased pleasure.
Hallucinogens and Psychedelic Drugs
Hallucinogens and psychedelic drugs all cause hallucinations. These include mescaline, ecstasy, ketamine, and LSD. Some people consider marijuana a psychedelic drug, although most strains function as sedatives. Although most of these drugs do not cause death, most can lead to dependence and addiction.
Help for Addiction to Psychoactive Drugs
If you or someone you love experience addiction to any drugs or alcohol, including psychoactive drugs, you need help from a licensed drug rehab program. When you’re ready to seek out treatment, Crestview Recovery in Portland, Oregon provides this help for people from all over the Pacific Northwest.
Programs of Crestview Recovery holistic drug rehab centers in Portland Oregon include:
- Inpatient rehab, partial hospitalization program, intensive outpatient, and outpatient rehab programs
- Aftercare programs
- Extended care addiction treatment
- Dual diagnosis treatment
To find the right rehab treatment, you do not need to understand the psychoactive nature of drugs you abuse. When you want to get help, you only need to understand that you suffer from a problem and that you can achieve lasting recovery with the right help. That help exists in Portland through Crestview Recovery.
Call Crestview Recovery now at 866.262.0531 to discuss your needs with an intake counselor. Through this one call, you can start rebuilding a healthier, happier life. Call today to get started.
Since 2016, Dr. Merle Williamson, a graduate of Oregon Health Sciences University, has been the Medical Director at Crestview Recovery, bringing a rich background in addiction medicine from his time at Hazelden Treatment Center. He oversees outpatient drug and alcohol treatments, providing medical care, setting policies, detox protocols, and quality assurance measures. Before specializing in addiction medicine, he spent 25 years in anesthesiology, serving as Chair of Hospital Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and Chief of Anesthesia at Kaiser Permanente. This experience gives him a unique perspective on treating prescription drug addiction.
