Cocaine Dependence

What is cocaine?

Cocaine is a powerfully addictive drug. Once having tried cocaine, users cannot predict or control the extent they will continue to use the drug. The drug creates a strong sense of exhilaration. Users generally feel invincible, carefree, alert, and euphoric and have a lot of energy. The short-term and long-term effects of cocaine are equally dangerous. This is usually followed by agitation, depression, anxiety, paranoia and decreased appetite. The effects of cocaine generally last about two days. A form of cocaine with the street name crack is processed into a rock crystal and then smoked, most often using a pipe. Given the lower purity level and wider potential for introduction of other dangerous chemicals, long-term crack cocaine users may experience even more dramatic symptoms.

Cocaine Dependence

Cocaine dependence (or addiction) is a psychological desire to use cocaine regularly. Cocaine overdose may result in cardiovascular and brain damage such as constricting blood vessels in the brain, causing strokes and constricting arteries in the heart, causing heart attacks specifically in the central nervous system. In my opinion, nobody should depend on cocaine. Cocaine should not be used to solve any sort of problems. Yes cocaine is an addicting drug but this is one of the many mental disorders that you are able to control. If you don’t take cocaine to start with then you’re in the clear with this disorder. If you start on cocaine and keep doing it you’ll get addicted and with that addiction comes the mental disorder of cocaine dependence... You’ll be so dependent on that drug that certain people would do anything to get the money for it. The use of cocaine can also result in a loss of appetite, extreme insomnia and sexual problems. Heart disease, heart attack, respiratory failure, strokes, seizures, and gastrointestinal problems are not uncommon among long-term users of cocaine. This mental disorder is treatable with therapy and you can stop it by not taking cocaine in the first place. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has proven to be an effective approach for preventing relapse. CBT is focused on helping cocaine addicted individuals abstain and remain abstinent from cocaine and other substances. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_dependence
http://www.mentalhealth.com/home/dx/cocainedependence.h 
http://www.timberlineknolls.com/drug-addiction/cocaine/signs-effects

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Many of us have small habits that make us feel better, but we can also live without them. For example, we might think of something as ‘lucky’ or have a routine that feels comforting. But for people who experience obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), these behaviors are much more intense and disruptive and are fuelled by unwanted thoughts that don’t go away. Obsessions are ideas, thoughts, impulses, or images that keep coming back. They are not enjoyable; rather obsessions are unwanted and upsetting, causing severe anxiety or distress. OCD sufferers attach much greater meaning and threat to these thoughts than others. The obsessions won't just "go away." In order to cope with the obsessions, people with OCD engage in repeated behaviors or thoughts, known as compulsions, to make themselves feel safer. Compulsions are rituals that the person believes reduce the risk of the obsessions coming true, or at least reduce the anxiety they produce. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is not always easy to understand, but it’s a real illness that causes difficulties in a person’s life. If you have OCD, you probably recognize that your obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors are irrational but even so, you feel unable to resist them and break free. Like a needle getting stuck on an old record, obsessive-compulsive disorder causes the brain to get stuck on a particular thought or urge. For example, you may check the stove twenty times to make sure it’s really turned off, wash your hands until they’re scrubbed raw, or drive around for hours to make sure that the bump you heard while driving wasn’t a person you ran over. We all have a part of this disorder in my opinion; we all get unwanted thoughts from time to time and sometimes is happens more than once, people with OCD frequently perform tasks, or compulsions, to seek relief from obsession-related anxiety. 

Common OCd Types                                                                       
(Percent of OCD Cases by Symptom)

Checking   79.3%
Hoarding   62.3%
Ordering    57.0%

Morality  43.0%

Sexual/Religious   30.2%
Contamination/Washing       25.7%
Harming/Aggression     24.2%

Illness  14.3% 
Other   19.0%

http://www.anxietybc.com/resources/ocd.php

http://www.cmha.ca/mental_health/obsessive-compulsive-disorder/#.VIh_UjGG9uc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive%E2%80%93compulsive_disorder
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/anxiety/obssessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd.htm